Ask HN: Do you talk to your competitors?

Early stage startup founder here. Do you generally talk to your competitors? Friends, enemy, or frenemy?

I've been building an app to reduce the noise in human conversations and recently I found a similar app that started a year before me. My instinct is to email the other founder and ask him "Hey how's it going? Can you share what you've learned with me?" but I wasn't sure if putting myself on their radar can be a good or bad idea?

Curious what the HN community think? What's your experience in your "relationship" with your competitive peers?