Your foot is tapping, fingers drumming, and you are silently planning the deaths of every person standing within a 3 mile radius of your frustratingly pounding heart.
Yes, you've been there.
You accidentally left your book at your house, your backup book in the car, and your emergency book, well, you had just gifted it to someone who looked like they could use a read or 500. You are succumbed, yet again, to the grotesque form of free time and are captive to its unproductivity.
Curses. You curse yourself for being so negligent and careless about not fully anticipating any potential "free time" that you must now pass.
What do you do?
Step 1. Make friends. Not the small talk stranger friends. Genuine kindred spirit boosom friends. If there are none and the unfortunates around you have no substance with which one could explore, then stop right there my friends. Sometimes there is blantly no hope for mutual time sharing, but dont let that deter your productivity making ambitions.
Your friend making must be strategic because like my own mindset, my business is my own, and nobody needs to know. You have to find someone's weak spot, their vulnerable propensity where they will cave and gladly start babbling.
People like to talk, especially about themselves.
Maybe you were the only person they talked to all day. Be their listening ear. Not everyone opens up right away, but they are more willing than you know because everyone wants to be acknowledged and know that their words are important.
Ask pointed questions, the kind where the strangers might have been uncomfortable to answer if you were their boosom friend originally, but since you are not, feel free to ask the deepest questions imaginable.
A stranger will gladly share their deepest secrets with another stranger because what have they to lose with you?
What will you do with the information they provide? Bask in the winter light knowing that you have just won someone's confidence, and you didn't even have to try to build a friendship that would have taken years to build to win that special confidence.
Good for you, stranger.
Information is easy. All you have to do is just ask.
Make someone's day and listen. You will end up being pleasantly surprised with genuine intrigue.
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