The people likely to talk to strangers unprompted are also likely to ignore those kind of messages. Anything that can lead to further conversation can be used (like "oh, what's worrying you?") so actually politely nodding and smiling without giving any footing to further conversation works better than being assertive.

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cubefox an hour ago | parent [-]

> The people likely to talk to strangers unprompted are also likely to ignore those kind of messages.

No, that obviously false. They might be more likely, but they are certainly not likely.

	▲	gjulianm an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I don’t think it’s false, much less obviously false. On one hand I have my personal experience about it, on the other you can see there’s only a small range in the “I want a conversation” scale where they want it enough to ignore the nonverbal signs that the person doesn’t want to talk but not enough to ignore the verbal ones.