5 of 7

Write now Article Tools

To treat people like strangers on the face of it sounds like a grand old idea. It would help the world and human relationships so much. In the context of North American culture and social norms of the boomer and me era, it could work very well. In theory. When I was a boy, a stranger was a very strange thing. People were few and far between so for children, shyness was the order of the day. So treating people like strangers was not to easily accept them. It was more normal to be frightened of them. In the day and age, children are on the other hand so boisterous, adventurous, and outgoing.

Treating people like strangers could bring more peace and more cordial behavior. Or it might. Might be more optimistic than could. I was at a grocery store the other day. I went a the crowded time, which I normally try to avoid. It had that bustling kind of energy. A Japanese lady was pushing an elderly Japanese lady in a wheel chair. I managed to slip a corner before them, kind of jumping through a narrow passage. Then as I made my escape, it occurred to me that I might have bowed and given them they way. Of course it would have cost me at least ten seconds. I might even have felt a charge of chivalry aura. It never happened and we'll never know. I might have outraged an impatient person behind me. She was another lady, but I'm not sure if she really was a lady.

We treat strangers better than relations. That might be true on the superficial, but when it comes to the hard stuff it is not even true. Take a sick relative. Or when our relatives or friends suffer loss. People really do show they care. There is a certain amount we give to friends or relations. In exchange, they give more or less the same back. That intangible relationship is not afforded to stranger to stranger. By the same token, the abrasive brushing are not afforded to stranger to stranger. It can be and sometimes is, but that would be the exception.

What a very strange concept, treating people like strangers. I wonder how well that would work with my wife. If I treated her like a stranger, it would be very strange. We could forget St. Valentines romance, intimate dinners or intimate anything else. It would be strange to go to bed with a stranger, have breakfast with a stranger, know a stranger so well, and know millions of things about that stranger. It would be the twilight zone come close to home.

Then there are my own kids. There would be no more life lessons. No more hold out the front of your T-Shirt to let the sweat out. No more stretch out your under chin skin for quick cooling. No more lessons on how to walk like an orangutan. No more saying "want to be friends" to your child's' friend just to embarrass your child. Never mind paying for things like new bus pass, ice cream at Wild Willys'.

Then how would I even get away with acting like a stranger to my mom. Though I try to be a little distant, acting like a stranger would drive her the asylum. More than anything else, my mother is a mother. I can imagine her being a mother to her siblings long before she was to become a mother. To a mother in spirit and by obsession, to have your children act like strangers could be the heart rending thing. I would imagine. Then even stranger still, when grandchildren to act like strangers to their grandparents. How about when grandparents, who for some very strange reasons become cisterns of love and affection to their grandchildren. What is they acted like strangers. That would be a surreal twist on the twilight zone.

Learn more about this author, Jobie Weetaluktuk.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Success in relationships: Treat people like strangers?
We want to hear your view. Write now!