Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Miss Amanda Chen Show. Today’s episode is a reflection on talking to strangers. If you’ve been following this podcast I’ve spent the past 6 months interviewing men.

It’s a different world out there now. We already look away when we pass others on the street, pretend we don’t notice anyone, stick to our own personal space, but now with the pandemic we are super aware of keeping our distance. 

And as we all congregate in our little bubbles, it gets increasingly difficult to meet new people. Let alone schedule an interview with them, ask them about themselves, get vulnerable with them, connect with them on a deeper level, and record it all to share with the public. I have no idea why I decided to speak to 100 men during the time that we are all meant to self isolate, but here we are. And it’s been a weird time, sending cold DMs to randoms on Instagram, asking female friends to connect me with men, texting exes, even using dating apps to find fresh meat.

The next couple episodes are a free flow of first-time engagements with men during my travels. It has been incredible capturing this intimate moment and I’m so excited to share it with you. I look at it like a verbal dance, asking questions, re-framing questions, feeling the flow of the other person and finding a groove. And just getting entranced in this other person’s energy, not knowing where it’s going to go. We usually talk to people with intention. We often want something out of them, or assume they want something out of us, an answer, a decision, something concrete to move forward with. But when the conversation is just for nothing, the conversation has room to play.

With season 3 being all about liberation through dialogue, let’s free ourselves from the constraints of expectations out of conversation. Let's stop rehearsing how we plan to speak to someone in our heads and just see what happens.