[rimmontrieu]

Being an introvert myself and perfectly fine when being alone, this is so hard to read. Possibly it's just me but making new friends is quite overrated, and the whole thing OP does feels forced and artificial at many levels. Genuine connection should be built on mutual deep interests, and small talks at random places rarely reveal them. I'd be disappointed if someone starts a conversation with me artificially because I'm part of their hidden social experiment.

[cubefox]

> Genuine connection should be built on mutual deep interests

That's backwards. You can't find friends with "mutual deep interests" without talking to strangers. You have to first find out somehow whether there are mutual interests in the first place.

[whall6]

Key word: rarely

It’s a numbers game with very low stakes to the downside and very high to the upside

[thitran]

Hey I can see why you think that. There were times when I had to reflect on whether I was doing it because I had set a goal of talking to one new person that day or doing it because I was actually interested in them. And I think both were true. There's a lot of people in the gym but I chose to talk to this specific person because of an exercise they were doing, a cool t-shirt they were wearing, or their awesome hair

I think that working out can be a mutual deep interest

[dimxasnewfrozen]

I thought the same thing. This was really uncomfortable for me.