Upfront I need a disclaimer that there is absolutely no personal medical research to back up the title of my blog. However I can’t help but ponder how the wonderful interactions with new people can enhance and enrich your life. As an extroverted extrovert, the prospect of interacting with others absolutely feeds my soul and gives me energy. I feel making new friends is a lost and dying art.

The grandson of Sir John Wolfenden

I’ve often been known to purposefully put myself in a position to be in places where new interactions can be formed. The importance of talking to people and hearing their backgrounds is a truly exciting and interesting concept to me. I once read a quote that said “every person is a door to a new world”, and given the amount of conversations I have had with strangers, this could not be any truer. 
Each new person I meet always starts with some standard questions which really are the opportunity to make the space a comfortable one to set the scene to dig a little deeper. Often conversations and information sharing is offered and not something that needs to be pressed or drawn out of someone. Every person has a story, and the living books that people are both intrigues me and energises me. I am curious by nature and often premise conversations with a statement “I have questions, but you don’t have to answer any of them, and if you say you don’t want to answer them, that’s fine too”. Funnily enough, NO ONE has ever declined to answer any question I have asked. 
The wonderful thing about being a person who never judges a book by its cover affords you the opportunity to be completely open to explore anyone’s story. Without sounding creepy, I’ve often described myself as a people collector, but after someone pointed out it sounded a little “serial killer” I’ve rephrased it and called myself the “Story Collector”. Essentially, with the gift of the gab, I will talk to anyone, and there are many things I would never know about those people I’ve been fortunate to meet. Here are just a few examples:
​

• The guy who looked and behaved like a rough diamond who absolutely loves doing jigsaw puzzles. He gets those crazy ones with ridiculous amount of pieces and has framed many. Including one where he had to fashion one piece that was missing to complete his masterpiece.
• The woman who shared her story about fleeing domestic violence, after a history of being a foster kid, and refused to let her past define her future. Now a lawyer who defends women and children in similar situations. 
• The lovely gentlemen who I asked if the coffee was good at a cafe in London, offered me a sip and ended up being a guy who works on the Royal family’s security team
• The Balinese taxi driver who had adopted 6 children, despite being capable of having his own, thought it best to give a loving home to kids who were less fortunate. He works hard to give them everything and his eldest daughter was about to go to university.
• The guy at our local beer garden who grew up in country NSW and knew a friend of mine from when I was 4 years old who I still know to this day. he did 15 years as a funeral director and now lives in a house which has visitors from beyond the grave (whether you believe this kind of stuff or not, hugely fascinating).
• The man in the tux outside a London pub who was out celebrating after an awards ceremony celebrating his grandfather who was a legend in moving forward criminal law on the issue of sexuality and prostitution, and wrote the Wolfenden Report for UK government.

It has been incredible to hear these stories first hand, and these are only a snippet of the many people I have interacted with. These people have enriched my life and continue to fuel my thirst for knowledge. Their amazing openness allowed me the change to be able to ask questions and learn things I would never have, had I not just started with a ‘hello’.
I want to urge you to look up from your phone when you’re out in public, in the coffee line, having a bevvy, or saying hello to someone’s puppy dog – be curious. People are born for connection, and by starting that interaction you never know who you are going to meet, what you are going to learn, or how your life may be changed by someone else’s story.