My parents talked to me about not trusting strangers.  I was told, like every other kid, not to talk to strangers even if they act nice.  ‘Stranger’ can be difficult term to completely understand, which is probably why I made this mistake.  After all, how much of a connection can you have with another person until they’re out of the ‘stranger zone’? 

When I was ten I was playing at my neighbor’s, Meredith, house.  I went over there a lot and she was really the only person I knew on the street.  She had lived there her whole life and, unlike me, knew most of the neighbors.  We were bored one day and decided to go on a walk when we found a girl named who was our age.  Meredith knew her from school, but wasn’t close to her like how Meredith and I were close.  Meredith had been to the girl's house before, though, and asked her if we could go to her house. 

I was a bit panicked by this.  I knew I shouldn’t really talk to strangers, never mind going into someone’s house that I didn’t know.  I thought about this.  This was a girl my age, she couldn’t be dangerous.  I also thought that her parents can’t be bad because they have kids.  Parents aren’t bad, right?  That’s what my inexperienced mind thought.  I came to the conclusion that it would be fine and followed Meredith into the house. 

I met her mother when we walked in. She was nice and offered us some food.  Meredith and I both said we weren’t hungry, but thanked her anyway.  The girl naturally wanted to bring us to her room.  On the way upstairs I met her father.  I introduced myself and shook his hand.  We talked small-talk a little bit and after a while he went downstairs. 

When Meredith and I left I couldn’t get a nervous knot out of my stomach.  Her parents seemed friendly, mainly I had the knot because I wasn’t quite sure what my parents would think about me going into a stranger’s house.  I thought some more on the way home and managed to smooth the knot a bit by telling myself that they weren’t really strangers because Meredith knew them.

I got home and told my mom about my time.  She was not happy, at all, about my going into someone’s house that she didn’t know.  I tried my best to reassure her and tell her how nice they had been.  She wouldn’t let it go and decided to Google the parents.  I was sure she wouldn’t find anything bad about them.  She found out that the dad had stolen thousands of dollars from a local private school.  I don’t think I got punished, but I was told to never go there again.

That was one of my first issues with strangers and the one that has influenced me the most.  I think I really had to learn from experience that you can’t trust strangers, just having my family tell me not to wasn’t enough.  Not only did this experience make me sure not to trust strangers, but I’ve also been able to use this knowledge in other stranger situations.  Knowing this has made me much more aware of the situations I’m in and the people I’m surrounding myself with.