Consequential Strangers
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Consequential Strangers cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd i 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:56:27:56 PMPM also by melinda blau Families Apart: Ten Keys to Successful Co-Parenting Loving and Listening: A Parent’s Book of Daily Inspirations for Rebuilding the Family After Divorce Secrets of the Baby Whisperer Secrets of the Baby Whisperer for Toddlers The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems (the above written for Tracy Hogg) Parenting by Heart Nurturing Good Children Now The Second Family (for Ron Taff el) Watch Me Fly (for Myrlie Evers Williams) Our Turn: Women Who Triumph in the Face of Divorce (with Christopher Hayes and Deborah Anderson) also by karen l. fingerman Aging Mothers and Their Adult Daughters: Mixed Emotions, Enduring Bonds Growing Together: Personal Relationships Across the Life Span (coedited with Frieder R. Lang) cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd iiii 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:57:27:57 PMPM Consequential Strangers The Power of People Who Don’t Seem to Matter . But Really Do Melinda Blau and Karen L. Fingerman, Ph.D. B W . W . NORTON & COMPANY NEW YORK · LONDON cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd iiiiii 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:57:27:57 PMPM Copyright © 2009 by Melinda Blau and Karen L. Fingerman All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at [email protected] or 800-233-4830 Manufacturing by The Courier Companies, Inc. Book design by Chris Welch Production manager: Andrew Marasia Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Blau, Melinda, 1943– Consequential strangers : the power of people who don’t seem to matter— but really do / Melinda Blau and Karen L. Fingerman. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-393-06703-3 (hbk.) 1. Interpersonal relations. 2. Social interaction. 3. Identity (Psychology) 4. Strangers. I. Fingerman, Karen L. II. Title. HM1106.B53 2009 155.9’27—dc22 2009010721 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110 www.wwnorton.com W. W. Norton & Company Ltd. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT 1234567890 cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd iviv 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:57:27:57 PMPM In loving memory of Skylar Sonn Tancredi March 18, 1992–August 12, 2006 who understood the power of consequential strangers. His far-reaching connections continue to comfort our family. —MB With gratitude to Bryce and Lily who have brought me love and happiness. —KF cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd v 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:57:27:57 PMPM cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd vivi 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:57:27:57 PMPM contents acknowledgments ix introduction The Birth of a Notion xv 1 The Ascendance of Consequential Strangers 1 2 The View from Above 29 3 Beyond the Confi nes of the Familiar 61 4 Good for What Ails Us 95 5 Being Spaces 129 6 The Downside 165 7 The Future of Consequential Strangers 197 epilogue The Postscript Is Personal 215 appendix I Twenty Questions 221 appendix II The Occupation Test 223 notes 225 index 263 cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd viivii 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:57:27:57 PMPM cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd viiiviii 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:57:27:57 PMPM introduction The Birth of a Notion A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to aff ection for a few persons nearest us. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. —Albert Einstein Every day we interact with people who infl uence our lives in small and great ways but who are not part of our inner circle: a yoga teacher, a waitress, a gym buddy, a pet sitter, a former coworker, a “friend” on Facebook, dad’s army chum, the proprietor of a favorite clothing store, a professional contact known mostly by phone. Each of these relations is diff erent from the other, but they all are consequential strangers—people who are so much a part of our everyday life that we often take them for granted. This book is the result of a collaboration between two conse- quential strangers—Melinda Blau, a journalist, and Karen Finger- man, a social scientist and professor at Purdue University. If writers tend to write what they know, creative scholars also study and cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd xvxv 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:59:27:59 PMPM xvi Introduction develop theories based on their personal experiences. We can read about other people and see how various ideas and research fi ndings play out in their stories, but most of us “get” the importance of consequential strangers by examining our own lives. So it was for Blau and Fingerman.* The Journalist For Blau, it was her move from Manhattan in 1990—years before she and Fingerman would cross paths. When people in her new locale—Northampton, Massachusetts—asked if she missed New York, she replied, “No, I miss New Yorkers.” She had in mind Kathy, a fellow tenant she often chatted with in the lobby of their building, and Henrietta, the septuagenarian writer whom she respected and learned from but saw only for coff ee after their class at the New School. She missed popping in on Stanley and Leon, the celebrated butchers on Madison Avenue who had given her children slices of bologna and watched the two of them grow up. She remembered how Helen, the Korean greengrocer, would set aside a box of Concord grapes for her every autumn. The collective presence of this wide-ranging array of people punctuated her daily comings and goings in Manhattan. Eventually she realized that “New Yorker” was code for an entire category of casual relation- ships that had virtually disappeared from her life. To remedy her sense of isolation, Blau launched what she, for lack of a better term, called her “acquaintanceship campaign.” She wasn’t in the market for friends. She needed informal relations. So whenever she interviewed someone in the area who sounded interesting and open, she’d invite the person to coff ee. She felt * Here and throughout the book, we use the editorial “we” but refer to our individual selves in the third person. For interviewees, we use an asterisk (*) to denote a pseudonym, in which case some identifying details may have been changed as well. cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd xvixvi 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:59:27:59 PMPM Introduction xvii vulnerable putting herself out there, but at least had the cover of her profession. In this way, she met a handful of new people— among them, a psychology professor, the editor of a local paper, and a woman she interviewed for an article about divorce. She also accepted her landlord’s invitation to have lunch with “some people you might like.” Some of those tentative connections went no further than a fi rst “date.” Some led to other new acquaintances. A few became good friends. Most, happily and appropriately, stayed on the periphery of her social circle and yet contributed to her sense of belonging in Northampton. They made Blau’s life richer and more interesting, often giving her opportunities and connections she’d never have imagined. She fi nally had people she could ask whether a particu- lar restaurant was good or which doctor had the best reputation. And when the city dug up her front lawn to repair a burst water main and she was out of town, there were people she could call for help. The Scholar In the mid-nineties, Fingerman, who had spent much of her career studying adult relationships, was beginning to pay attention to nonintimate social ties in her academic work. What do these out- siders do for our sense of self? How do they satisfy our competing needs for individuality and connection? Why do we need to notice these important yet overlooked relations? But it was soon after the birth of her fi rst child that she truly came to terms with their signifi cance—mostly by accident. In 2000, Fingerman experienced every cliché of new mother- hood—a deep and abiding love for her baby, the stress of fi guring out how she would combine work and family, and the realization that she might never wear a bikini again. But she also had feel- ings no one had forewarned her about. Her world had narrowed. In this new universe, only three people existed: Fingerman, her cconseqonseq strangstrang pass6.inddpass6.indd xviixvii 55/12/09/12/09 22:27:59:27:59 PMPM xviii Introduction husband, and her baby. Initially their time was intense and joyfully focused within the confi nes of their tiny family. Fingerman loved the cocoon they’d built around themselves. But she also missed aspects of her former life, which included volunteer work at the local soup kitchen, travel to academic conferences in Europe, and brown-bag lunches during which she and her graduate students discussed new ideas in the fi eld. When Fingerman returned to teaching, she settled happily into a new routine.