That was considered normal behavior for most of human history.

I'm a dude though, the circumstances aren't the same, lol.

But I have, actually, many times. Especially in uni and highschool, I'd be the one to approach the quiet kid cause I just wasn't comfortable with them feeling excluded. I made a really good friend in uni that way, a quiet, very clever and responsible ginger dude (in a country of brown people, he was basically a mythological being, lol) I ended up spending many of my afternoons with, just yapping and toking our late teens away. 🙏

Yes, this is how life was before internet. We made friends and talked to people who didn't look up at you bug eyed from 24/7 tik Tok content if you talked to them.

Young folks are really going to have a tough go of human social interaction. No wonder depression is at an all time high.

Yes, I do it all the time. Yesterday I greeted a guy in my buildings elevator and commented on the Nat Geo logo on his jacket.

I then learned he was one of many project managers working on National Geographic Museum about to open in DC.

So now i stoked to check out the museum when it opens this summer.

Congrats. Modern society has neutered us to the point where doing something this natural feels exceptionally daring. Of course, there's also those of us who are introverted, for whom walking up to a stranger is a genuine challenge.

How did it feel ? how freeing ?

I'm guessing you're young? This is exactly how people have met new people for literally millennia. It's only the decade or so that it became problematic. I'm glad you were able to figure it out and take the leap. May you find many new rewarding relationships, short and long term. So long as you respect anyone saying no to your overture, you'll probably find many people are happy to have someone else take the first step.

I struggle to strike up a conversation with people I already know

I can and I do, often when I find people speaking Spanish! (I'm in Australia, I speak a bit of Spanish, and it's uncommon in Australia)

I think if I did that in my country I'd be carted off to a mental asylum for doing something insane

Talking to a random stranger in an environment where random talk is possible yes. (Bus, waiting room, concert, bar, basically anywhere public).
Going to stranger's s table at a restaurant (not fast food, or shoulder to shoulder) nope.

I wouldn’t but I think it depends on the culture. In Morocco people would just start chatting to people in the car next to them while they were waiting at traffic lights. They would just chat to everyone.

Yes. And I hate that it's so hard to do now. My generation will always have a phone and earbuds in, and then complain that it's hard to meet people.

I've gotten in an elevator with people my age and received awkward looks and silence when I make even a small comment.

Uh yeah this is kind of the human experience

Pretty normal to just have a chat with someone when you're both out doing the same thing, when I go mountain biking for example I'll often have a chat with someone at the summit or a trail junction.

I'd like to but I'm scared of people. I also feel like i'm bothering people.

No, never. I'm too introverted for that.

I talk to the old people at the bus stop while we wait, when My autism is being easy

I've always worked in retail and sales, and have even owned retail shops, so I long ago got comfortable with chatting with strangers.

I once went to a big dinner party with a couple of friends, where none of us knew anyone else at the party.

We sat together, but I barely said a word to my friends. I spent most of my time speaking with people I didn't already know. As we were walking home, one of my friends asked "How do you do that? Just talk to people like that?"

I hadn't really thought of it before, but all I do is Be Honest. If I know about a subject, I will say it, and even debate it if I have to. But more importantly, if I DON'T know about a subject, I don't pretend to know stuff, and try to fake it. That only makes you look like a doofus. There is no shame in admitting you don't know much about something, but you are curious, and then ask questions, and then follow up questions, so they see that you are really trying to understand, and you are counting on them to teach you. People really appreciate that attitude, especially when it's genuine.

Even more importantly, I try to avoid subjects I already know about, and can expound upon at length, and try to learn about something new. Someone has an interesting job that I've never experienced? Let's learn about that.

It's especially effective if I've done both - asked questions about things I don't know about, while also speaking definitively about things I do know about. Then people realize that you are smart, but also a genuinely curious person, who isn't just trying to look important by being a phony.

Don't be like my dummy uncle, who always has to prove to everybody that he knows more about their job than they do, no matter how educated and experienced they are, and always invents some story where he saved the day, or told off someone in authority. {sigh}

Shocking what can happen when humanity put down the phone and meet people in real life. Wish this normal behavior will be more commonplace like it used to be. 

I remember some years ago I was traveling in a city that I didn’t know and I heard two people in front of me talking passionately about Game of Thrones. We happened to be on the same path, so I just heard the conversation for a bit before I decided to join or not.

They sounded like good friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. They’d jump back and forth from GoT to very basic questions like “Hey, speaking of brothers, is your brother still dating her?”

Who would wanna spoil that beautiful moment by interrupting it? Moi ✌️😎 Why? I was alone in the city, they seemed cool, and I’d leave them alone if it felt awkward.

It turned out to be alright, because I had GoT fresh in my mind and because my very basic questions about them were also a way for them to catch up.

We walked and talked for hours, before I decided I’d leave them to do their thing.

When I look back to that memory, I’m glad I decided to join them.

Most normal experience of life before 2005-2010ish.

The real old school version would have you both become pen pals and mail each other letters a few times a year for decades until one is you died or moves.

There are a lot of cultures where seating in public is ad hoc, you just sit wherever, you generally don't claim a table or area to yourself. In those situations greetings and socialization are pretty normal.

I remember going out to eat fast food with a girl and her kid a decade ago and some homeless guy asked if he could sit with us. I said sure, and he was a nice maybe 50 year old guy. He had clearly been around kids and enjoyed the normalcy of just hanging out with the three of us for 30min. The kid didn't mind, but the girl I was dating thought it really weird.

