My most recent meaningful conversations at the bus stop in the past year were:

• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with a middle aged gentlemen who struck up a conversation having seen my work badge
• a guy who’d had his phone stolen reflecting on the ways it had allowed him to be more mindful of his own thoughts and disengage from toxic people
• a homeless woman who lived at the bus stop for a while with her husband discussing her personal safety as a homeless woman (her husband needed to go do something that wouldn’t take long, and he had waited for me to come out and wait for the bus to go do it, and came back before the bus arrived).

And I made friends with the homeless guys outside my last apartment by stopping to pet their dog (and later stealing wound care supplies from work for it).

I find other people interesting for the most part, and have a large enough breadth of knowledge to at least ask interesting questions about most things. Tradespeople in particular know some fascinating things

I once asked a man in a work vest who was marking the road what the colors were for and he said the different colors were different utility lines (water, power, etc). My follow-up question was how he knew where they were and it turned out the pole with the paint sprayer also had a special metal detector that could pick up on each line’s unique type of tag.

And the guy who fixed my dryer had an utterly wild list of things that he’s pulled out of vents and explained that the little vent covers on the outside of the building were specifically designed to safely prevent endangered birds from nesting in them since they like the warmth but can get injured or damage the vent in doing so.

I generally find that tradespeople like being asked questions about what they do. I don’t think a lot of people ask. And if they don’t I apologize and keep it moving.