People are so nice here, what if i were a stranger on the street...?

Question:

People are so nice here, what if i were a stranger on the street...?

would you all still answer my questions? would it be different? what if I had long hair (as I do), what if I were black. just curious, don't hate me

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

I definitely think that it's different here because this is a forum for asking and answering questions. It's what people expect, and people come here specifically for the purpose of asking and answering questions. If you were to just walk up to someone randomly at a bus stop and say anything besides a general comment about the weather or when the next bus comes, you would probably get a weird look. For example, if you just walked up to a random and said "Do you believe in God?" or told them you life story followed by "Do you think I might be pregnant?", most would think you're a bit eccentric at best. It's not regular social convention to just walk up to someone and ask those sorts of things. That's why Yahoo! Answers is so popular. You have access to lots of answers from all kinds of people that you might not be able to get anywhere else.

Now personally, if someone were to come up to me and ask a random question, I'd be a bit surprised, but I'd still answer it if I could. I hope that I wouldn't be adverse to striking up a conversation, either.

How I react to a person's appearance really depends on context, I think. In all honesty, if you decided to talk to me in a public place with lots of people around, I'd be fine. But if I was walking by myself and it was starting to get dark and you tried that - I'd get a little nervous. Mind you, I think that would apply to any guy, long hair or not. It's an unfortunate consequence of the fact that there are some people you can't trust. Another reason why Yahoo! Answers is great - it's relatively anonymous, so you can ask what you want without fearing that it'll come back to haunt you, or without worrying that the people that you are talking to are going to turn into weirdo stalkers. That only holds true if you use common sense rules when using the Internet, though.