Six Not-So-Awkward Ways to Make Friends with Strangers
Introducing yourself to a stranger is scary stuff, it’s like we all revert to our awkward middle school selves. This April we challenged the GOOD community to get out there, swallow their fear, and make friends with their neighbors. Our GOOD Local chapters created events that brought together strangers from all over the city to…
Introducing yourself to a stranger is scary stuff, it’s like we all revert to our awkward middle school selves. This April we challenged the GOOD community to get out there, swallow their fear, and make friends with their neighbors.
Our GOOD Local chapters created events that brought together strangers from all over the city to meet each other. GOOD LA enticed neighbors to become friends with lemonade, a photobooth, and trivia. GOOD Chicago taught strangers to bond over urban agriculture and GOOD SF led fast and furious rounds of speed dating (No love connections yet, but we’ll keep you posted.)
Verdict? Our neighbors are pretty awesome, and introducing ourselves to them doesn’t have to be awkward at all. Our GOOD Local Chapter Leaders met over 800 people throughout the course of these events. Here are a few tricks they learned to becoming friends with strangers.
6. “Tell them a fun fact. Here’s one to help you break the ice. Did you know the land between the sidewalk and street is public space? You can grow whatever you’d like!” – Stacy, GOOD Chicago
5. “Blast some music, and start an impromptu dance party. Because who doesn’t want to learn The Babysitter?” (Scroll to 1:17 to learn it too) – Rebecca, GOOD Los Angeles
4. “Provide fun prompts. ‘If your neighborhood was a ‘Sex in the City’ character, who would it be?’ is a much more intriguing way to start a conversation than ‘Do you come here often?’” – Chelsae, GOOD SF
3. “Talk about that guy who shows up to the party in a thong. Instant bonding.” – Danny, GOOD Los Angeles
2. “Pick an interesting setting for people to meet, like Uncommon Ground, the nation’s first certified organic rooftop farm.” – Ben, GOOD Chicago 1. “Bring a buddy. Cute dogs are the ultimate social lubricant.” (Meet Mia, our unofficial GOOD SF Neighborday mascot) – Hunter, GOOD SF
Want to get involved in GOOD Local? Sign up to get invited to future GOOD Local events in Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Learn more about being GOOD Local Chapter Leader here or email us at local@goodinc.com
Signs are meant to inform, warn, or direct, but sometimes, they unintentionally entertain. Whether due to poor wording, clever humor, or just plain absurdity, some signs end up being comedic gold.
Thanks to the internet, we no longer have to stumble upon them by accident—there’s even a whole subreddit, r/funnysigns, dedicated to collecting the most ridiculous ones.
Here are 25 of the funniest signs that prove not all signage is created equal.
1. Some people might need this reminder
“Not knowing who Taylor Swift is doesn’t make you interesting.”
Sometimes people reveal the climactic scene in a great book we’re reading before we even get there. It may be annoying, but most of the time, the ruined moment happens by accident.
A woman writing under the Reddit tag u/Embarrassed-Friend-8 shared she loves romance novels. Enough to consume four to five a month. Recently, her husband of 11 years started acting differently in the bedroom with what she describes as “themed” nights. She explains, “I’ll think ‘okay, that was fun and a little random’ and move on.” But then the real unexpected twist occurs. She continues, “A few days later I’ll be reading my book, hit a spicy scene and actually have to put my Kindle down bc it’s the same scene. Like, the same vibe, the same moves, occasionally almost the same setup.”
She thinks he might be reading ahead and playing a fun little prank. But then the story beneath the story begins to reveal itself.
“I read on my Kindle. He’d have to get into my account, figure out where I am in each book, read ahead, and then coordinate. He’s a big tech/numbers guy, so if he’s doing this I guarantee there’s a spreadsheet involved somewhere. I’m honestly not even mad. Genuinely if this is what’s happening it might be the most unhinged romantic gesture anyone has ever done for me. But he is technically spoiling the books??”
