Perfect strangers

Watching a popular television program the other day, (which features prominent business folks in disguise to gain better insight into their companies), I noticed something.  The employees, who had never before met the new "trainees", felt comfortable sharing intimate details of their lives, things that most likely their coworkers would never have guessed. Why do people feel comfortable sharing with strangers? Ask any cab driver (backseat confessional anyone?) , hairdresser or bartender and they'll tell you, they have the secrets of the universe. Perhaps we feel it's okay to tell our whole truth to someone who doesn't know us well enough to judge us. To allow someone a peek at our psyche in the hopes of gaining a fresh perspective from a being like us but not intertwined with us.  Maybe recognizing this common practice can help us evaluate why don't we feel as free to share with those we know deepest, and if we don't feel comfortable to confide in our "friends", are they not in the honest sense the real strangers?