I used to value a random encounter with a stranger. Now, the median person is likely to be 1. Disturbed, 2. Obsessed with politics, 3. Belligerent for no reason, 4. Ready to whip out their phone camera looking for “content” or 5. Generally offended/Scared of the idea of talking to a random stranger. The last 3 or so years have turned America into a giant mental asylum and it’s starting to be not worth it to talk to a rando.

I live in an area where people will talk to you as you're walking by. In my experience, no, the median person is not Disturbed, obsessed with politics, belligerent or filming.

I do agree that the last point is true - but see OP's message. I don't want to talk to you in the grocery store. If I'm standing there with Earbuds in, and you make Smalltalk with me, don't be surprised if I totally blank you or seen confused.

maybe it's a genuine human-to-human interaction which helps healing these...

Small talk isn't one of these, however. "Third spaces" (guided meeting place that's relatively loose and not work or home) are sorely missing because running one is not very profitable.

By the way, pubs aren't one of those really, as they're too unstructured.

"Third spaces" don't have to be (and preferably aren't) commercial spaces where monetization is expected.

> pubs aren't one of those really, as they're too unstructured.

I'm not sure what you mean by "third spaces", then.

They mean church.

> The last 3 or so years have turned America into a giant mental asylum and it’s starting to be not worth it to talk to a rando.

It's more than the past 3 years. People really started coming unhinged in late 2016, by my observations. But the trend has been increasing for a while, and I'm willing to point a pretty sharp finger at the various social media, news, etc companies who are enabled in their "pour liquid oxygen on the fires of division for stoking outrage in the pursuit of more ad views" by things like the smart phone - because now someone is connected 24/7, by default.

Host firepit nights and invite people. I've yet to find a better solution to getting good actual conversations going than to have regular firepit nights (right now, I have one a week, and would like to get another few per month going this summer with different groups of people). Yes, some people will look at you like you're nuts, and others will turn into solid friends.

Fundamentally, I don't think we're going to fix the problems of smartphones and consumer tech (in the general "surveillance capitalism" sense) with more of that stuff.

I loathe air pods/wireless ear buds more than phones...

I'd love to have phone / no phone sections ( or chat / no chat ) in places like subways, airports, etc. I love taking to random people but don't want to bother then if they don't want to talk.

Having kids helps inasmuch as my eldest will talk to every kid she sees and that usually means at least a hello to the parent.

When visiting London I noticed they have something called a "happy to chat bench", which you're supposed to sit on if you don't mind someone trying to strike up a conversation with you. I'm not a resident, so I'm not sure how useful they are in practice, but I found the concept interesting.

Have those ever existed though, really? I used to take a long bus or train most weekends, before smartphones were everywhere, and the vast majority of people were using earphones or reading - not talking to strangers.

It depends on where you are. I found that older people in Ireland (not ancient, just didn't grow up with phones) were often very happy to chat on the bus. Now I'm in the Netherlands and most of my chance interactions lately come from talking to other parents while my kids play in the street or playground.

Funny enough I was at a playground a few weeks ago and my kids envied another kid's sled, they talked and the other kid was happy to share, and I talked to the dad who had also moved here from Ireland and even had similar interests (Green party member, etc.). Sure, usually it's a pleasant hello and then not much, but sometimes you meet people you get on with really well. I don't think that would have happened if I had just been sitting on the bench looking at my phone while my kids played.

That weekly bus/train was in Ireland, funnily enough.

> most of my chance interactions lately come from talking to other parents while my kids play in the street or playground.

I think there's a signal here that's the difference. If I'm on a bus, I probably don't want to talk to anyone. Similarly, if I'm in a grocery store, I don't want to talk to someone in the baking aisle, I just want sugar. But if I'm out with my kid/dog, I know that's an inherently more sociable situation that may end in an interaction.

> Sure, usually it's a pleasant hello and then not much, but sometimes you meet people you get on with really well.

I've a dog and live in Edinburgh, I've found that the people I get on with are people I see repeatedly. Neither of us made the effort the first time, but after 2 weeks of seeing each other every morning at 8:30 in the rain and the dogs saying hello to each other, you can end up talking. I immediately have more in common with this person than going to the same destination as them, for example!

I did long train journeys weekly between 25 and 15 years ago, approximately. I've chatted with a lot of people, and had quite some interesting discussions.

Of course people were reading, and/or wearing headphones (mostly younger people), but not all of them. And many were open to conversation even though. Sometimes you read a book to pass the time, but you can be as well interested to a random exchange with a stranger. I was also reading in the train and often wearing headphones, but that didn't prevent conversations from happening. I think that people were less taking book-or-headphones as a signal that you don't want to be disturbed. The experience could also be relatively different depending on what the train population is (e.g. whether the train is filled with tired commuting people or with people coming back from a week-end break).

I'm not taking the train as much recently, but people are clearly more isolated into their smartphones now. And have to say, sometimes discussions still do happen.

I once encountered a psychopath like that, lol.

Strange, my interaction with strangers is always either robbers or beggars or Mormons, I'd rather keep clear.