RELATIONSHIPS
The Woman Who Named People That Don’t Seem to Matter — but Really Do
She barely noticed them but knew couldn’t get through the day without them. Thanks to her, we now see them everywhere.
If you don’t name something, you can’t see it.
In 2003, in a paper entitled, “The Consequential Stranger: Peripheral Relationships across the Life Span,” psychologist Karen Fingerman, now Professor of Human Development & Family Sciences at UT Austin, used her own life to illustrate the term she coined to describe relationships we tend to overlook or undervalue.
I spend most of my time interacting with people I barely know, am not invested in, and barely notice: my son’s friend’s mother, the woman paid to clean the house, members of a volunteer organization, coworkers and students I serve, colleagues geographically distributed, parents who know more about our schools and town than I do, former friends, and an array of bloggers on the Internet.
Dr. Fingerman’s words might seem obvious in 2022, when journalists routinely write that “strangers are good for us.” But in 2003, almost no one was talking about the importance of casual social connections. Nor was it common for a psychologist to survey the full social fabric into which her own life was knit.
In 2006, when I read Karen’s paper, the phrase consequential stranger leapt off the page. Even though I had never heard the term, I instinctively knew what she meant.
I had recently moved from Manhattan to a small town in Massachusetts and had launched what I called my “acquaintanceship campaign.” How else could I replace the kinds of peripheral relationships I’d left behind. Good friends would come up for the weekend; they were still in my life. But I no longer schmoozed with the bank manager on 34th Street, my doctors and their staff, or the nice lady who saved me concord grapes each fall. When I left the City, I felt lost without them.
Sociologists call such relationships “weak ties.” Lay people think of them as acquaintances, people we know from the places we work, learn, play, and pray.
Of course, our strongest ties—spouses, children, close friends — matter. But that doesn’t mean consequential strangers aren’t vital, too — albeit in different ways. Consequential strangers are especially critical when you move, as I did, or when you move on — from one interest to others, from one life stage to the next, from tranquil circumstances to more trying times. They can give us what our loved ones can’t: support without judgment and a fresh perspective.
Karen Fingerman changed the way I walk through life by helping me notice the people in my path. I ask names, wonder about their lives, and look for common ground although their live journeys are often quite unlike mine. Instead of judging them as other or unimportant, I am curious and celebrate our differences!
As I pointed out in a recent piece on Medium, it’s a better way to live. Thank you, Karen!
For more on consequential strangers….
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