As this story started to gain traction, the comments section filled up fast with amused, confused, and thoroughly invested people. It’s hard to resist a great story that begins with, “11 years and he’s still out here finding new ways to be surprising. I genuinely don’t deserve him and also he is ruining my books.” These are some of the Redditors’ thoughts:
“Made the mistake of reading this post to my husband and I think I actually saw a light bulb turn on above his head — gonna start locking my Kindle…”
“Book mark your favorite scenes…give him a selection so there’s still an element of surprise.”
“You made me laugh so hard this morning!”
“Yes, but ruining them in the BEST possible way!”
“Absolute legend behavior, but you’re right, he needs to drop some DLC that isn’t in the source material for the real surprises.”
“This is adorable and also sweet and romantic!”
“I mean, the husband is looking at this as ‘ok, challenge accepted!’”
“Girl, start reading some spicier stuff!”
A woman looks through a spyglass. Photo credit Canva
The mystery is uncovered in a Reddit update
In an update to the original post, the woman shared that she was very appreciative of the comments and support from readers of her posting. “Turns out you all were right. He had access to my shared Kindle library and got this idea for a prank, but once he did it a few times he really got ‘invested.’” She continues, “He’s going to stop spoiling my books but we did come up with another arrangement, also thanks to the comments here. I’m going to give him a list of pre-approved spicy scenes and he’ll choose (in no specific order) which he wants to surprise me with.”
This husband was willing to go the extra mile to keep their relationship moving in a healthy direction. And yet, there was one more little update she had to add in, “YES there was a spreadsheet. Chili pepper emojis for spice levels. A column for notes (needs wine, links to Spotify playlists, etc). Color coding. Multiple tabs. More organization than even I was expecting. It will be ongoing and is now shared so I can drop in my own chili peppers and notes.”
A romantic couple as the sun sets. Photo credit Canva
Romance novels are not just for the ladies
Romance novels aren’t simply a niche. It’s one of the most widely read genres worldwide. It’s not just casual reading either. Romance readers are voraciously digesting an average of five novels per month. A 2021 study in Humanities & Social Sciences Communications found that most readers are in relationships and looking for little escape and relaxation. Writing that is exciting, easy, and fun to read matters more than the sexual content.
What might be surprising is that romantic literature appeals to male readers more than you might think. In a 2025 survey conducted with fans of romance books by Talker Research, 63% of the men considered themselves die-hard fans. Also, men spend 364 hours annually reading romance compared to women, who spend 312 hours.
A couple eats watermelon together. Photo credit Canva
A little bit of romance matters
Research shows that doing something new together can reignite connection. A 2024 study in Science Direct found that passion and intimacy are directly related to overall relationship satisfaction. And it’s not the big swings at romance that matter most. It’s the small, attentive actions that bring more intimacy.
A 2023 review in the National Library of Medicine found that in the psychology of a romantic relationship, responsiveness, emotional attunement, and mutual investment build a stronger, lasting connection.
Romance might seem like something we’re all supposed to instinctively know how to do. This husband is willing to invest time and creativity into his marriage, even if his first attempts didn’t land perfectly. What she thought was a small frustration slowly turned into a stronger connection. All of this good started by simply trying and reading a little ahead.
Like many young, urban professionals, we run on coffee. We especially enjoy frequenting independently owned cafes that pride themselves on ethically sourced beverages, strong local ties and a hip aesthetic.
They’re the kinds of places that sneer at the homogenization and predictability of Tim Hortons, Second Cup, Dunkin and Starbucks.
What was up with all the exposed brick? Why did so many of the baristas look cooler than us, but also so similar to one another? And why did most menus appear on a chalkboard, as if we were still in kindergarten?
Weren’t we supposed to be in one-of-a-kind, authentic settings that make us feel unique and, let’s admit it, slightly elevated?
As it turns out, the visual patterns we noticed had never been backed up by research. So after a quick cortado, we set out to test our hunch that local coffee shops had adopted a uniform aesthetic.
Measuring homogeneity
We asked over 100 American and Canadian young professionals living in cities to share an interior image of their favorite independent coffee shop, describe why they liked the shop’s appearance, and document aspects of its interior design.
