Hannah Condry's enthusiasm for meeting new people extends to the very un-English activity of talking to strangers on trains
Hannah Condry (centre) |
Hannah Condry is a medical student who loves meeting new people. Apart from chatting to the random people who seem to congregate in her parents' kitchen drinking tea, she particularly enjoys cultivating old ladies and speaking to strangers on trains. She rarely initiates conversations ("There are so many miserable people that don't really want to talk, so I don't want to irritate them") but admits that she grins manically at people, which rather encourages conversation.
Her strategy for meeting new people on trains is to sit near the toilets. "The buttons are really complicated, and no-one can ever open and close the door, so they get stuck in the toilet, or sometimes they're desperate and they can't get into the toilet at all. You meet lots of people that way".
She likes to ask them personal questions, so that she learns the story of their lives, their secrets and their troubles. Some have been known to cry. Past encounters include a Lebanese ex-con who was planning to use his burgling experience to become an antiques dealer, and an 11 year-old Kenyan street child who told her that cut flowers were evil.
Though her parents are a little uneasy about her outgoing nature, she believes that "life's risky anyway, and I'd miss out on so many opportunities if I didn't talk to these people….the likelihood of something bad happening is very small". Many of her friends are 'random meeters' like her.
"It does distress me that English people are polite but not properly friendly…I think that's a great tragedy, because people are missing out".
