This Is Why I Pour My Heart Out To Strangers

I find a weird comfort in telling my story to strangers. Having someone who doesn’t know me hear my story for the very first time always seems very appealing to me because I don’t care if they judge me — after all, we may not see each other again. I share intimate stories with them because, at the end of the day, I know they will tell me their opinion truly without sugar-coating it — because, in the end, they owe me nothing.

The thing is, I find a piece of my story in every stranger I meet. I find patterns in my life that are the same as theirs. I feel like we are all so similar in such a funny way. Every time I pour my heart out to them, I feel such a familiarity that makes me forget that I am talking to a stranger.

Sometimes they tell me their stories too, and parts of their stories feel like I am seeing mine from the outside, as if I am seeing my story from the eye of a stranger. Sometimes they surprise me by how someone so different from me and who lives miles away can be so similar to me, or can feel something so similar to what I have been feeling at a point in my life, or can go through the same exact thing I might be going through.

And then it just hits you. Aren’t we all a bunch of strangers who are going through the same things every day, after all? We share the same world. We encounter similar patterns and situations along the way.

Eventually, you just realize it: Strangers aren’t really strangers after all. They are different versions of us. Each and every one of them has gone through something you have gone through. The daily situations you have experienced, they have experienced too, just maybe in a slightly different way. The thoughts that have crossed your mind have crossed someone else’s mind too — they just happen to be a complete stranger.

And that’s why I fell in love with pouring my heart out to strangers. Because even though they are strangers, they turn out to not really be strangers after all.