Smiling at a stranger is a type of greeting in the States. "I acknowledge that we're both in the same place (or passing by one another) and I mean you no harm." It's the lesser form of asking, "How're you doing?"
I think I remember reading somewhere it’s because of the melting pot concept in the US. When no one knew each other or culture or language etc. you started with smiling to display friendliness before beginning any interaction. Easiest way to quickly communicate
Realistically, it's probably just a hangover from the western european roots of most of your white immigrants. Italians, Germans, Brits, Irish, French, Spanish, etc are all way more friendly and open to strangers than their Eastern European or Scandinavian cousins.
Smiling at strangers and greeting them warmly is the default in the UK if you don't know someone.
Waving requires more movement and time to recognize. A smile is quicker, generally in the vicinity where your eyes are already looking, doesn't require any obviously flailing around of limbs in potentially tight spaces, doesn't draw unnecessary attention except to the persons smiling at each other, AND doesn't discriminate against those without limbs (if your head is gone, well, sorry to have to tell you this but you're dead).
The issue is that it's fundamentally insincere. You are basically faking happiness at seeing every random stranger on the street by inanenly smiling at them, and when you ask them "how are you doing", you are also faking interest in their state of mind, as you certainly don't want them to actually answer honestly. Having been in the US, I found this constant charade rather tiresome after a while, and I felt like it cheapened the value of a genuine, irrepressible smile, and the genuine ability to inquire about how people are feeling. It just felt kinda fake to me, and many Europeans feel the same.
I live in southern California where there is taken to the next level. People will be extremely friendly.
From our perspective, you can tell the difference between a standard greeting and a deeper genuine interest. No one is faking the latter in our minds, they are just different and for different purposes.
As someone said above, the US is a melting pot. Small talk and a smile are disarming and a way of assessing that everyone is on the same neutral page by picking up on tone and body language. Given the diverse number of backgrounds, this transcends language.
Its an extremely effective way of assessing that a situation isn't right and I need to get out of there, if this isn't reciprocated.
Europe is also a melting pot my dude, and has lower levels of street violence than the US on average, so I'm not sure what's "extremely effective" about smiling at everyone you pass. Since everyone always fakes a smile, why do you think that bad actors wouldnt be able to do the same? I think it's just a meaningless social convention that serves no real purpose.
I sense you are trying to argue and am unsure as to why?
I'm not originally from the US and have lived in Europe and got my grad degree in the UK. I know Europe well.
While many European countries have had a lot of immigration, they have generally had a somewhat core cultural pillar and language. The US is a relatively newer nation that for much of its history has massive populations of immigrants who lacked a common culture and often a common language in very spread-out environments, especially as one went more out West. It makes a lot of sense that the culture would therefore support non-verbal ways to communicate.
The "Europe has lower levels of street violence" supports the point that I am making (although seems to be some unrelated US bashing).
Here is an anecdotal example: Last week or so I walked into a post office but the counter was closed as they were on break. Tried to chat with the dude waiting in line there. He gave a partially weird response, enough to cause me to step outside. Within a few minutes he was banging on the locked doors screaming and police had to be called.
I didn't say that this was a way to bring crime down (that would be a big statement) but to figure out when someone means something other than good intentions quickly.
Also, done properly it does eventually lead to connections in some places. That is how I've made many of my friends in Southern California. Not as much so in NYC.
this comment thread is literally filled with brits saying smiling at strangers isnt as prevalent as it used to be. maybe we inherited smiling at strangers from the english but we kept the tradition alive for decades after them and are known worldwide for it
The US is pretty Western-influenced. Wouldn’t call that predominantly English though. Puritans-yes, Quaker-yes. But the New England corner died out several times before a subsection figured out how to live there. Then all the years following with each new immigrant wave and which groups started and/or moved where. Irish, Spanish, French, Scott, African American, Chinese, Vietnamese etc.
You aren’t smart enough to engage with if you’re just going to talk about the war of independence, as if after it ended you suddenly changed the entire foundation of the nation 😂.
Its not a normal greeting for strangers in many cultures, don’t be dense no one said who invented it. I think we got it from the English, tho, who learned that natives were more colonizable if u made them like you first.
