I think that it's just aggression. I tend to be noticably unsmiley in public, to the point of seeming unpleasant, but people almost never tell me so directly. I got the nickname Kaczinski at one place, even with people who liked me.
You don't wonder whether unsmiling women are psycho-killers -- another way of putting it.
Safeway now requires all employees to smile at and greet all customers. The women employees hate it because a significant proportion of guys take it as a comeon.
I hate it because smiling total strangers who come up and start talking to me remind me of psycho killers, undercover cops and security men, dopedealers, missionaries, lunatics, ravers, and so on.
(OK then, why do men who smile too much seem like psycho-killers, whereas men who never smile also seem like psycho-killers? There's a middle in there somewhere, I know. )
Man, I hate this. When I'm thinking about stuff, I tend to frown, and strange men used to tell me to smile all the time. (Less so as I've gotten older, thankfully.) I always found ratcheting up the frown to a withering glare worked well.
Telling a stranger to do anything is rude. If someone told me to smile my first reaction would be to do the opposite as a way to assert my boundaries.
In my experience catching someone's eye and giving a brief smile is usually taken just fine. Many times you will get a smile in return. It is the "coming up to them and starting talking" that is threatening.
Also happiness can be contageous without being threatening.
All of this is common sense isn't it?
Yeah, telling someone to smile seems very infantilizing. On the other hand, telling someone to smirk...
Y'know, down here, pretty much everybody smiles (or at least nods) if you make eye contact. It's such second nature that it isn't even considered being polite. I've sometimes found it a little unsettling in other parts of the country where this is viewed as odd.
OTOH, it has never once occurred to me to tell a stranger to smile. That seems as bizarre as walking up to a stranger and ordering them to clap their hands or hum a tune.
People smile and nod up here as well; that's how I know DC is still in the South. This is in no way offensive unless you're a cold-hearted yankee who hates all forms of human contact. But the smile command is another beast altogether.
That seems as bizarre as walking up to a stranger and ordering them to clap their hands or hum a tune.
But you've told me to do this, ATM.
That was my reaction, too, apo. I'm a big fan of the Texas "howdy" or the Southern "how y'all doing." When summer hit, it started to freak Yglesias out when we'd walk places and I'd acknowledge everyone who walked by. I'm also a big fan of the masculine chin-up nod—how else am I supposed to acknowledge and reciprocate respect from other males in my vicinity?
But telling someone to smile? I really thought it was some weird thing that happened to Catherine, but every girl I know confirms that this is a regular irritation.
"a cold-hearted yankee who hates all forms of human contact," i.e., Yglesias.
When I'm thinking about things I get the look on my face that Huey has in Boondocks. If I'm out and about and realize that I have my Huey face on, rather than go to a restaurant I get a snack in a convenience store, because waitresses hate to serve me.
In my experience catching someone's eye and giving a brief smile is usually taken just fine.
Certainly -- as a cold-hearted, unpleasant New Yorker I fing this a little surprising when it happens, but eye-contact with a smile and nod is pleasant rather than aggressive, and I usually smile back. The "Smile" order is different, it comes off as "You! Eye candy! Your function in life is to be appealingly receptive looking, and you're slacking -- I want to see dimples NOW, maggot!"
How else am I supposed to acknowledge and reciprocate respect from other males in my vicinity?
Isn't sniffing and licking the standard procedure anymore?
When summer hit, it started to freak Yglesias out when we'd walk places and I'd acknowledge everyone who walked by.
A man from my own culture. When I went to college in Chicago, I spent the first six months thinking I had food stuck to my face or something: "Why are all these people looking at me?"
LB has nailed it, and what's more, it completely contradicts all advice given to women walking alone in a city setting: move briskly and have a pissed-off look on your face to avoid appearing like a soft target.
I prefer the tip of the hat greeting while running. Usually, I do this in hopes to throw people for a loop. Sometimes, however, I think the finger might be more appropriate.
As for telling someone I don't know to smile? Who the fuck does that, and why? I can understand service employees being told to do that unless they work at someplace selling sad things. Like goth clothing.
Yeah, it's different for women. They're forgiven for not making eye contact. I'm a big Kriston-style nodder myself.
I'm also a big fan of the masculine chin-up nod...
We've always referred to this maneuver as the "Pez-head," for obvious reasons.
Strange - this happens to me all the time, only the people ordering me to smile are all horrible old women.
I think there's an age exemption—I get the feeling that old people honestly want you to smile.
I get the feeling that old people honestly want you to smile.
