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Social Initiation
We teach our children that making friends is easy: you just walk up to any kid on the playground and say, “My name is [whatever], do you want to play?” And if you’re four or five years old, this works pretty well. But it’s a lot more complicated when you’re a grown-up.
In most smaller towns, however, it is considered polite and friendly to chat with someone wherever strangers might have to pass a few minutes together (in an elevator, in a check-out line, if you end up sitting next to each other waiting for a show or a game or some other event to begin, e.g.). If you see someone repeatedly (e.g., the same barista at the coffee shop, the same check-out clerk in the store or library, someone who waits at the same subway platform as you, or takes the same bus, or visits the same gym, or whatever), it would be considered rude if you didn’t at least acknowledge that person and exchange greetings. If you engage in less socially acceptable self-stimulatory behaviors that involve clenched muscles, quick jerky movements, rocking, or vocalizations, strangers will likely be afraid to talk to you, and even people you already know may be embarrassed to be with you in public.
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