Tag: strangers

If you sometimes feel that you are married to a stranger, you may be right! In a recent study, "The Closeness-Communications Bias: Increased Egocentrism among Friends versus Strangers," couples who live together tend to overestimate their ability to communicate. When polled these couples made claims like: "We think alike," "I can read his mind" or "We understand each other."

You tend to draw on intimate knowledge of a spouse or even a friend to make sweeping assertions based on an illusion of understanding him or her. However, many conflicts happen when someone close to you fails as a mind reader.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that on many days it’s easier to smile at strangers than at the person at home. However, if you want a better marriage you need to practice certain things every day with total strangers. Imagine that in the course of one day you come across fifty people. They might include strangers you pass in a parking lot, a waitress or a bank teller. What if you looked at all of those relationships as a "pass or fail" exercise?

You pass when you smile at a stranger in the parking lot and say, "Have a nice day" or go out of your way to cheer a grumpy waitress or choose to ignore a driver who flips you off.