I think your vision of things is the ideal, but it also isn't always practical. If you live a 30 minute drive (or more) away from everyone you know, and service-workers / fellow consumers (people at the grocery store, etc) are anonymous to you, scheduled interaction may be your only interaction.
Of course, that also speaks to a profound failure of urban design and a desolate hellscape. Human-scale communities where you're a 10-30 minute _walk_ from your friends make this sort of less-forced living much easier.
> service-workers / fellow consumers (people at the grocery store, etc) are anonymous to you
But they don't have to be anonymous to you, that's also a rather new and urban development: The expectation that nobody should "bother" anybody else unless they already know them or have some business reason to do so.
In smaller communities, everybody knew most of their "service-workers" even outside of their service function, that wasn't something out of the ordinary it was pretty much normal.
I agree, but for whatever reason I've only gotten to know people in different settings. I am familiar enough with the person in the corner shop, but not so much with the supermarket or department store. I wonder why that is (perhaps because I generally get the same person at the corner shop?)
Of course, that also speaks to a profound failure of urban design and a desolate hellscape. Human-scale communities where you're a 10-30 minute _walk_ from your friends make this sort of less-forced living much easier.