Shared non-routine and crowded conditions legitimize stranger conversation

Evidence

However, the suspension of ordinary routine is not limited to crisis situations. San Franciscans report, for example, that being crowded aboard a cable car provides a great opportunity to talk to people. Being part of a crowd watching a parade or demonstration or other less-than-routine occurrence also legitimizes encounters. And so does being present in some highly specialized locales, such as body bars where “prowling” is the expected and approved activity. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 1001

Categorization

• XREF: These legitimate-encounter contexts are precisely the cracks in the civil-inattention wall the reader is mapping against Cole’s weaponized detachment—physical crowding overrides the normal stranger taboo. — connects to: Etiquette regulates which conversations get a comfortable public context — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 180