[pj_mukh]

I swear 8/10 people I've met who say this are suburbanites going into the city to work. They rush around for work all day in the city, then sit alone in a car to get back home, wondering why they haven't met anyone new today.

Having had lived in cities and towns of multiple sizes, a dense neighborhood where my daily "operations" naturally put me in contact with the same faces everyday increased my level of interaction 10x.

[stevekemp]

I live in Finland, where the stereotype is that people don't do smalltalk, or interact with strangers.

But I see the same faces daily, in everyday life such as going to the local store. I've spent months chatting/flirting with the random people I come across, and it almost always goes well.

[uoaei]

It would do everyone well to talk to a professional about the many fears they seem so comfortable expressing over faceless, remote internet discussions. Un- or under-acknowledged anxieties and fears develop into complexes, and can cause severe social discomforts. This can result in the issues like those described, where people may have trouble interacting with strangers, but blame the society for not fitting their tight mold of how people should interact, rather than recognize that their discomfort arises from their frame of mind.