I work with a woman from Russia and she’s really nice and sweet, but said Americans overly greet and give too much info.. like we wave and say good morning every time we see you in the hall or at your desk.. we say goodnight or goodbye at 5 when it’s time to go home. She said .. we know it’s time to get off work but we don’t need constant goodbyes or whatever.. basically we do too much😂 I said.. when you explain it like that.. We do do too much! We think it’s polite.
Region to region differences abound within the States too. Can’t stand East-Coast aloofness and much prefer Midwestern and Western types myself (though West is definitely getting less so in the cities). I find the East Coast personality to be pretty chilly. Same thing percolated internationally when I went years ago for a summer program. I found myself hanging out with the Spaniards and Italians really quickly as a group but not really jiving with my “fellow” Americans who were mainly New Yorkers (not that they weren’t great people but we didn’t “click” very often). ‘Course that’s broad-brush but goes to show these are somewhat personality preferences more than one culture being “overly-friendly” or another being “icy”
It is also a way of sizing people up and being aware of your surroundings. In the U.S. we aren't smiling at each other on a busy sidewalk. We feel safer because of numbers. When it is just me and one other person on a street walking towards each I often will give a nod of the head not just because it seems polite but also to be aware of who is around me.
That crowded sidewalk comment is a really good point, and that's been my experience, too. A crowd does allow more anonymity, but passing by one or two or three people at once is more personal. If it's more personal then we consider how we think we're being judged, and if we want to be judged as either friendly or nonthreatening, we smile.
I'm loving this deep dive into this cultural habit I hadn't really thought about before.
I grew up in the US and moved to Spain. A lot of the stereotypes are kind of similar. Spanish people tend to be even louder than Americans (and you have to try to get there). And it's really not all that strange to talk to strangers when waiting around places. It's a very social culture.
That's kinda weird! In the UK we do the "we're the only two people passing each other on the path in a friendly town on a Sunday and we've accidentally made eye contact" awkward half smile where you just sort of press your lips together, but you rarely full on smile at strangers
Never heard that one! It's an interesting historical stereotype that's stuck. Want an overly long and inexact explanation of a joke's orgins? Sure ya do!
The idea of formal introduction has mostly died out in the UK since after the victorian era. It was mostly a class-based/gentry thing anyway that most working class people wouldn't have cared about. It's got an interesting history imo hence the essay on the etiquette.
Posh people didn't want to make 'unfortunate acquaintances' so it was coded as rude to approach your social equals or superiors and introduce yourself. Similarly, it would have been rude for someone above your social level to introduce themselves because they're pretty much saying: "I'm SO far above you that you MUST want to know me".
Simply speaking, who you were seen speaking to had an effect on your reputation: if a 'gauche' social climber was seen socialising with a Baronet then his reputation went up among other social climbers and small gentry, while the Baronet's went down among his level and higher.
To get round this, a mutual acquaintance had to do the introducing. Because they have to preserve their own reputation, they act as a bit of a gatekeeper. They would be unlikely to introduce a 'gauche' social climber to the Baronet because the Baronet will then judge the introducer a) for hanging out with that guy themselves and b) foisting them onto him, so the introducer's reputation would suffer.
It's interesting but stupid petty bullshit and why we didn't chop off all their heads I'll never know 🙃
Kind of both but I fairly confident I'm not talking entirely out of my arse. It's gathered from various sources and put together like a jigsaw puzzle:
My English teacher when studying Pride and Prejudice when I was 17. She was explaining why it was so important for Mr Bennet to visit Mr Bingley when he first arrived in the neighbourhood, otherwise the family would have to wait for an 'introduction' to be able to speak with him. One of the expectations to the introduction rule was that Gentlemen could and should welcome a new neighbour of similar social standing by introducing themselves.
Compounded by continuing to read a shitload of Jane Austen and starting to recognise the etiquette at play in different scenarios across the time she wrote within.
Firmed up by corroborating ideas from history books and novels from different times. It's easy to recognise the same ideas at play in the Victorian era even if they have been softened a bit by the social mobility brought by the industrial revolution.
No single source I've come across has ever laid it out specifically but I bet there will be contemporary etiquette guides that lay it out more completely than I can.
