Strangers on a Train, and the People We Never Speak To

I wrote the story for episode 3 of Season 2 while staying in Istanbul earlier this year. After finishing it, I started searching for a title, and Strangers on a Train came naturally. 

At the time of writing, nothing could have been further from my mind than the sinister world created by Alfred Hitchcock, and the marvellous Patricia Highsmith. But the title felt right. 

My story is very different in plot and atmosphere from Hitchcock and Highsmith’s world, but I think it still fits: there are strangers, though they’re by no means unfamiliar, there’s a train, and there’s a slightly uneasy connection between them.

✦ ✦ ✦

A few weeks ago, an elderly woman stopped to chat with me while I was stretching after a run. I didn’t recognise her, but she told me she lived close by and had been seeing me run for twenty-five years. We’d never spoken before.

It was a lovely conversation, but I couldn’t help thinking what a pity we hadn’t spoken twenty-five years earlier.

Where I live, as in many places, there are two kinds of people: those I speak to, and those I don’t. But why?

What makes the difference? Why do we say hello to some neighbours and not others?

As I get older, I find it easier, or maybe just more natural, to speak to people I don’t know. And more often than not, I’m glad I’ve spoken to them.

I thought about this after recording Strangers on a Train. It made me think too about all the familiar strangers I never speak to.

What do you think? I’d love to know other people’s opinions on this topic.

Should we make more effort to speak to people?

✦ ✦ ✦

This post accompanies Episode 3 of my podcast, Strangers on a Train. You can listen to the story here

Each podcast episode comes with two worksheets for advanced learners of English, a Language Worksheet and an Extension Worksheet with cultural notes and discussion prompts.

Subscribers to my newsletter get the download links directly. You can sign up here if you’d like access.