There is a choreography to being alone in public now. Earbuds in. Phone out. Eyes down. If there is a four-minute wait, we can fill all four minutes without once looking around.
The tools that protect us from awkwardness also protect us from accident — the unplanned conversation, the strange recommendation, the person we would never have met on purpose.
Small talk is not the enemy. It is usually doing a job. “How do you know everyone here?” is not meant to reveal the soul. It is a doorway.
The real problem is when nobody walks through it. A conversation becomes interesting when someone risks the second question: What are you working on? becomes Why did you choose that? Where are you from? becomes What do you miss about it?
A stranger is not a category of person. It is usually a temporary condition.
Maybe we do not need to become people who chat with everyone everywhere. We just need to stop treating every unplanned interaction as an interruption.