They could select these interior design features from a list of 23 common elements that we had identified in a pilot study – brick walls, marble counters, indoor plants, local art, vintage furniture and even the look of the baristas. Respondents could also write down other details they noticed.
Baristas led the pack: Two-thirds of the participants’ favorite local coffee shops had staff with tattoos or piercings. Over half had baristas with beards. Well over half of the respondents noted that their favorite shop had chalkboards, reclaimed wood features, local art, milk foam designs on beverages, local event posters and exposed brick. A large share of the shops had vintage furniture, community message boards and free books available to patrons to read. One-third of the images had indoor plants, trees or greenery.
Next up, we challenged the participants to identify the city where these coffee shops were located.
Using the images provided by the respondents from the initial survey, we asked 158 new and prior participants if they could match the location of the shops depicted in six photographs to Cincinnati, St. Louis or Toronto – cities chosen for their different architectural and aesthetic qualities.
Not a single participant was able to correctly identify the correct city for all the photos.
We gave respondents another chance by showing two pictures of coffee shops, one at a time. This time, the two shops were located in Chicago and San Francisco – again, places that pride themselves on their unique and recognizable design culture. They were now given the choice of these key cities to select from, as well as three wrong cities. Only 6% successfully located both coffee shops, and nearly 20% immediately gave up.
As one participant conceded: “Honestly, these aesthetics are very transferable now … they were random guesses and they could have been in any of the cities mentioned.”
In other words, independent coffee shops in North America have become so similar aesthetically that their location cannot be picked from a lineup. The purportedly unique and local feel of coffee shops has instead been homogenized into a singular, palatable, North American aesthetic.
Ironically, these shops have narrowed their aesthetics like a de facto brand franchise – exactly like the chain stores that their patrons ostensibly reject.
New Yorker cultural critic Kyle Chayka has attributed aesthetic homogenization to popular social media platforms like Instagram. He calls it the “tyranny of the algorithm”: Social media algorithms promote the visuals that users are most likely to engage with. This, in turn, causes the same types of visuals to be liked and shared, since users encounter them more often. Because the algorithm sees they’re popular, it continues to promote them, in a self-reinforcing cycle. In turn, coffee shop owners also see these online images and try to replicate them in their own establishments.
Artificial intelligence will likely accelerate the digital homogenization of visual culture, since AI models are trained on massive datasets that feature widely circulated images. Whether it’s popular fashion, architecture or interior design, idiosyncrasies are collapsing into a generic, hegemonic aesthetic – what scholars Roland Meyer and Jacob Birken call “platform realism.”
Finance plays a role as well. With the average cost of starting a new coffee shop between US$80,000 and $300,000, and with only a small share of coffee shops expected to stay open beyond five years, banks are keen to reduce their risk. Many of them will therefore ask aspiring coffee shop owners to opt for cheaper interior design choices that appeal to the broadest customer base.
The consumer also plays a role
But patrons of hip coffee shops may also be to blame.
Decades before the rise of social media, AI and financial risk management, scholars such as Sharon Zukin revealed how young urban professionals paradoxically embrace the homogenization of their environment in their quest for authenticity.
Those exposed brick walls? Zukin already described how Manhattan real estate brokers had marketed them to gentrifying SoHo yuppies in the early 1980s.
Like their predecessors, today’s hipsters, creative professionals and knowledge workers are essentially cultural and aesthetic consumers. Many of them crave visuals – from fashion to architecture – that are different enough to feel cool and authentic, yet safe enough to match their lifestyle and their social status. They want a tasty latte as much as a palatable interior to drink it in.
Businesses and developers are eager to appeal to these upwardly mobile consumers. At the same time, they want to reach the biggest number of customers. So they tend to create repeatable, homogenized environments in what Zukin describes as a “symbolic economy.”
In coffee shops, patrons want more than a good espresso. They want to immerse themselves in a “scene” that matches their lifestyle and aspirations. And the exposed brick and the vintage furniture do just that – even if they’ve been copy-and-pasted in cities, small and large, across the nation.
As we chase authenticity, we may just be finding comfort in carefully curated conformity.
