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Comment by bsenftner | Hacker News Reader

A lot of seemingly casual interactions in the US turn out to be someone trying to sell something. When that happens a 3rd time, you start to ignore random chatter from someone that seems too friendly. The salesperson tactics abuse common social conversation rules, and one ends up feeling like they are being forced to be mean and rude to an idiot. So, to avoid that, we push away chatty strangers in the United States.

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It’s funny, my experience is the exact opposite.

Having grown up in Germany i was surprised how many people in the US would strike up a conversation randomly in the street with me - I thought it’s a normal thing and never really experienced it in Germany - there I would always be suspicious that people try to scam me or get money or something.

I do agree with GP that in Latin America it’s super common and normal to chat with everyone.

But there are many levels to this - it’s for example less common in Nordic countries at least in my experience but you can speak to people in every place on earth, it’s something universal.

I live in a Nordic country. The rule here is to avoid social contact at any cost. People waiting for a bus must stand at least 2 meters away from each other. Otherwise you might be close enough for someone less equipped in the local etiquette to mistake you for someone that may engage in small talk. When sitting , never sit directly next to someone else. Stand if that’s not possible and try to observe the 2 meter rule. Neighbors learn each other time routines to make sure they never have the uncomfortable experience of having to cross paths and acknowledge the others presence.

Regions in the US dominated by Nordic immigrants have similar patterns!

Reminds me of

https://youtu.be/oiSzwoJr4-0?t=9m34s

I'm on my fifth decade living in the nordics. Strangers have conversations at bus stops and neighbours socialize by the garbage bins and across the hedges all the time.

Not as much as in some other places in the world, but it is not at all rare.

Maybe in other regions, I am in Stockholm and would be shocked by an approaching neighbour trying to talk to me, unless it was to complain about my trees or something.

On the bus/train, even when it breaks down and we have to wait nearly an hour for it to start moving again, I've seen carriages full of people not speaking a word to each other (except people now think it's ok to speak on their phones, to my great annoyance).

Sounds more like Finland than Denmark. Danish people seem to quite fond of conversations with strangers. I cycled through entirety of Denmark one summer and we’ve had so many beautiful engagements with locals, in villages, towns and cities alike.

As a Pole, Germany was the first place I started enjoying random convos on the street. It definitely depends where as Germans aren’t homogeneous. Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein are brilliant in that regard. Heck, in Hamburg a dude said my t-shirt is sick and I still remember that vividly. It’s been one of my first solo trips out of my country and it boosted my morale for the rest of that holiday.

    we push away chatty strangers in the United States

Where? I've lived on the coasts, I live in the Midwest, that has not been my experience aside from anti-social persons.

Tourist areas of large cities are like this. LinkedIn connections are like this. Other than that, people are delighted when you speak to them for the most part.

If nothing else, the nerves and flashbulb memories overwrite old nerves and flashbulb memories.

It depends strongly on the city, and became more pronounced since covid.

Seattle is the worst. They call it the "seattle freeze." The San Francisco Bay Area became almost as bad in covid.

The south is still friendly. Austin is incredibly friendly with strangers. Miami has strong stranger vibe. NYC is still alive, too.

It may also depend on where you're from. I'm British, have travelled around the US, and never had problem engaging in chit chat with all sorts of people, big cities or not. But there's a strong disarming undercurrent of "oh wow, you're from England" through the whole experience that I expect most Americans never experience, at least within their own country.

That or someone running some sort of scam or asking for money. All on the same continuum I guess. I'm always on my guard when a talkative stranger approaches me. Which is sad in a way, but experience proves it's necessary.

You may be shaping the samples you collect in a priors confirming manner.

I'm in my 42nd year of life and I've never been small talked into giving someone money. I have been accosted by pan handlers who are directly asking for money. But never under the guise of a conversation. Ok, I take it back, once in 2011.

Depends on the MLM penetration in your community, some (Amway being a big one) recruits strangers in public.

It's kind of crazy when someone has an outlier experience and then tries to frame an entire country as being that way.

I've experienced a lot of cultures, countries, and environments. The United States is KNOWN for being a friendly country of people who will talk to you and smile at you for "no reason" other than because Americans are friendly.

Go to many countries in Europe or even Russia, you'll experience the exact oppositive. If you smile at people or talk to a stranger, you will essentially be treated as if something is wrong with you.

Everyone knows this is true about the US. Your comment is clearly trying to portray the United States in a negative light with something that is entirely not true.

And then there's my experience: someone who has lived in the US for over 30+ years.

Frame however you need. Born and raised in the USA, lived all over the country, but never the true South. Of course, everywhere is different, and everywhere has friendly and unfriendly people. I've primarily lived in cities with a population greater than 100K, usually several million. I think my statement above stands.

Your statement doesn't though. Opinions don't become rooted in fact when we declare them so. No hard feelings, but your claim is akin to someone claiming that they stay away from Germans to avoid their extroverted nature.

I would not say that this happens "a lot". This is the sort of thing that one tells themselves to justify their own introversion.

Change "sales tactics" to "pickup attempt" and I think you'll find it a lot harder to dismiss it as a reason - not because it's true, but because of how much of a headache it is to get on the bad side of people who insist it's true. I'm gay (and active), but don't really present as such, and it's remarkable how often I receive, "I wish this creep would stop hitting on me/generally being an unattached male in my presence," vibes. I didn't want to believe it myself, until I noticed the markedly reduced occurrence when speaking to women who were visibly much older than I am. For women my age and younger: I'm not interested, but they think I'm interested, and that is a convo killer.

On the guy side, they usually seem too preoccupied to talk, or are moving with friends/family where interjecting as a stranger would be weird (because you either need to address the group or else you seem like you're attempting to break them off into a conversation away from that group). Though I'll give that the "too preoccupied" is sometimes merely an affect hiding, "This loser has nothing to offer me."

Does "almost 100% of the time" count as a lot? So far almost all chatty strangers I met have been either crazy or Amway cultists.

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