Lol my mom does this alot... especially with other Chinese Diasporas...

I mostly just keep quiet...

I mean in K-12 School, I sometimes did that... like those in the same class or sitting in the same lunch table, like there's the common thing of "oh we're both in this shitty situation together", and again, usually those who look Asian, I'd feel more comfortable talking to... idk why... Pan-Asian solitarity vibes maybe?

Out in the adult world? Oh jeez that sounds like it's gonna trigger my social battery to implode.

That said, I think I have Outside-world-phobia...

Yes. Have done so several times, and have had people come up and talk to me out of the blue as well. Sometimes it has gone well. I've had a few good conversations with random people on long distance transport (planes, trains, and such) when I struck up conversations with whoever ended up in the seat next to me, and a few times (more rarely) in grocery stores when I'm having trouble finding something (or vice versa). e.g. got asked about uses for unusual ingredients I was having trouble finding and traded some recipe tips.

Usually when other people come up to me they just want me to give them money, or join their religion though.

I remember seeing an amazingly visualised website that was showing a result of an experiment that made people talk with strangers, and it had mostly positive result for most participants, even if they felt uncomfortable or scared at the beginning, and it had gopd results even if people with differenting opinions about i.e politics talked. Unfortunately I can't seem to find it again.

I don't know if it was part of the same research, but there was also a part where they had people talk to strangers on a bus ride, and it also went well in most cases.

Sp, talking to strangers is mostly recommended and should be mostly positive, at least statiatically speaking.

For sure. Especially when travelling. I've gotten into some neat cultural experiences like that.

Last summer I told someone I wanted to talk to them ‘face-to-face’ and he asked me if that was an app :(

Hope your meet goes well.

I've lost the art of spontaneous conversation over time. Although I can certainly hold my own if I'm the one being approached.

Being male and having lived through Slavic and Western cultures... well, no, it was never about those pigeonholes. It's the world changing behind the scenes, growing more insular and silent as we live beyond this physical realm, heads down and choosing the worlds we want to explore, safe within the comfort of the screens.

But stories are written and friends are made each time I choose to raise my head and look around and just try something. I hope to be brave enough to make that choice more often.

In my experience, Asian people are sometimes surprised that non-Asains know certain things about their culture, and are happy to share parts of their culture with someone new.

Probably not, sounds terrifying.

Do it all the time. Are you in line with me waiting to check out at a store, or anywhere really? We talkin'.

As as an introvert, definitely no. However, when I have an objective, I realize this would be my only method.

Yes. Goodbye

I'm a introverted Finn. So... nope.

I live in a rural area and I regularly talk to people on my walk. For me they are strangers but apparently I talk to a lot the them regularly. I don't remember faces/names easily so often they address me like a friend and I am clueless.

Not with the intent to strike up a conversation, but rather to be helpful. Like I might take the initiative to help offer directions or translation, etc. Or I might notice someone hmming and hawing and say, “Get the steak. The quality here is excellent😉.” But it’s not like I’m expecting a conversation lol. Honestly I can do friendly conversations, but I find them a bit like work😅

Having kids has made random conversations somewhat frequent for me.

No. Never had that drive or reason that would push me to go talk with random strangers. I'm completely fine being on my own.

Honestly i really like that social media stopped or at least significantly reduced others doing it as well, it was always kinda annoying.

That’s how you make new friends!

No, never. But if you walk up to me that’s probably okay.

A budding bromance :)

I mean im a guy so yeah as nerdy as I am, in my youth, I would walk up to women I found attractive and talk to them. Generally by just saying I found them attractive. It kinda sucks actually. Strike up a co-located person though like in a grocery line or at a bus stop. All the time. Well not as much now that people are on their phones.

No. I barely talk to people I know and like. I think it's great for those who do (as long as they take a moment to read the room and see if the person they're approaching isn't obviously signaling they do not want people approaching them, such as having on headphones). I do not like to chat face to face.

every time this happens to me it is a gay man who is hoping to become intimate

Sometimes. I dont push for it, but am always open to conversations that arise organically

If you did that to a Swiss person, they might be weirded out a bit, but I personally think it's a cool thing to do!

Definitely has happened but not often. It's a lot easier if there's a common ground to start at though.

Huh. Well this is either a sad commentary on the world for young adults or the result of an incel pretending to be the horniest girl in Switzerland.

If you're real your parents sheltered you far too much. Kinda explains the hyper sexuality though... Hmmm. Good luck on your adventure of self discovery Swiss girl from Archer. Check out Amsterdam. And university, this is how you're going to make friends there.

I came really close last week. Wife and I were on vacation and went to the aquarium, and an old guy was wearing a, "I through hiked the Appalachian Trail," shirt.

Since it's on my bucket list I wanted to ask him about it, but he was at the dolphin show with his family and I didn't want to see it and be sad.

Yeah it's not like I do it all the time, but I do it from time to time. It's a skill that I think is worth learning

Yes and I have done it a good bit back in the US. Striking up a conversation with a total stranger is a bit frowned upon in the part of Europe where I live now... so I won't

I would and do and it's no small part of my job besides.

Never because I know somebody doing so to me would stress me out beyond belief so I wouldn't do it to others.