The other day on an outdoor train platform, a spotted lanternfly leapt from its perch, bounced off the woman sitting next to me, and brushed my neck. She and I shared a scream and moan about our victimhood, then promptly returned to being strangers.
Although our interaction was pleasant, it carried no burden of entanglement. We did not exchange names, ask where the other lived, or invent a reason to meet again. Neither of us exploited the opening to probe into the other’s life story. What a relief!
The beauty of this shared lanternfly kvetch was our freedom to take it or leave it. Its opposite is the busker who dances five inches from your face on a moving train car. You cannot safely exit the interaction, and your attention has been taken by force.
Good strangerhood is not a policy of total silence or indifference. “See something, say something” can mean: alert a fellow passenger who has dropped his glove or phone. Offer your seat to someone who visibly needs it. Help when it would not feel intrusive.
Anonymous citizenship trains us to right-size first encounters. You do not know she needs help because she is Mrs. Wilson, whom you’ve known since childhood. You recognize patterns—a cane, a stroller, a stumble—and make an offer she can refuse.
Solidarity between strangers asks less of us emotionally and more procedurally. Knowing less about the bio makes the stranger ethic more fair. A stranger can benefit from what we have built without proving she is admirable, familiar, or one of us.