I don't buy that for a minute. Old people have been pushed around for decades and are bitter and spiteful and out for vengeance - bossy, petty vengeance. I know I will be by the time I'm old.
Old people are just crazy.
Yes, but they taste great and can't run fast, so I make allowances.
There was a huge discussion of this last fall, starting, I think, here with more links here.
Old people are just crazy.
Yes, but they taste great
You people will eat anything, won't you?
I sometimes wink at pretty ladies, but only if eye contact has already been established. I do not know why I do this.
I do not approach strangers, though. There are too many of them, for starters.
]
Ewwww. Old people are stringy.
I sometimes wink at pretty ladies
Really!? What reactions do you get?
The down-home friendliness of DC is really, really freaky to this New Yorker. Worse, I always think the local folks mistake my Yankee coldness for racism.
You people will eat anything, won't you?
As long as it's deep-fried, yes.
Have Kriston teach you the nod, Matt; it's impersonal, but polite.
Friendly strangers are creepy. A total stranger walked up to me on the street the other day and said hi to me, so I said hi, and then asked me if I believed in God, which provoked me to lie and say yes, because I wasn't about to provoke an argument and odds were that was the right answer, and then he asked me if I was a warlock. At what point did I screw up here?
A year before this an enormous fat man asked me for a light, then proceeded to tell me I had "real pretty eyes."
I visited NYC when I was 16. I'm not very friendly, but on the elevator I said hi to my host's neighbor who shared the floor with him. I got a strange look.
As far as I kow, they weren't feuding or anything. They just didn't know each other, even though they lived a few feet apart and saw each other frequently.
Bourdieu says this is characteristic of meritocracy -- not to form friendship on grounds of neighborhood.
NY rules are generally that you don't address someone unless you have a reason, and spatial proximity whether immediate (being in the same elevator) or long term (being in the same building) isn't a reason. But we do understand that out-of-towners are different, and that that doesn't necessarily make them bad people.
(My husband was raised in a tiny town in rural NJ, and talks to everyone, on the other hand. I've never been able to figure out why he doesn't freak people out more -- he seems to be able to convey harmlessness through body language better than most.)
re: the winking, sometimes I get a wink back, more often a smile, sometimes nothing at all. I would only do it if there has already been eye contact, mostly just to see what the reaction is, I guess.
Ewwww. Old people are stringy.
Not once Mr. Tenderizer is done with them.
Hey, we've had this discussion before. I'm surprised ac and your husband didn't end up together, LB.
I'm trying pretty hard, and I can't think of anyone I know under the age of 55 that winks at strangers (I'm making a loose exception here for people that wink at staring children). I guess what's getting to me is that the winking almost seems a little weirder, if less imposing, than the 'smile' commands. I'm genuinely amused.
those were happy days, huh? What happened to Austro?
I'm with Tarrou here, this winking on the street is creepy.
yeah -- I try to pick up old man's habits wherever possible. Stranger eye-contact is sort of awkward, but happens, and can be pleasant -- winking is a way to acknowledge such, without taking too much time or effort about it.
Nah -- he doesn't talk to people who look unusually open for New Yorkers, he talks to everybody, and they don't mind. It's very weird walking around the neighborhood with him: when I'm by myself, it's regular New York, but when I'm with him, we're suddenly in Mayberry ("Mornin'." "Mornin'." "How's the family?" ""Doin' right smartly now." "Goin off to plow the back 40?" "Yep.")
Winking sounds suspiciously West Coast, if you ask me.
I don't think people on the West Coast wink like that either.
I feel as though we have abandoned a lot of the old graces -- things that serve as simple social lubricants. The old forms make it easier to get where you need to go and get your crap done, not harder.
If people continue to look at me while I walk down the street, I will wink at them, but only the pretty ones.
When I try to wink, it either ends up as a squint, or a slow, lopsided blink, with one eye following the other, which makes me look vaguely bug-eyed and froglike. This doesn't endear me to strangers of either gender.
I can only wink convincingly with my left eye.
I often think of this Emerson quote:
>Men descend to meet. In their habitual and mean service to the world, for which they forsake their native nobleness, they resemble those Arabian sheiks, who dwell in mean houses, and affect an external poverty, to escape the rapacity of the Pacha, and reserve all their display of wealth for their interior and guarded retirements.
My parents chat people up at random in public. My mother-in-law does this too but to a lesser extent. I think that it is admerable.
There could be some generational thing going on rather than just a city/country divide. I think there was something about the 1930-1970 era, that promoted social and economic community feeling and respect.
