If you are out walking ,out a message or what ever and you meet a complete stranger would you say hello ,good morning ,afternoon. Or presume they already knew that and just pass them without speaking .
We do a lot of walking with the dogs and usually say 'Good Morning' or what ever to strangers unless it is obvious they don't want to speak i.e. no eye contact or look the other way.
I may opt to look at them, if they smiled at me I might say, "Good morning", no guarantees. If they said, "Good morning", to me and heard, then I'd certainly reply. But generally I keep myself to myself, I find being especially social to strangers makes me feel awkward.
Usually walk on by.However like Boto I found it was a different matter when we were out walking Max,dog owners seemed more sociable with even total strangers stopping to compare dogs and warn you about condition such as loose animals and generally pass the time of day.
I say hello and then usually regret it as they turn out to be either complete nutters or lonely people who have not spoken to anyone for months. The latter usually engage me in a long one sided conversation that goes on forever. I am far too polite to tell them to sod off so I have to listen to their full medical history and anecdotes about their cat, occasionally glancing at my watch and saying "gosh, is that the time", to no avail.
Always thought that was a funny part in last of the summer wine when a man said good morning /day to foggy .Foggy then went in to a sorta rant about oh yes it a good day now and started explaining how it was in the war .
I said good morning to the park keeper this morning. I say good morning to quite a few people in my area that I only know by sight, they are mainly all old.
Yes I know who it is now, I admit i had to Google the name, but I still don't get the relevance to the thread, but i've lost the will to live a bit with it, so i'm letting it go ;-)
I'm the same as most here. I'd reply if someone said "good morning/ afternoon to me" but probably wouldn't go first, unless we were very near to each other and eye contact had been made.