Maybe most of your interactions with strangers are commercial interactions. So, invert that: become the 'host' for something related to your interests, that is free.
Interesting. Can you elaborate on "become the 'host'"? Maybe a concrete example would help me understand what you mean
Start a meetup, a book club, trivia night, fishing club, hiking group, Saturday morning reverse engineering coffee chats, etc. Basically the mantra “build it and they will come”