Australia is much the same as North America by the sounds. I found the same in UK - when I first moved there I found it so odd that shop staff didn't really interact. I love chatting to them as it's sometimes the only company I get in a lonely day.

Who knows what secret battles she was fighting?

Utterly agree - I do practice compassion. But I also think people need to be mindful about how their mood might affect others.

My hubs has a hard week at work. His colleague who shares the office with him, a friend who is usually chatty, has been ignoring him all week, like picking her stuff up and leaving as soon as he gets in. I said she might be super stressed and busy but he said she was particularly blatant in utterly ignoring him and was convinced he'd done something wrong. Pretty horrible. Anyway via texts (we are also friends and surf together sometimes) I gently got to bottom of it - she is indeed utterly paralyzed with stress. We utterly empathize... BUT. BUT. No matter how bad things are, your behaviour impacts other people. You need to say 'sorry I can't talk, I have sooo much work to do" or at least 'hi mate, morning, sorry, just busy'.