Don’t forget how lonely people are now. There’s an initial ‘weird guy’ thing one has to get over when talking with someone unexpectedly here in the US.
“Hey, I like the style of that jacket, can I ask where you got it?” People are morose about how alone they feel, but struggle to escape the “rugged individualism” programming of this country, to where they default to feeling safer by shrinking back for a second, before realizing they can, and do, have space to honestly interact with someone else who doesn’t actually want something from them. Well, other than pleasant acknowledgement of our short existence at the same place and time.