Back when I first moved to nyc people used to come up and talk to me all the time, but usually they were a bit crazee. Once it was identical twins. They said "Hi, I'm Fred." "And I'm Ned." Then, together, "We're twins!"
Guys've got a point. It's like, you know, I see so many young ladies walking down the street with frowns on their faces. . . .
As long as we are allowing the old people to speak - in many ways "Minnesota Nice" is similar to southern hospitality. In places like NY I can understand why woman need to have the bitch shield at full strength but it sure can make for a depressing place.
Here is a very oldie but a goodie - try sticking your tongue out instead of winking. I'm serious. It is flirting but maybe because it is infantile it is usually taken as non-threatening. If you stick your tongue out at a woman and she smiles you might have a chance.
If you ____ your ____ out at a woman and she smiles you might have a chance.
There's an awful lot of owrds you can plug into those blanks and still have the sentence be true.
Joe O,
I think there was something about the 1930-1970 era, that promoted social and economic community feeling and respect.
I can't speak for other decades but in the 60s it was the drugs and the pill.
Really though I'm not sure it is generational. I think it is that as people age they can grow out of their shyness and can also start to value human interaction more.
When I lived in Japan, I got the biggest kick out of sticking my tongue out at Japanese schoolkids. They already regard foreigners as unseemly (if not dangerous), and it was a hoot to watch their expressions evolve from outright shock to illicit thrill. Most of 'em would make faces back.
I have never thought to do it here, to anyone of any age. I think I would feel lecherous doing it.
Insisting that others smile is a form of philosophical optimism, and the optimist's message isn't really "Things are wonderful!". It's "I don't want to hear about your problems".
I've always been Mr. Curse-the-darkness. I don't see the problem with that.
In East Asia sticking out tongues is a girly way of disarming people, I think.
apostropher,
What a team. I lob them in and you hit them out of the park!
Actually I was thinking of something that may come across the wrong way to the women present but what the hey.
I think there are two general approaches men have to getting dates - the hunting approach and the fishing approach.
They differ in one important aspect - in hunting the hunter makes the final move. In fishing the fisherman entices the fish to make the final move. Okay, there is commercial fishing where nets and traps are used but for this comparison I'm talking about sport fishing.
've always been a fisherman. It is not a passive activity. To be successful you must go to where the fish are, you must have bait or a lure, and you must be capable of presenting it in an appealing way. In addition you need patience. You can't chase fish.
Regarding dating, I've tried dynamiting too, but people claim that that's unethical. PC has ruined everything.
Tarrou,
I have never thought to do it here, to anyone of any age. I think I would feel lecherous doing it.
Very interesting.
I would think most things would be more lecherous when done to Japanese schoolgirls.
John,
I've tried dynamiting too,
That reminds me of the punch line to a joke:
"Are you going to talk or are you going to fish?"
We should all take a moment to contemplate the fact that--if i'm remembering and calculating correctly--Tripp and John's combined ages add up to 110.
Numerologically that is very significant, I'm sure.
I think it means they can't have a threesome with a woman younger than 62.
Joe O, the punchline is funnier when you substitute "Document Management Industries Association" for "[subject of speech]"
Tripp and John's combined ages add up to 110.
THis would be great if one of them was secretly 18.
No, I think the upper limit becomes 206 under that specific arrangement.
I would think most things would be more lecherous when done to Japanese schoolgirls.
Mmm, they are.
My deliberate use of the gender-neutral "schoolkids" aside, I was generally messing with gradeschoolers. They're amusing and excitable. Most right-thinking expats do their best to avoid altogether the tween girls in the pleated uniform skirts.
Woooeee! The sky's the limit.
I confess that I did not recalculate my upper limit for singles.
Tripp and John's combined ages add up to 110.
I think it means that I could acceptably be romantically involved with one-fifth of the pair of them.
That would be 40% of one of us. Perhaps if I were really inattentive, drunk, and watching TV at the same time I could get down to 40% of a FTE.
How's that for suave?
I just realized that L's too young even for w-lfs-n. I will now cry into my coffee, wondering where my youth went.
40% of a FTE.
Is that one of the telltale signs of working for the [federal] government?
I worked for a state institution which later went independent, but I think that "FTE" is mostly an academic term.
I agree that if fucking were mostly done as a job by government workers, it would be done even less well than it usually is.
does it mean "full time equivalent" in academia, too? i've only ever heard it out of the mouth of that lover of acronyms, my dear Uncle Sam.
I wonder if one got it from the other...