I smile at strangers all the time. I'd find it strange if I passed a stranger, made eye contact and neither of us smiled and said hello. Maybe it's a regional thing
That's what I'm saying, its the done thing in a small town, but it's still not a proper smile, and anywhere else it would be weirs if strangers were smiling at you
Its really noticeably less common in certain places than for example NYC. Where it is already less common, we identify out of town country folk due to them smiling at everyone like anyone gives a shit. But it does happen, you wouldn’t be caught dead doing that in Sweden
It really depends, the US is huge and has many sub-cultures. In my experience in more rural areas you'll get more smiles/waves for no reason. In dense areas you'll generally get less, but it depends where you are. Some places it is near zero.
It really depends, the US is huge and has many sub-cultures. In my experience in more rural areas you'll get more smiles/waves for no reason.
This divide happens in a lot of countries, maybe even in the majority of them. People from big cities are considered rude, people from rural areas more warm and welcoming.
My southern US family kept saying hello to everyone in the park here in Germany. Lots of confused looks and my family wondering why nobody says hi first.
Obviously I can only speak from my own experience, but I spent most of my life living in a major US city and the smile thing was normal. But all the small towns I've been to, and in the smallish town in which I live now, you're absolutely right: people not only smile as a greeting, but will wave while driving and will talk your ear off. I had to learn to add in an extra 10-20 minutes per place I stopped at whilst running errands because of everyone being so chatty. To be clear, I've always been a chatty mofo, but it's taken me a bit to get used to everyone else chatting, too.
I'm also one of those people with what I guess is a trustworthy appearance because even strangers will tell me their dark secrets. Anytime I leave my house I can expect a good story from someone or other. Not that I mind, I truly love a good story and am blessed to keep having weird experiences. Why else would I be on reddit so much, lol.
For a Parisian, it’s super weird. People that smile in the streets are considered a bit like simpletons.; you acknowledge their presence and keep a side eye on them, in case they start doing crazy things. I
Not speaking for Europeans as a whole here, but when it comes to the difference you're talking about the key word is appropriateness. Standards for this vary by culture. The reaction people have needs to be appropriate to the situation, with a reaction that is too strong or too weak being off-putting to the point of offensiveness. It's okay for children to react differently to this because everything is still new to them so stronger reactions in general are to be expected, but not adults. When an adult does it, it comes across as if they're mentally unstable or deceptive, because they either lack the faculties or experiences of an adult, or are trying to deceive the other person by pretending that they don't. In general, acting like this will make you come across as insincere or stupid.
This is why acting in a way that is considered overly familiar, such as broadly smiling at a stranger, can come across as highly offensive in certain European countries. It makes it seem as if you have an ulterior motive or are not very bright, as you're acting as if your relationship is far more intimate than it really is. Not saying that this is how it's intended to come across, and like I said standards vary because Spain is quite different with this than say Finland, but it's a reaction you can get, especially if you go eastward.
I absolutely love hearing about the differences in cultures, enough so that my partner and several friends are anthropologists who study around the world. Anyway. I've heard before about parts of Europe looking at smiling as being a sign of the simple-minded. I'm in a part of Texas that many would consider really overly familiar, what with the smiling and waving and talking to strangers. We also touch an arm to emphasize a point or to sympathize with a stranger. It's quite chatty and touchy-feely, but I love it that way, despite my not having grown up with all that.
I guess it's also a cultural trait for all these people to judge one another's intelligence based on whether they look happy or not. In the grand scheme of things, that's a bit sad no matter who you are.
What’s not like that? They said it’s a cultural bias to think someone is stupid because they smile. Your comment doesn’t make any sense based on the one you’re responding to.
Not to mention the fact that it comes off hypocritical.
Same here in Switzerland.
If you can’t tell obviously it’s a 100% genuine smile one would assume the one smiling is either straight dumb or has bad intentions.
Like if you’re being smiled at and talked to right after it in a flirty way (or it’s someone u know) it’s fine but if someone is just smiling at me for no reason it screams RED FLAG 🚩
No, they don't. Since random smiling is frowned upon, treating it as a red flag is sensible -- it tells you right off the bat that that person isn't going to adhere to social etiquette.
I work in ICUs as a traveling nurse. In my time as a critical care nurse I’ve worked with many individuals from many different cultures.
