text: Define "out in public" and qualify what kind of stranger and what sort of talk?\n\nFor example, if I'm sitting at the bar and a nice woman next to me tries to strike up a chat, I not only like it, I encourage it.\n\nOn the other hand, if I'm walking down the sidewalk and some crazy dude comes up and starts asking me, "what's the frequency, Kenneth" ...well...that didn't turn out too well for Dan Rather, did it?  \n\nIt's a shame that in this modern world, we tend to stay in self-protective mode (and often rightly so). There is much that may be said about the schizophrenia that living in modern society has become, but that's a large subject far beyond the range of this post.\n\nI'll leave you with this notion from the reknowned psychiatrist R.D. Laing, who proposed that schizophrenia is a response to living in modern society.