4 Essential Skills to Starting Relationships with Strangers

The common factor of any relationship, even ones that you are intentionally using the Law of Attraction to bring into your life, is that you start by meeting strangers.

Answer.com defines stranger as "1. One who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance."

Obvious point to think about, at one time every friend, co-worker, buddy, chum, lover, boy/girlfriend, etc. was a stranger. This article focuses on 4 essential skills to starting relationships with strangers. Whether these relationships develop further is another issue.

Many of us grew-up with someone, parents, teachers, police, etc. telling us "don't talk to strangers." This admonition seems appropriate for use with children who are vulnerable and susceptible to the wiles and deceit of malicious adults. But we were never told "Until you grow-up and learn to tell good people from bad, 'don't talk to strangers.'" Many of us still have this thought buried inside and not know it's still affecting us meeting new people. By practicing these essential skills, you can learn to meet strangers easily.

Many of us, and at times I too, find it difficult to start a conversation with strangers. Whether it's feelings of inferiority, being out of our comfort zone, at a gathering where everyone else seems to know everyone else, at times meeting people seems intimidating and frightening.

I believe these essential skills make it easier for me to meet strangers. Over the years, I've built up my confidence in using these skills. This confidence has raised my vibrations so that I meet strangers that are more open to me. By attracting more strangers that match my vibrations, I get closer to meeting the ideal people of my desires.

1. Smile
Smiling does wonders for breaking the ice. Think about when someone you know smiles at you. How to you feel? Pretty good. Now, what about when you see others smiling. You sense their happiness and joy. Check out this project at SmileMyDay.com and see how smiles make you feel. (BTW, I just attracted this site to come into my experience by writing this post.)

Smiling is a major principle in How to Win Friend and Influence People. If a chapter is devoted to smiling in one of the classics of personal development, it's got to be important.

Practice smiling. Your smile can be an all teeth, ear-to-ear grin, or just turned-up corners of you mouth like the Mona Lisa. Practice your smile. Whether you look in a mirror and try different smiles or just practice the feeling of your smile, practice. It helps you feel good. When you feel good you, you project good vibrations and therefore attract more good into your life. (It seems to be a recurring theme: raise vibrations, attract more good.)

What I think is most important is the feeling you have while smiling. Be genuine, have a real smile, let that emotion flow through you. By practicing the smile in front of the mirror you can see how you look to others. Keep in mind, you want a real smile. Fake smiles can be detected by others and you even know when you fake your smile. So be genuine.


2. Eye Contact "The eyes are the windows to the soul."
In American society, where I'm from, eye-contact is important. I'm not talking about a staring contest. (I save that for my son.) Nor am I talking about the intimidating stare of a bully. I'm talking about an open, kind feeling in your heart that puts a twinkle in your eye.

One of the first people you should be looking at in the eye is yourself. Spend sometime looking in a mirror. If this is new for you, other than brushing your hair, be gentle with yourself. Looking yourself in the eye, is like looking your best friend in the eye. In fact, relationship experts say you should have the best relationship with yourself so you can have great relationships with others.

Looking at myself in the mirror is where I do some of my best affirmation work. Here is where I do some of my best pep talk work. Mirrors allow me to see myself better. I can get in tune with myself more fully. By practicing looking myself in the eye, I feel more comfortable looking others in the eye.


3. Say Hello
It's simple, it's easy and is the first step in starting a conversation. If you are as shy and timid as a rabbit, practice this on the grocery clerk or a check-out person. Along with the smile, eye contact and "Hello" you are off to a great beginning in starting a conversation with your next new friend.

If at first you are still a bit shy, maybe nod your head in a greeting of hello. 90% of communication is done non-verbally. Just looking at someone and nodding, is a big improvement for some and a good step towards meeting new friends.

4. Make a compliment
This is the beginnings of a real conversation. Everyone likes to hear something nice about themselves, even if it's something about their choices such as the book they are reading, the shoes they are wearing, how artistic they've made their name tag, etc. Another chapter in How to Win Friend and Influence People was devoted to complimenting others.

Think about how you feel when someone compliments you. When someone compliments me, or my tie, or my shirt, or how well I dressed that day, I feel good. That's what you want to do for others, have them feel good. When someone feels good because of your compliment, then they are more likely to say something back to you. Even if it is a "Thank you", you've had a conversation with a stranger. Celebrate that success.


What does all this have to do with the Law of Attraction?

As mentioned earlier in this post, as you are developing these skills, you are raising your vibrations about how you feel about yourself. You are also raising your vibrations about how you feel about other people and your comfort level in meeting others. When you attract someone you desire into your life, then you have developed the skills to inroduce yourself the next time you have that intuitive desire to walk up to a stranger and start a conversation.


By practicing one skill and then another and another you are building the essential skills to starting relationships with strangers. It's these strangers that will become your new business partners, friends, lovers, etc. These 4 essential skills are simple and easy to develop. By working on these skills, like I have done, even simple interactions with grocery store clerks, other customer's in line, etc. you'll begin to feel better about yourself, more likable and desirable because people have smiled back at you, said "Hello" to you and even talked with you for however brief a time. When you walk away from a simple and pleasant interaction, you will feel good about that interaction and yourself. You are raising your vibrations and attracting more good interactions with people and the relationships you desire will come into your life.

Suggested reading:

How to Win Friend and Influence People

Related Posts:

Three Important Success Tips with the Law of Attraction

I'm looking forward to getting unclothed