This should belong to the stupid questions thread but anyway... why don't bars, inns, taverns, pubs, whatevers work in reality the same way they do in fiction, or, better question, under what conditions, when and where do or would they work like that?

You travel to another city on a business trip, say, to visit a trade show the next day. Same country or different doesn't matter but let's assume you speak the language. You check in your hotel. You have a free evening and go exploring. You go to the hotels bar or another bars, inns, taverns, pubs. What will happen? Exactly nothing. You will probably a have a drink or three alone, or if you don't drink alcohol it will be even more boring, have some dinner, perhaps sight-see as long as it is not dark then retire to your room early because you are bored. The point is, nobody will socialize with you, nor give you the signs that you are welcome to socialize with them. You will get to know exactly zero locals. You will not participate in their lives. You will be an outsider, it will feel like staring at an aquarium. You sit in a bar in a corner, nursing a beer, while you watch the locals come and go, greet each other, chat with each other, while they ignore your existence. A pretty sad thing actually. They seem to have zero interest in getting to know a non-local. You may even get suspicious glances, as they are used to knowing all the faces in their bar, or because simply you radiate those I-don't-belong-here signals. A pretty sad thing overall.

In fiction this is so different... not only the lively taverns in Tolkienesque fiction where travellers immediate come together and entertain each other with stories, but even in modern, James Bondesque fiction there are things happening in hotel bars after the elegant secret agent checks in, friends and enemies made, pick-ups attempted and so on. There is a social life going on.

Why is it so, or what conditions would make it different? I have exactly one experience when it was not so. We were in a classic outback, behind the beyond farmer town, and we were 10 people canooing down the river. Apparently people in more boring, small-town places are more interested about outsiders, and larger groups mix easier than one lone traveller with a whole bar. If I remember right, we were largely discussing amongst each other and basically the locals overheard us and pitched in. Perhaps such conversation-starter signals are necessary.

As of now it feels like the precondition for getting to know people is to be with people I already know. This also means sticking to cities where acquaintances live in. This sounds too limiting.