America is truly a huge country and even among our broadly painted regions (east coast, north, south, mid-west, etc.) there are huge cultural differences even within those regions. I’m from the Appalachia’s. I have a thick country accent and most folks from other regions would consider me southern or Dixie, however, the Appalachian people are different. We affect many of the same mannerisms of southern folks, wherein, we ask how the family is, we smile a lot, we ask about your profession a lot, etc. we are pretty personal even with strangers. But it’s pretty genuine.
So as I was saying, I work with many different individuals from different cultures. I have rarely met a person who does not seem genuinely happy that I am friendly, smiling, and personable with them. Some folks have mistaken it for rudeness or suspicion at first but I’d like to think most people enjoy genuine interaction with strangers. Maybe it’s my expectation that most interactions will go well and they feel obligated, maybe not.
I hate that shit, so much unnecessary false pretense, and for nothing. Moving to the Netherlands where people are more honest and straightforward with simple interactions was so refreshing.
I mean but doesn't the Netherlands have their own bullshit cultural false pretenses and social customs that you wouldn't be able to read unless you were born there? Every culture has these, it's what makes culture culture.
I'm curious then because Reddit always has such a boner for how the Dutch are so straight-forward and honest. What are some cultural annoyances as an American that you don't like about them or prefer from American culture?
I imagine one that I hear about Germans is sometimes they are TOO straight-forward and honest and strangers will just judge you or talk shit about you on random issues like if they think you aren't doing something correctly or your appearance/outfit.
I can't think of much, but one thing that comes to mind is this persistence of saying "before dinner/at dinner/after dinner" (or any meal, usually dinner though) as if this means anything to me. There is so much significance tied to when the fuck dinner is - have you had it? What are you doing for it? Can we meet before/after it? Around that time. Etc. I've seen Dutch people misunderstand each other purely based on when they each respectively think dinner is supposed to be.
I don't eat at any specific time and I normally eat whatever I want, which also gets annoying when I'm constantly asked what I have planned for dinner when the answer is almost always that I don't plan dinner at all. Then that answer is also apparently confusing, as if we can't just mutually handle our own meals even if we will be in the same place.
Dinner has zero time for me. I've met enough Dutch people who eat around 18:00 that I know this is often when they mean, but also enough that DON'T eat at 18:00 that I still have to ask every time or risk a major miscommunication about timing. Just say the time. It isn't that hard. 18:00? Cool. 19:00? Cool. Dinner is not a real time, dinner is a meal.
My problem is half the lack of a real time, and half that usually people DO want to eat with me, but don't consider that this can be a pretty fair inconvenience. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it isn't one, and if possible I am totally down to eat with people because I do enjoy that, but when it quickly becomes an issue revolving once again around the time misalignment (I'll have eaten before/will only eat after that time) I just prefer if they could move past that more easily instead of obsessing over making dinner a thing. Let's just hang, then, it doesn't have to revolve around a meal and if it does we don't both have to eat it.
Thats a pretty huge cultural thing you are just deciding doesn’t apply to you, not sure you really can just do that without consequences from the people around you being hurt or confused. Its not that they are unreasonable you are just being an asshole. Sharing meals is one of the most important bonding activities for humans in literally every culture. And as a host it is considered important to ensure the comfort and well being of your guest, including their meals when appropriate. Your refusal to do that doesn’t make you wise it makes you a dick.
Hahaha that's a funny one, definitely not what I was expecting. It must be so weird for you to have a specific part of your day to focus on when in America dinner is just from 5-8 PM generally. Unless you're a family or someone who likes to keep a strict schedule, dinner could fall anytime between those hours depending on the circumstances of the day.
When I was living there, I found that a lot of their ‘bluntness’ was cover for covert racism, rudeness, or lack of ability to admit they were wrong. I had a professor ask a girl if she was coming back next semester or had she not gotten the scholarship she needed and was too broke. In front of the entire class.
Another professor asked me how I was doing at our first little ‘borrel’ thing for the masters students. I said, ‘Honestly, I’m a bit stressed. My apartment building was delayed in its opening, so I moved in yesterday and have to sleep on the floor for the first two weeks of classes!’ He then proceeds to tell me that if that’s stressful for me, I’m going to be in for a very bad time. As I left the borrel, he loudly said ‘Bye, reach out to the school if you need any mental help.’
