So your proposal is to start an ad hoc friend group with people who come up to me, and try to become friends with them personally?

I'm not sure I'm the right person for that. I live in a suburb, not the city that I do the surveys in. And I'm extraordinarily boring, and too old.

It seems that I should try to think bigger. Try to find a way to help these people connect with each other. Something in person, not an app like Hinge. Maybe, hold a sign that says ad hoc meet and greet at such and such time and place, after collecting a list of common interests and putting those interests on the same sign that says the time and date. That could work.