But if it were govt. workers doing the screwing, everyone would be a lot less excited about it.
I just realized that L's too young even for w-lfs-n.
Oh My God.
Have Kriston teach you the nod, Matt
Bad adivce! The "nod" is for DORKS. (sorry Arms McMasherson)
And I'm too old for w-lfs-n. Poor, poor Ben.
L.'s not too young for me. w-lfs-n's not too old, either. How the hell did I end up thinking about this?
L.'s not too young for me.
Yet you're making fonzie references, and all. You are well versed in the classics, oh young one.
Think of it as evidence of a wasted, if relatively recent, childhood.
apostropher,
I think it means they can't have a threesome with a woman younger than 62.
How about a threesome with a guy? A red-headed southern comfort hunk a hunk a burning love?
Would that be okay?
Round these parts FTE's are referred to as PY's (Person Years. It used to be Man Years but, you know.)
Men never tell me to smile. That would be overkill, in my case. But I don't really smile at people, either. I think I look privately amused most of the time. I don't think I make eye contact with strange men very often.
However, the other story about random rude comments rang true. When I was a teenager, particularly, men used to say the most intrusive things. One strange leering man of about 50 told me to stop biting my nails when I was 14, as though it was a personal offense to him that I was marring my looks in this way.
I just realized that L's too young even for w-lfs-n.
Oh My God.
What makes you think I'm bound by your silly conventions?
Anyway, the 7+x/2 rule was originally supposed to calculate the optimum age for a man's partner. However, L. has shown herself to be precocious, so I'm sure a difference of a year will be no matter.
Why so perplexed? It seems a natural combination to me.
Also, if L. can be with 1/5 of John and Tripp, that puts her age at 18, which is, if one uses integer division (and I always do), the 7+x/2 rule's result for my age.
Have to tone down the cheerfulness somehow. Otherwise I wouldn't be allowed to live in NY anymore.
Anyway, the 7+x/2 rule was originally supposed to calculate the optimum age for a man's partner.
Really? I thought it calculated the lower limit.
Tarrou, that's how it's been reinterpreted in these modern times, in which, as Ernst Jünger says, all the words have changed their meanings. But it was not always so.
SB, I would have thought serene and autumnal, but not really cheerful.
Hm. Is there a word that captures serenity buoyed by private amusement? You're right, this potpourri I have in mind does not really add up to cheerful. Also, I'm aware that I'm no longer necessarily describing ac.
… as she would describe herself.
Can't think of a word. "Content" a bit closer than "cheerful," but not exactly right.
I'll be making a burnt offering to Vocabulus tonight.
Demure suggests restraint absent from the untempered jollity that threatens to bust out of cheerful, but also shyness, which isn't one of the ingredients I had in mind.
Variations on contentment have too much complacency about them.
Oops, there I go being earnest and whatnot.
I don't think there is one word for this. It's why writers were invented.
Earnest, in contrast to the simulated smack you and Ben were talking.
I take your point, though. The real defect in 106 is its utter disrespect for use/mention. Somewhere, Weiner is kicking my butt in effigy.
I'm not so fond of unripened plantains, myself.
Ooh, there he is. I wonder if he'll kick my butt in person. "Pwn" me, in common parlance.
Bananas are difficult to resolve. What about conundrums?
Let's not start anagramming conundrums.
*sigh*
Conundrums are colorful gemstones. What about amethysts?
Who, me? Would I kick someone's butt for use-mention confusions? If they weren't asking for it?
Weienr, meaenr, own oyu konw.
Sorry for that last. It was gratuitous.
I had forgotten your "won't start none, won't be none" principle. To whom shall I turn for effigious use/mention butt-kickings?
Isn't w-lfs-n the disciplinarian around here?
Amethysts are charms against drowning and drunkenness. What about carbonara?
It most certainly was not gratuitous! And my second offense, too.
In fact, I'm grateful for it, because it allows me to point out that it's "don't start none, won't be none."
And what upheaval in the natural order things has occurred, so that the obvious answer to the question is not "w-lfs-n"? It seems DE hasn't been around for awhile--hope it's because she got that job.
Amethysts are charms against drowning and drunkenness. What about carbonara?
Ben, I fear you do not posess the Govende-nature.
(This is late to the party, but my internet connection wasn't letting me post.)
Well, New Yorkers are down-right friendly compared to New Englanders. Okay let me refine that. It's really just Bostonians who are cold. People in small-town Maine talk to you too.