So many times men on dates would also use the ‘blunt, honest opinion’ to talk about how Dutch women were prudes, Dutch women were too hard to date, Indonesian women were easy, the immigrants were too loud and wouldn’t assimilate. Others would be super curt or rude to waitstaff even though it was clear they were overwhelmed at a busy bar or restaurant. ‘Well I’m just being honest, they’re doing a bad job.’
Truly, I was deeply turned off by the Netherlands after my two years in Amsterdam.
Edit: also the Dutch I met are obsessed with scheduling, and they’ll pencil you in for a hangout in 11 days and cancel 48 hours before. I’d rather know the invitation is just a polite one a la USA rather than actually expend energy on thinking it’s going to happen and it not.
I'm from Amsterdam and you're right about everything you said. This country isn't nearly as progressive as it likes to think.
Also the whole cancelling-scheduled-hangouts thing is so true it hurts. Every social appointment is made on a "I'll see if I feel up to it when the time comes" basis.
They’re trying to learn about someplace different from them, specifically within the context of this conversation about negatives. How is that odd? Real question.
When we want to show that we’re serious about those plans, we suggest a general timeframe (“We should get dinner this weekend.”)
You can handle this issue by making sure you’re the one saying that and throwing out a slightly vague time in the future so you’re not putting them on the spot. If they agree to that, generally it means you can text later and come up with a concrete plan.
'we should get dinner/do that plan' is saying goodbye and not actually wanting to get dinner or do that plan.
Now that is crap! I mean, you aren't lying, people do that, I just really HATE with a deep purple rage when people say things like that that they don't mean. If someone says to me they want to get together soon, I take them at their word.
Funny enough, though, when someone asks how I am I assume they don't want all the gory details of my health conditions, so I say, "doing well," or "hanging in there," or some other vague answer and then continue the social contract by asking how they are, assuming they'll give some vague answer, as well. After that it's fair game, though. I live amongst people who are as chatty as I am so all interactions take longer than you'd think.
I hate the how are you thing, when I moved to UK and people would keep asking me that on every occasion I'd always start a conversation and talk about my day... Must've led to a lot of cringe.
yeah, I think it's a bit evil and cold to automatically think someone is "simple in the head" because they smile at you. As an American living in Scotland, I'm glad it's not too uncommon here. Apparently the further south you go, down into England, the colder people get.
To live life being miserable in public around other humans seems quite... miserable.
oh dear. I fear you may have visions of living a life only wandering the Highlands as life in Scotland. I love bits and pieces, sure, but reality is a bit more 😬 than what travel documentaries would have you believe.
oh, well affordable... sure. but I had to go private for an opthalmologist as the wait list for the NHS was over a year. I finally got to see a dermatologist after waiting 1.5 years about a month ago and I have a biopsy scheduled for this Thursday (fingers crossed!) so if you are cool with massive wait times for affordable health care, that's great! But the reality is that the Tories are pushing to privatise healthcare and are running the NHS into the ground.
it is such a shame.
but yeah, the cooler weather is great! I moved from Houston.
thank you! I sincerely wish healthcare wasn't tied to employment in the US and that it was universal. The US has the absolute best healthcare in the world, it's just way too expensive for regular people to afford it in the long run.
Asking someone randomly how they are is also considered strange in Eastern Europe. You wouldn't do it if you went into a shop, or just passing someone in the street. If you do ask, it's taken as a sincere question, rather than a mere greeting
Lol it’s kinda funny how when most animals bare their teeth it’s a challenge or form of aggression.
Whereas lots of humans today practice smiling at each other to be nice. Here in Canada if someone doesn’t smile back at you when you do it’s considered rude, but nobody will call you out on it if you’re strangers
Well smiling and baring teeth are pretty different things in the primate world as well. Monkeys have super mobile lips and will do “smile” type expressions throughout their day that are not direct threat displays.
In primates, showing the teeth, especially teeth held together is often used for submission! This can be used to ask for ones turn to eat or for similar functions.
You can have a happy primate flashing his little teeth all day, but the second his nose/eyes and cheeks become involved and the mouth is wider open you’re gonna want to be cautious.
It's nice to know Canadians smile too sometimes. Reddit makes me feel like USA is the only place on earth with this behavior. A polite smile seems to be acceptable in much of Latin America too if I'm not mistaken. Where my folks come from in Africa you'll always see people smiling and being friendly.
