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twesterm on 25 March 2010
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mirgro said:
twesterm said:
mirgro said:
 

Maybe it was just me, but when I had to drive to places in my car I met a total of 0 people during those times in a year, whether it was going to work or getting food or whatever.

Meawhile when I had to walk places, I met 2 people in the same amount of time in Madrid. That's 2 more peopla I know in about a year just by walking places instead of a car. That's not counting acquintances or people to have a good conversation with that I have met in eateries and bars that are all over the place in cities in Europe, and far less common in the US.

But you met people because you were actively trying to meet people, not because you were forced to.

You may walk down a street and meet two people but someone else may walk down the same exact street and meet zero because they aren't trying to meet people.  It really doesn't matter where you are.

My goal when I left home wasn't "I'll mingle with people," it was just "it's early/late and I want to get to work/home." While I exchanged random words with people on the days I was in a good mood, those were very rare. The two cases I mentioned earlier were just pure coincidence. A late metro once followed by a coicidential run in/conversation, and a stop unroutine stop at a coffee stand outside the metro. In either case I wass not even remotely trying to be actively looking for people for me to know down the road.

I ever said that what I did will work for anyone else. All I said wass that there is a miniscule random chance that you will get to know any person you meet. In Europe you meet people by the thousands by simply doing your routine, not so in the US. By increasing the number of occurrances the chance of an outcome is increased. If you play to lottery and you play it thousands of times, you have a much greater probability of having a winning ticket in those thousads than if you have bought only several hundred.

Yeah, but again, that's because you're just a social person, not because of where you live.  I'm sure if you drove home every day you would find some way to go out and talk to people.