At least being young in USA, made friends on public transit!

As with all interactions like that (captive audience essentially), utmost care is required, but want to dissuade notion it’s not possible or not permissible, even in a country with illness & weapons.

You are correct. I have met plenty nice people in the US though, I had pretty good chats.

But I reckon buses were pretty strange: often people would start screaming stuff while not talking to anyone and keep going for the whole ride.