Don't talk to strangers

You know how our parents used to warn us about all the bad things that would happen if we'd talked to someone we didn't know. Once upon a time, I believed it. And I think it's because I kept holding on to this thinking for a long period of time that it somehow became a habit. So although I am not afraid of strangers now, I do not generally associate with them. At least, not with the ease that the Australians are capable of doing.

This is rather "unacceptable" here. Socially. That is, the inability to make simple conversation with the random people whom you've never met before and will (most probably) never meet again for the rest of your life. Personally, actively engaging in a conversation on nothing more than the bad weather is tough enough, least to say being the one to start a new, but equally boring, topic about the poor transport system.

Talking naturally to people whom I've just met is unnatural to me. But this doesn't mean that I'm not a friendly person. Perhaps it's the way I was brought up in that hindered the path to having good interpersonal relationship skills. Perhaps its just me who's still not used to discussing my life openly to someone I don't know.

Perhaps...

I don't know.