Mum was wrong. It's good to talk to strangers

Making small talk with strangers can be a good way to beat the feeling of loneliness as one ages.

- Chua Mui Hoong

It was 35 deg C in Perth and I was bobbing in the ocean at the beach in Fremantle, where the sea breeze was blowing cool air inland. The sky was blue. The water was crisp and cool.

I felt a sense of well-being. I also felt like talking to someone, except I was alone in the water. A woman in sunglasses was close by. She looked friendly. I made an overture. "You look very confident in the water," I said.

She replied that she was used to water sports, and the water today was like a lake, it was so placid. We started chatting. She was from Germany and had been in Perth for over a year, where she lived with her partner, in a house five minutes away from the beach. She was waiting for him to finish work to come and join her, and they might take their boat out. She pointed to the harbour nearby and said, that's our boat there.

The chat flowed. She had split from her husband and moved on to a new life with a new partner. She was a migration agent and had met her current partner on the plane to Perth. They sat next to each other and hit it off. I told her my story of coming to Perth by myself, to satisfy residency requirements for my visa, and meeting my partner on Day 3.

We agreed that it required courage to make a change, but that life had a way of making up for what you had lost and giving you something better. Both our partners were Irish, and I marvelled at the coincidence, as we shared a laugh over their wicked sense of humour.

We talked for just a few minutes. But when I swam back to shore, I felt a sense of connection. I may never see her again, but at least for those few minutes, I had encountered someone on a similar journey, with whom I had shared some good insights and established a brief moment of rapport.

As I narrated the encounter to my partner later in the evening, I realised that this was the third satisfying social interaction I had had that day - all with complete strangers.