Park cruising is a practice that connects people. It requires participants to keep watch, to seek out and process information about how strangers are acting and what it means about how they think and feel. This feeling of empathy is also captured by Delany's concept of contact: the stranger remains strange, so park cruisers train themselves to remain open toward people they do not know and with whom they may never develop a deeper connection.

— Park Cruising by Marcus McCann (Page 35)