As the advent of Google Glass—and thus, the end of human contact—draws ever nearer, it's comforting to know that app developers are increasingly focused on creating products that, at some point, boot your troglodyte ass offline and force face-to-face interaction.

Playdope is one such app, and it has some promising features (we're going to veto the maker's chosen spelling of "playdo.pe" for the time being). In essence, Playdope connects people whose paths cross in both the digital and physical realms, using an algorithm that employs location, interests, social connections and "real time games" to kickstart a real life social interaction. Is that guy always favoriting your tweets actually your neighbor? Do you and the bartender squeezing limes into your third Moscow Mule have a mutual Facebook friend? That kind of thing.

Despite its stupid, punctuation-afflicted name, Playdope has lofty ambitions. Stanley Milgram first identified the idea of "familiar strangers"—people we see everyday, but with whom we never interact—in a paper penned in 1972. The app's goal is to convert those strangers into acquaintances, or, better yet, friends.

"Familiar strangers' encapsulates everything about what it is we're trying to solve," Playdope's developer, Matt Newberg, told Atlantic Cities. "They occur online as much as they occur offline — maybe even more online. That's one thing that obviously Milgram never really talked about."

Like it's racier counterpart, Tinder, Playdope users log in through Facebook and compile a basic profile, with the option of uploading contacts and connecting with Twitter. The app then builds a list of people within your network who happen to be standing near you at the moment. Like an overly pushy friend, Playdope intercedes to break the ice using a trivia game, about which users can chat once its over. "Haha, that was dumb," you say. "Do you want to get coffee and talk about how dumb that was?" Playdope then retreats quietly back into the ether, leaving you and your fledgling acquaintance to bumble your way toward friendship.

Unlike Tinder, Playdope has no patience for dalliers—if you fail to swap contact information with your new associate within 24 hours, the chat option disappears. Could this be the second most useful networking app of all time?

