Beyond Small Talk
How to Talk to a Rando
Because when you think about it, we’re all somebody’s rando
This story is part of How to Talk to Anyone, Forge’s guide to moving past the chitchat and truly connecting.
There’s something uniquely comforting about stepping into someone else’s warm home, full of familiar faces and delicious smells, and sitting down to a bountiful meal with the kind of friends and family you don’t think twice about unbuttoning the top of your pants in front of.
Which is why it can be such a drag to approach the Instagram-perfect table, dinner plate shot-put heavy in one hand, hot brandy eggnog warming the other, to find you’re seated (by decree of cutesy placard or dumb luck) next to the one and only person there you don’t know. That person who, come to think of it, no one else really seems to know, either. After all, holidays are for catching up with our nearest and dearest, not making elevator talk with strangers.
The rando is not part of the Rockwellian tableau. And yet, the rando is always there. They might be the distant cousin from way out of town, someone’s recently separated co-worker, or the loner neighbor who looks like a police sketch made flesh. They might even be me.
