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Ihave been known to wear headphones without any music playing just to avoid conversation, and eye contact is something I reserve for people I’ve known for at least five years. But when I read about new research suggesting that talking to strangers could make us happier, I began to wonder if I’d been inadvertently bringing myself down.

That’s exactly what behavioural scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business suggest in their research paper, Mistakenly Seeking Solitude. After approaching 118 lone Chicago train commuters on the platform and giving them the task of either sitting alone or talking to a new person, they concluded that although humans may profess to dislike engaging with strangers on their way to and from work, they report having a significantly more positive

commute when they do. Apparently, when we do as the fabulous actress and singer Patti LuPone suggests and “smile at a stranger, see what happens,” what happens is that we feel better. But this is what usually happens when I smile at a stranger: nothing, swiftly followed by a wave of self doubt crashing in. Are my teeth weird? Am I weird? Radiohead’s Creep begins to play in the background.

I was sceptical of the study yet curious, so I decided to attempt my own exercise in making small talk with people I didn’t know on my morning LRT rides. According to Epley and Schroeder, most of us have “a profound misunderstanding of social interactions. Members of a highly social species may ignore other people because they expect that connecting with a stranger will be more negative than remaining isolated, when in fact the exact opposite pattern is true.”

Can talking to people we don’t know make us happier? A new theory says yes. Samantha Joseph puts it to the test

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So I lay in wait on the train, a predator seeking human connection among the morning crush of bodies. It did not go well. Everyone whipped out their phones the moment they sat down, if not before. There was no chance to make eye contact, let alone smile and ask them how their day was. Those who were standing that couldn’t get to their devices studiously looked away into emptiness. Short of waving my hand in someone’s face and wrestling their phone away from them, this was not going to work out. I was disappointed. How would I reach peak commuter happiness this way?

Alex Hui, a clinical psychologist and the head of HELP University’s Psychology department, doesn’t deny that we feel happier after human interaction, but he pours cold water on my experiment. “You can’t wake up one morning and decide that you’re going to talk to strangers,” he laughs. “Social interaction should come naturally. We are built to connect with others. It makes you feel better if you just help someone cross the street and they thank you.” This positive emotional feedback may be attributed to something called mirror neurons, cells that have been linked to empathy in studies with macaque monkeys. Neuroscientists claim that these mirror neurons — which were a popular topic of study in the 1990s and again more recently — can explain why we smile when others smile at us, or cringe in pain when someone else takes a metal bar to the knee.

Other studies have found that there are dire health consequences to being isolated from our community. One at Ohio State University in 2013 linked social isolation with a poor immune system, while a 2010 study at the University of Chicago found links between loneliness and everything from lack of good-quality sleep to chronic cardiovascular disease.

So if not mixing with people is measurably bad, and doing it feels good, why do we shy away from it? There are many reasons. Cultural norms, fear of rejection or misunderstandings, worry we’ll be judged — especially if you have social anxiety — are just some of the major reasons we shy away from this precious and potentially unlimited source of joy. For women, the situation is even more complex.

“Being a woman puts you in a more vulnerable situation,” says Hui. A lot of how men and women interact depends on culture and general safety issues, as well as the potential for misunderstanding. “In a more conservative culture, men do not interact with women they do not know. Women are more cautious

when talking to strangers in places they do not feel safe.” And of course, women are always being cautioned to ‘be careful’.

We associate the idea of ‘stranger danger’ with our childhood, but for most women it’s a thought that remains with us throughout adulthood, upheld by Facebook posts or viral news about snatch thieves that chat you up while their friend cuts your purse, or men that throw women who are walking alone into the backs of a car and speed off.

There is a reason why these particular articles are the ones to go viral. A 2014 study by the LICOS Centre for Institutions & Economic Performance showed that people preferred negative news because it helped them to avoid risk.

“Because we tend to share negative news more often than positive news, we have this idea that the world has become a much worse place than before,” says Hui. It’s understandable then that a lone woman may not want to make conversation with someone she doesn’t know.

And most of us would feel more comfortable talking to someone of the same sex. As Hui suggests, women and men don’t strike up conversations with each other for fear of sending the wrong signal.

All these barriers contribute to our misunderstanding of the power of social connection, say Epley and Schroeder, until we feel that “solitude seems preferable to connecting with a stranger because people interpret others’ actions as signs of disinterest and therefore do not engage in the very conversations that would correct their expectations.”

Is it time to put aside those smartphones for a while and make eye contact with the

person sitting opposite you on the train? It really depends on the individual, says Hui. “Sometimes people don’t talk to strangers because it makes them anxious. There are actually a lot of processes going on when we’re communicating with another person — we listen, evaluate their words, decide how to respond — and some people find it tiring.”

At the end of the day, it’s really about how comfortable you are doing it. If you are willing to put yourself out there, then you might have the endorphin-soaring experience outlined by Epley and Schroeder. But if you have to force it, you may just cause more distress than necessary.

“I suppose it's like falling in love,” Hui says. “There’s always the risk that you will get your heart broken, but if you don't try you'll probably never experience the joy too.”

HOW DO YOU TALK TO STRANGERS?

Clinical psychologist Alex Hui on how to create conversation

» Know what’s happening around you. If you want to talk to people, you need to

have things to talk about. Read up on current issues.

» Be interested in people. People can tell if you’re really concerned about their feelings and opinions.

» Don’t force it. There’s no need to make yourself talk to strangers. The discomfort of forcing yourself

to interact will negate any potential benefits. You can find your

happiness elsewhere.

“I lay in wait, a predator seeking human connection. It did not go well. Everyone whipped

out their phones the moment they sat down.”

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