I am notorious for choosing to share my feelings with random strangers. Sometimes your secrets are just too juicy, or perhaps your friends are all tired of you complaining about the same bad boy that you’ve dated for the past two years and are now on you 2653253243th breakup. When I find myself with a mind full of thoughts, with no where to put them, the first place I’m going to is the cab, for 15 minutes of more.
The minute I get into a cab, I’m assessing the situation:
1. Who is my driver
2. What is the situation around his car
3. How old is he? Does he have kids? Is he angry? Will I make him angry?
4. What is his story? What can he add to my story?
From here, I lay it all out on the line. With a cab driver, you can really dive into the juicy details (the ones you cannot share with your mom, conservative bestie or even with your own astrologer- you have a reputation to keep up with). If you are lucky, your cab driver is a 50 or 60 year old Greek, Indian or Eastern European man (Russian is my personal favorite). They’ll listen carefully (they’re bored) and then give you some old school traditional life advice, which is probably the exact opposite of whatever your friends are telling you. It’s a fresh new perspective and they never judge if you start to cry.
FYI: from time to time, you will need to pay it back. I do this by bringing extra pizza to them from functions in the lobby of my high rise, or lending an ear myself. I once sat in cab for 30 minutes with an especially disturbed new cab-driver friend.
Give it a try and bare your soul to your cab driver. The worst that can happen is the chance to look through a book of old photographs they keep in the front seat, some deeper insight into your zodiac sign or, when you really need it, a free pass when your credit card doesn’t scan.