Talk to Strangers

You will enjoy it more than you think you will

Commuters on trains and buses were asked either to talk to a stranger, to sit in silence, or to do whatever they normally would. The ones who talked reported a more positive journey — and one no less productive. A separate group, asked to predict how it would go, expected exactly the opposite.

Epley & Schroeder, Mistakenly Seeking Solitude, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014 — nine experiments

The interesting part is not that talking to strangers is pleasant. It is that people are reliably wrong about it beforehand, in the same direction, every time. The reluctance you feel before opening a conversation is not information about how the conversation will go.

And they liked you more than you assume

After conversations with people they had just met, participants consistently underestimated how much the other person had liked them and enjoyed their company. The other person was giving off signals of enjoyment the whole time; they were simply not being read. It shows up in conversations as short as five minutes.

Boothby, Cooney, Sandstrom & Clark, The Liking Gap in Conversations, Psychological Science, 2018

So the awkward feeling afterwards — that you talked too much, or too little, or that they were being polite — is, on average, wrong too. Both of you walked away thinking you were the one who did worse.

What to actually say

The hard part is the first fifteen seconds. A few things that work better than they should:

Say something about the moment, not about them. "It is one in the morning here" is easier to answer than "where are you from", because it hands them something rather than asking for something.
Ask about the thing behind them. A guitar, a window, a terrible poster. People like being asked about their own stuff and it costs them nothing to answer.
Be specific rather than friendly. "Hey how are you" gets "good you?" and then silence. Anything concrete gets a real sentence back.
Let a pause be a pause. Filling every gap reads as nerves. Three seconds of quiet is not a failure.
If they are not interested, move on without deciding what it meant. You are one of several hundred people they will see tonight, and so are they.

How to leave, which nobody teaches

Say you are moving on, then move on. On Spoqi you press next and the other person is told the stranger left — not why, not by whom, and there is nothing for them to reply to. You do not owe an explanation to somebody you met ninety seconds ago, and pretending an exit is anything more than an exit is what makes it awkward.

Where to do it

Spoqi pairs you with one stranger at a time for a video conversation. No account, no profile, no email, and nothing kept afterwards — no video, no screenshots, no transcript. Press next whenever you want and you get somebody else.

You are shown which country the other person is connecting from, and that is the only thing either of you learns about the other.

There is somebody waiting.

Start chatting

The part worth taking seriously

Talking to strangers online is not the same as talking to one on a train. The category has a bad history — Omegle, the best-known site of this kind, shut down in 2023 after settling a child-safety case — and the difference between services is whether anything checks what is on camera rather than waiting for people to report each other.

Never give a stranger your full name, address, workplace or social accounts.
Assume they can film their screen. They can, here and everywhere.
Leave the moment you want to. Report rather than argue.

On Spoqi a model runs in your own browser and cuts your camera within about a second if it sees nudity, before it has been sent anywhere; a second check on our servers is what issues bans. More on how that works.

Questions people ask

Why is it so hard to talk to strangers?

Mostly because we expect it to go badly. Research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General in 2014 found commuters predicted a more pleasant journey sitting in silence, then reported the opposite when asked to talk to somebody — the expectation was wrong, not the experience.

What do I say to a stranger?

Something small and specific about the situation you are both in, rather than a question about them. Where are you? What is that behind you? Openers about the shared moment work better than interrogation, and they give the other person something easy to answer.

Is it weird to talk to strangers online?

It is one of the older things people do online. What is worth knowing is that the other person is usually more glad you spoke than you assume — people systematically underestimate how much their conversation partner liked them, an effect researchers call the liking gap.

Where can I talk to strangers?

Spoqi pairs you with one at random for a video conversation, free and with no account. Press next whenever you want.

How do I end a conversation politely?

Say you are going to move on, and move on. On Spoqi you press next and the other person is told the stranger left, not why. Nobody is owed an explanation.

Is talking to strangers online safe?

It carries real risks. Never give a stranger your full name, address, workplace or social accounts, assume they can film their screen, and use a service that checks what is on camera automatically rather than waiting for reports.