Yglesias can't be a proper Yankee, since he's from New York. Real Yankees are from New England. So, I expect him to crack any day now. Pretty soon he'll be saying "blessed" as in "have a bless-ed evening."
I was once walking down the street in Oxford looking sour to avoid the gaze of a homeless guy who was selling the homeless person newspaper, the English version of spare change.
He said, "cheer up, life's not so bad." I did smile afterwards. I almost chuckled, because it seemed so absurd. It was a very sunny day. It must have altered his Englishness
I think New Yorkers are friendly, just in a way that is more nuanced and overlooked by people who don't live here. It's not Southern hospitality or "Minnesota nice" but it's a manner that reflects the challenges of living in a place that is densely populated and having to share your space all of the time. It's a very "we're all in this together" kind of nice. A New Yorker would never do the head-nod to everyone he passed on the street (impractical -- too many people) but most everyone I know here would, say, automatically grab the front of a baby stroller to help a woman carry it down the steps of the subway.
Yup, I've found New York to be a pretty friendly place.
(impractical -- too many people)
It would be a sight to see, though. Bobbleheadopolis.
Great link, ac. I've lived in the South and I've lived in NYC and I like NYC's attitude better because, as the article said, it focuses more on action than on attitude. I was in Virginia a couple of weeks ago (which people would surely assume is "friendlier") and stood in the parking lot at Target for at least 20 minutes struggling to fit a heavy, oversized box in the trunk of my car while some asshole sat there in his SUV the WHOLE TIME watching me and waiting for me to finish so he could have my parking space. You want my spot? Get out of the car and help, jerk. Yes, it sure was smiley down there but I wouldn't call it friendly. When I got back to NYC, I told some friends about it and everyone agreed that would have never happened in New York. Someone would have stopped and helped, even if it was just from a selfish motive of keeping me from holding up traffic.
I just realized this—if SB were to submit an ad to the LRB personals, he or she could be rolling in middle-aged Britons.
rolling in middle-aged Britons
A bit graphic, that.
I think w-lfs-n just suggested that SB was a british person of about 30 years of age who brushes its teeth. at.
Let's all just appreciate this, then:
Did you know that 82% of male LRB readers are deadly ninja assassins? I'm not one of them, however, because my Kung Fu is of an older school, whose secrets are known only to a select few. Not only can I summon chi demons with a whisper, but I also live in my parents spare room and harbour impotent revenge fantasies against my ex-wife's lawyer. This latter move is known in ancient Kung Fu circles as ‘Mardy Locust'. Let me teach you its deadly glare. Pathetic man, 41. Harrow. Box no. 15/03
Once he held forth on his secret martial chi powers, the statement that he was divorced was less than surprising.
The LRB personals are hilarious; every time I try to get something substantive out of the print edition, I find myself reading the ads.
No doubt his ex was intimidated by his prowess with the hidden dark arts of the orient.
Ben will stop at nothing to get in my pants.
Shall we start wagering now on how long it will take him to succeed?
Just leave your pants drawer open, but hide a big rat trap under an especially appealing pant.
Then innocently ask him to explain the welts on his hand. I hadn't known he was a fetishist.
I'm beginning to understand that deliberately reading figurative language as literal sometimes yields humor.
Becks - 134
You might be onto something. I can tell you one area "Minnesota nice" does not apply - merging traffic. Minnesotans will not budge an inch to accomodate merging traffic. Near as I can tell it is common because everyone sees it because it is common.
I had to get reeducated in Toronto by seeing people actually being curteous to busses. Buses, too.
Standpipe wears pants!
Standpipe Possible Identity Check List:
Sumo Wrestler
aboriginal South-Pacific Islander
I'm beginning to understand that deliberately reading figurative—oh, never mind.
Tripp, perhaps it's just that I'm from the cities, but isn't "Minnesota Nice" just code for "insular and unfriendly to outsiders, but willing to appear outwardly friendly out of a sense of good manners and/or avoidance of potential social mortification?"
And re the helping of people merging into traffic: I'm very helpful. Many, many people have been informed by me that "It's the skinny one on the right, gramma." That's all sorts of helpful in a state made up of people who have never figured out that to merge into traffic, you need to be going the speed of traffic by the time you need to merge.
Then innocently ask him to explain the welts on his hand.
I'm going as Eudora Welty for halloween.
Planning on getting into any burping contests?
You know who I bet wasn't Minnesota Nice? Minnesota Fats, that's who.
Minnesota Nice is associated with aggressively avoiding all non-cheery topics of conversation.
Cancer Baby gets good mileage out of being a cancer patient when told to smile.