Mother in Law: Breaking the ice with strangers

At the end of August, a family friend said to Deceptively Angelic Looking Child 1 (DALC1): ‘Next week when you start secondary school, for once it will be totally acceptable to go up to people and say “I’m DALC1, will you be my friend?”.’ 

I remind you DALC1 was born aged 35 so must now be about 46.

She smiled at the family friend and then gave me a look. A look that said she has been too cool/socially awkward/grown up to outright ask someone to be their friend since about Year 1. This was going to be Year 7. She didn’t know what the rules were, but she knew you didn’t say ‘will you be my friend?’.

Breaking the ice with strangers is something I struggled to do until I was in my 30s. My oldest friend introduced herself to me at Brownies by saying ‘Hi, I’m Emma, and I’m mad!’ and I haven’t let her forget it for more than 30 years. Despite the longevity of our relationship suggesting this tactic clearly worked, I wouldn’t recommend it to DALC1.

The reason I eventually learned the art of small talk was because we had moved to a new area and I had to – I just had to – do whatever I could so my kids stood a chance of being invited to the odd birthday party or play date. And also maybe by then the cumulative effect of wanting to die at hundreds of cringy networking events had toughened me up.

I realised – and this is my message today – if you say ‘hello’ to a potential new friend, 99% of the time they will say ‘hello’ back. If I could go back in time and drum this little fact into my head, I would have had a much happier, easier life. The fear of rejection is crippling, for some reason, but almost entirely in your head.

I should dive slightly deeper into that statistic, actually, for the sake of honesty and transparency for DALC1 and others in her current position. At secondary school, if you say ‘hello’ to a potential new friend, I reckon the percentage goes down slightly and perhaps 95% of the time they will say ‘hello’ back. Because kids are little sh*ts and you could come across someone who just glares back or laughs in your face because you don’t have the right backpack or shoes. Just like how, at school, someone might call you fat in a way they literally never would in the outside world (unless they are your brother). But 95% is still really high. By the time you get to sixth form, then university, then work, the percentage of people who will take issue with you saying ‘hello’ goes down to almost zero.

Kids like that aren’t confident. They might be cocky, but that is different. It is all armour, isn’t it? The interesting question is why they need the armour. One of the most helpful bits of advice I’ve ever received was about a new boss – ‘he’s not rude, he’s actually very shy’. It gave me the confidence to take the lead in conversations with him. So I’ve been trying to tell DALC1 that these kids with the armour aren’t as confident as they may seem to her.

Quiet confidence in yourself, with a bit of shyness, is exactly where you should be in your first few weeks at a new school – or a new job. I am not going to ask DALC1 to change, despite me desperately wanting her to make lots of friends. But to prove me right, please can we make sure that when the new trainee walks into the open-plan office or you bump into them in the kitchen and they force the word out of their dry mouth, we remember how hard it is, and that they probably have a mum just like me hoping that they meet someone friendly, and we say hello back, with a friendly smile.

Some facts and identities have been altered in the above article