The point of the story was that she wasn't actually imposing. It's just that the kid she told off was acting like he was representing the other 30 people. The rest of them were probably either indifferent or were entertained by her which is how most people are when you actually talk to them like human beings.

Setting the standard that telling people about your day or telling them about yourself is "imposing" is exactly the kind of thinking that's producing our society where nobody ever has a real conversation unless it's via introduction by a third party and an app first.

This is why when I go out in general (I've lived in Boston, NYC and now Jakarta), I've just wore my head phones. I'm a somewhat tall-ish black guy, so people don't usually want to have a random conversation with me, and if they do (or anyone else is particularly loud about something I could care less about) I can choose to ignore or (dis)engage more easily with an acceptable excuse without becoming annoyed.

>Setting the standard that telling people about your day or telling them about yourself is "imposing" is exactly the kind of thinking that's producing our society where nobody ever has a real conversation unless it's via introduction by a third party and an app first.

Does "real conversation" have to happen in any particular medium, or is it the case that some prefer other mediums for "real conversation" over others?

That is a good question; I will admit that for many people, online conversations are much more meaningful and comfortable than ones "in the flesh". But what I personally like about real conversations (as opposed to virtual) is essentially that you communicate a lot of things i.e. its both verbal and non-verbal. So I think real conversations make more sense to me in only that I understand another human being a lot better than if it were just text on a screen.

Also, real conversations can lead to real friendships and such; I've found that hard to do virtually.