“I talked to thirty-five strangers at the gym in a month. Every single one was glad I did.”
Modern life trained an entire generation to assume any unsolicited human contact is a threat. The author tested the assumption thirty-five times and got thirty-five positive results. The lesson is not that gyms are friendly. It is that the vast majority of people are starved for casual contact and waiting for someone else to break the silence first. Phones did this. We can undo it.