“One of the great things about speaking to strangers is that you then have to acknowledge that person as a human and an individual in a way that you might not otherwise have done if you didn’t interact with them,” explains Stark, whose TED talk, Why You Should Talk To Strangers, has been watched more than one million times. “The more we speak to people different to us, the more we empathise and the more connections we create.”

Bridging the gaps we’ve forged in society could also help to cure the pervasive loneliness seeping through our generation. According to a survey by The Mental Health Foundation, loneliness is more likely to affect 18 to 34-year-olds than those over 55, and a recent report found that isolation is experiencing something of a commodification. In LA, new businesses are springing up for the lonely – you can employ walkers for companionship and ‘Rent-A-Friend’ to go to the cinema or to dinner. To me it seems ludicrous to pay to spend time with a complete stranger, when they’re all around us in our everyday lives.

Personally speaking, the lack of judgment and acceptance I have found in interactions with strangers has been a saviour. A few years ago, after moving to London from Newcastle, I developed a social anxiety so severe that, at its height, I walked into a pub one evening, walked out two seconds later and subsequently barely left the house for almost three weeks. I hadn’t spoken to a stranger at the bar, but I saw someone look my way and in my mind – a tangled ball of woollen thoughts – I interpreted that I didn’t fit in there, in a grotty little pub in East London. And then I convinced myself I didn’t really fit anywhere.

Let go of the fear

Over the next few months of regular Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to tackle my fear of social interaction, my thoughts slowly unknotted until there was space between the threads. I dropped the habits – shutting down communication, exiting conversations unexpectedly as I felt panic rising – that I had developed. And I found that, gradually, I could speak without feeling terrified of the repercussions – of the judgment I feared when I revealed myself, however slightly – again.

The (chatty) girl on the train: Zoe Beaty explains why she's happy to talk to strangers