Wow, this is incredible. You just proved that connection is 90% attitude, 10% history. You became friends because you acted like friends. Sometimes not knowing the "rules" is the superpower.

That's the secret with kids.

The "rules" don't really start, until we get older.

I grew up overseas (from where I am now -for some of you, it's probably home).

Most of my playmates were drastically different from me.

I've seen videos where adults try to act like children and even there where they're trying really hard they'll get it hilariously wrong.

A great example is that little children have no protocol, they won't walk up to someone and say things like hi, how are you, how's the weather, etc.

Instead they'll just walk up and either stay mute, or just talk directly about what's currently happening, without any introduction or pre-amble.

Now I want a college study about middle aged adults going up to people and saying “we’re playing pirates now!”

Or they would have been friends anyway and it was just a coincidence.

My coping mechanism for interacting with people who approach me is: 1. Act friendly and open when they start talking to me; 2. centre the questions on them, hoping that they reveal information that might clue me in on who they are. It's only in recent years that I've learned step 3: if I haven't recognised them in the first 10-20 seconds, mention that I'm face blind (usually as an apology) and ask them who they are. Most times that is enough to stop the encounter turning sour.

My coping mechanism for approaching a person I think I might know (usually in spaces where I wouldn't expect to encounter them) is: don't. At least not immediately. Rather, watch and observe (if possible) to see if the voice/gestures/body positions/etc firm up enough to bring the certainty levels up and the risk levels down.

I think I'd make a good spy, if only I didn't suffer from this face blindness nonsense.

I'm deaf-blind (as in, totally blind with cochlear implants) and a lot of what you're saying reminds me of myself. Any time I encounter someone new, I usually tell them right off the bat that I have major hearing loss, because it's like 95% certain that I'm going to mishear something they say and respond with something that doesn't make sense, and I figure that's the best way to try and avoid confusion. It's much worse if there's even a bit of background noise or echo, and more often than not I can't even tell someone is talking to me unless they go out of their way to get my attention, or we're the only people present. Totally relate to the 'asking questions to figure out who people are' thing, especially now; with the implants it's even harder to distinguish voices than it was with natural hearing. This has caused me to develop crazy social anxiety over the years, and I'm reading this thread with interest. Apologies if you didn't care to read all that, but I find odd social dynamics like ours super fascinating, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of info online about coping, or maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.