I feel compelled to share that after 30 years, my social anxiety only started improving once I stopped seeing stuff like this as "corniness" and "artifice" and instead as mundane BS that is step 1 of 100 towards a meaningful relationship. I was not the one blessed person on earth who was going to have lifelong friends fall into my lap from going to work[1] and the grocery store

[1] _Small_ FAANG team, artifact of a reorg of a reorg

Exactly right. "Corniness" is a symptom of the beholder's mental health challenge, not the conversation.

Mental challenged? That went from 0 to 100 quickly. It's isn't a DSM diagnosis to decline to be co-opted by feel-good but ultimately vapid, cloy gestures.