Don't take it personally, they are just not used to strangers being so direct to them, so they aren't sure how to react. It's a relic of the 50s and 60s, at least it is in Sweden. Basically the ruling socialist party was worried that American culture had inspired the youth to be wild and rebellious. They decided that the solution to the problem was to make family more important by force. They decided that the ideal citizen should go directly home after work and stay their with their family to play boardgames and listen to the government radio broadcasts. This was enforced with curfews. They also had a eugenics program and forcibly sterilized thousands of young people that were "unfit" to raise a family. Being "unfit" could be as innocent as being a caught out drinking while underage, teenage girls that hung around with older guys were often assumed to be sluts and sterilized too. Many non-whites were also sterilized and had their children seized and taken to orphanages. If sterilization wasn't enough to kill their rebellious spirit they would be lobotomized or sent to asylums and kept too medicated to resist.

This lead to an entire generation of young people only talking to their closest friends since they were afraid strangers could be government informants. Going out to town and meeting new people was considered by many to be too dangerous. There were a few state funded places such as recreational parks and dance halls which could be freely visited by young people but alcohol, rock music, and casual sexual encounters were banned and anyone caught violating the rules would be expelled and possibly reported to the government.

There were however a group that openly violated these rules and hence became society's enemy #1 Raggare. They dressed in denim and black leather, they listened to rock music, they wore US rebel flags (not a racist thing, in this context it symbolizes rebellion against the system) they drank and swore heavily, they fought both people and the law, they openly said "fuck the system" and they got all the girls. A few decades later when punk culture showed up there was a huge dispute over who was the most hardcore, many-a brawls were had, and many-a teeth got knocked out. These days both subcultures are still around although at least in my part of the country Raggare appear to be more common, probably because they've haven't got an age limit but the punks do, at least informally.