Well said!
I remember growing up in Athens Greece, before cell phones, you would just leave your house go to the local city square and just find other kids hanging out and you would spend hours there.
If you would bump into somebody you did not know, it was easy to just talk to them and get to know each other, probably you would bump into them again at some point and sooner or later you would form a friendship, sometimes even a romantic relationship. Things where more innocent let's say.
Now that I'm thinking about it, one of my ex-girlfriends in high school, we actually met when I was hiding in a large cardboard box next to a trash can and waiting for somebody to come and I would just up and start chasing them with the box covering my whole body. Picture a box with two little feet chasing you down the street. We where kids, it was funny. Anyways, that's how I met her, she was an innocent victim of my prank that we then became friends, which later turned into more than friends.
But... Slowly things progressively changed, now 20 years have passed and I live in the US. And I honestly think some people are suffering from (what I call) social constipation. A lot of people live though there phones, some are so bad that human eye contact makes them uncomfortable. Well, call me old-fashioned, but feeling awkward with eye contact is not something healthy as I see it.
Another thing that annoys me a bit, is some men that sexualise every encounter with a woman, these men usually have only guys for friends, girls are for fucking. Then the girls get all suspicious and guarded and even kind of bitchy at times. So now everybody is rushing to call a stranger a weirdo, not saying that there are no weirdos out there, I've met plenty of them. But I try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt.
(Ok I'm ranting now, but one more thing to mention.)
As people get more isolated and blinded by there own perspective and see the world through a smartphone, even when there meet and start a conversation, they tend to talk over each other and not really listen to each other. Like everybody is just waiting for the other person's lips to shut and then they can say want they want, but not listen to what the other person is saying. Noticing this I try to ask questions and listen to there answers and value people that ask questions from me. (except the insane nosey ones that don't stop asking questions.)
Anyways, my main point I think is to just say, that there are a lot of unique and interesting people out there and if we let our guard down and start talking to strangers that we encounter we have much more to gain and learn from each other than we think. Basically, we all have much in common, our backgrounds and culture can be different but we are all alive, so... we can all talk about life and how it is to live. And those conversations are the most interesting to me, the ones that start with the basic understanding that we are all in the same boat but experiencing the ride differently, and have much to learn from one another.
Thanks for the article. And continue interacting with the world with curiosity as your main intention (not getting laid, that should be the bonus. ;)
Shit now I saw how long my rant was, sorry about that. Lol
Alex @namazu

PS. I was reading other replies on this post... and wanted to ask... You live in Richmond?