I shivered, not from the cold but from the creepiness. Funny how long one elevator takes to climb two floors. The guy planted his sneakers six feet away on the beige tile floor, rested his right hand on the convenient shelf of his protruding belly, and stared at a quarter-sheet of paper clutched between his sausage-like fingers. I feared his eyes would bore holes in my head if his gaze met mine.

Incredibly, his I-must-keep-my-personal-space body language acknowledged me more fully than a simple “hello.” The only problem was that the silent treatment confronted me with hostility. Forty-eight seconds later, the soft “ding” of the elevator sounded, the doors slid open, and I was a captive set free.

Last time I stood in an elevator with a middle-aged man, the experience was very different. We stood six inches apart, talking theology for four floors. When the elevator stopped, we disembarked and kept conversing until I bid him “Shalom” at the bus stop. Oh yeah, did I forget mention the conversation was in Hebrew?

My La Mirada elevator experience is only one example of unexpectedly unnerving interactions upon returning to Biola for senior year after 10 weeks in Israel. This familiar campus with its familiar faces and familiar ways now seems out of place and foreign to my culture shocked spirit.

Overseas, I acclimated to the communitarian culture where the obscenely made up grocery store clerk, the elderly Mr-Gower-type druggist, the girl who bags challah, the downstairs neighbor who noisily plays the piano at 3 a.m., the Orthodox bus driver and even the Arab elevator men all ask questions like:

• What are you doing here?
• How old are you?
• What do you study—and why?
• Do you have a boyfriend?
• Which is your favorite trail in the Golan Heights?
• What do you think about the riots in Jerusalem?

Even if the conversations grew hostile, we discussed meaningful things in meaningful ways. We acknowledged one another’s humanity and dignity by disputing Benjamin Netanyahu’s politics or the deceased Menachem Mendel Schneerson and whether he is really the messiah.

I learned the merit of verbally expressing antagonism as well as the courtesy of legitimately offering arguments. The Israeli way is to talk. And, at the end, bid each other peace.

I found that I liked it. Diving into deep things, probing into others’ lives.

Here in the States, depending on which coast or region you call home, we espouse a mostly opposite approach to strangers – closed mouths and closed ears. We value personal space so dearly that we are rude in public, to put it quite simply. We prize freedom to think as we wish, but we seldom risk the vulnerability to openly debate our ideas with others. We make value judgments without taking the time to encroach on their personal space long enough to uncover what’s inside their bubble.

We’d rather keep a stranger than make a new friend – or enemy.

As a result, we end up suffering separately, acting autonomously. Newlyweds want to keep their own “guy” time and money or “girl” time and money. Longtime couples quarrel about which show to watch on TV and buy two LCD screens. Close “friends” are afraid of offending their other “friends” by offering alternate points of view on birth control, dispensationalism, beauty, universal health care and more. We tiptoe around issues to maintain a relationship.

Years of ostracizing our hearts, our souls and our minds have immersed our bodies in an ocean of lonely people.

“Lonely people…may want to go out and make friends,” says Louise Hawkley, a research associate at the University of Chicago Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. “Yet they have a nagging lack of trust with whomever they want to interact with, or they may feel hostile. So they end up behaving in ways that force the potential partner away.”

In a 2007 report published in the journal “Psychology and Aging,” social psychologist and doctor John Cacioppo writes “Lonely people…perceive stressful circumstances as threatening rather than challenging. They passively cope with stress by failing to solicit instrumental and emotional support and by withdrawing from stress rather than by actively coping and attempting to problem solve.”

Time to stop being isolated icebergs. Let your hair down. Get in my face. And I’ll care enough to do the same for you.