Not trying to be argumentative, but I don't know. I think this is human nature. Everyone wants different levels of social interaction at different times, but the less human interaction we have, the more we crave it. People in the country tend to be friendlier and more chatty than people in the city. There is the scene from Crocodile Dundee where he finds out there are 10 million people in NYC. He assume NY must be the friendliest place on earth with so many people choosing to live together. Of course, the opposite is true.

I note from your story, he was solo... you were not. He was certainly a bit more needy than most people out hiking and that made the situation awkward. Perhaps he didn't have any friends to hike with and was trying to find some. It sounds like you hike for solitude. Now that I live in a city, I do. When I lived in the country, I went out into the back-country more to experience nature.