When Sarah Rudinoff found herself at the funeral of an acquaintance whom she mostly knew through the internet, she realized she had made a mistake. She had cast sweeping judgments about this person based on their online persona and dismissed them as someone who was not worth the effort of truly getting to know. But as she listened to the eulogies given by their close friends, by the love overflowing from their words, Rudinoff was forced to confront the fact that she had given nothing to someone who had deserved a great deal more.

Part of the fun of lugging total strangers to On the Boards is that I get a dual surprise: I never know what to expect of either the show OR the person I'm about to meet. Awren Schwartz, my stranger for Dana Michel's Yellow Towel, did something awesomely unexpected and arrived at our platonic date with presents.

Bart Ramsey, my date with a stranger for Rabih Mroué's Riding on a Cloud, made a New Year's resolution to more deeply engage with the arts. In the past, he's “been to a few operas and seen the Nutcracker,” but recently, he's been wanting to explore and support more non-mainstream work. “I don't have to live in my insular little bubble,” he tells me. “I've got a lot of anxiety, but I'm ok with being challenged.”

My third date with a stranger almost didn't happen.

When Marley Blonsky told me that she was “the least artistic person ever,” I mentally tented my fingers into an evil-genius pose and cackled with (silent) maniacal glee. In my ongoing social experiment to bring performance art virgins to On the Boards for the first time, Marley was precisely the participant I was looking for. She may have started the night never having seen performance art, but she left saying “I will forever associate the junior queer prom with Ted Nugent.” Clearly, progress was made.

Before sitting down for a drink in the lobby, the only thing I knew about Jarvi Kononen was that he had never been to an On the Boards performance. As part of the OtB Ambassadors Program, I am taking my role as the liaison to a foreign country literally and am using my +1's to bring strangers to On the Boards for the very first time. Like the older cousin who passes you that first joint, I'm interested in exposing people to something that might not be their cup of tea, but just might end up changing the way they look at the world.