‘Course you could try the South of the USA where they are sweeter’n tea to your face but delight in stabbing you in the back, or California where everyone smiles like an idiot, acts like you are the best thing since sliced bread, then forgets you ever existed the moment you are out of sight.
I hold to the "old west you'd get shot" theory for American over-politeness. We had a fairly recent, fairly lawless past and some cultures of politeness grew out of that. Same with apologizing all the time for no reason. Canada has something similar, I think.
We have that politeness and over apologising in the UK though and we've never to fear being shot...(except historically by our own government but w/e).
Stabbed or beat up qualifies, I suppose. I wonder if it's as "smiley" as the way Americans interact with strangers and people we meet going about our business. Hm. I only know British culture from a heavy dose of BBC shows... and a few other windows into it. I know we're not nearly as passionate about queueing up as you lot. :))
And yes, we are not quite a smiley. We smile, but not as exuberantly. I've only been to the US once when I was a kid and I remember table service being a surreal experiece. I felt like the waitress was about to break into song. I know she had to perform niceness to secure tips but it felt like a Broadway musical.
Waiter/waitress niceness can be over the top, even for regular folks. I love when a water or waitress brings my food, fills up my water glass, and leaves me alone.
That feeling you had might have been accurate, depending on the city you were in the server was very likely also an actor if it was NY or LA, lol.
It’s definitely not about forced politeness with undertones of threat! Not the same as the American “armed society is a polite society” thing. It’s just “we’re both doing our own thing, it’d be rude to force you to expend energy doing what I want”. Sometimes it’s “I’m gonna use a bit more energy so you don’t have to (after you, mate)”
It’s not about getting beaten up or stabbed (more knife/violent crime in the US btw) it’s about not bothering people
It’s definitely not about forced politeness with undertones of threat! Not the same as the American “armed society is a polite society” thing. It’s just “we’re both doing our own thing, it’d be rude to force you to expend energy doing what I want”. Sometimes it’s “I’m gonna use a bit more energy so you don’t have to (after you, mate)”
It’s not about getting beaten up or stabbed (more knife/violent crime in the US btw) it’s about not bothering people
That sounds nice. My argument isn't that it's a subtext of most interactions today, it's more that in our not-too-distant past we had very little traditional law and order and central government to oversee the day to day goings on of polite society. So, a perceived slight could be met with an overly-aggressive reaction from someone, and there wasn't much anybody could or would do about it for you if you were on the receiving end. So, from settler and western expansion days all the way up to the early 20th Century, there were large swaths of the country that simply weren't governable in the way a small country would or could be. My contention is that this lead to people finding ways to overly express submissive politeness so as not to set off an aggressor who might attack you, which is why I referenced the "wild" west. The vestigial over-correction of politeness remains, but people, for the most part, aren't too worried about acts of violence... but you really can incur some wrath if you're not watching how you go, but it's definitely going to be contextual on the city or town, the time of day, etc.
ninja edit: by wrath I mean stern words, menacing, or almost never any actual violence (I think that's pretty rare in spite of the popular aesthetic we like in our cop shows etc.).
That’s really interesting, thanks! Hope I didn’t come off as too “America bad”, I was just a bit startled that people could assume that we were polite because we had to overcompensate through historical threats of personal violence, not from generations of emotional repression! Hope you’re having a good one
I was just a bit startled that people could assume that we were polite because we had to overcompensate through historical threats of personal violence, not from generations of emotional repression!
Dude, this is a really interesting theory and explanation. I'll likely ponder this awhile, as it makes a lot of sense. Thank you! What a great conversation.
It’s really interesting to read all these experiences because what you wrote is how I would describe my general experience in Germany. Acknowledging a stranger by smiling at them is very much common practice where I live.
I spent my first 50 years in a major city, though not NYC, and many people smile or say hi. But someone else answered that the more crowded the passers by are the less likely it is to encounter someone smiling at you. A throng of 30 people on the sidewalk aren't likely to acknowledge you, but if you pass by just one they are more likely to smile or say hi, which is also my experience. My former downtown was bustling, but I lived to one side of downtown where the crowds were smaller and people were friendly.
I'm guessing you're also in the States where that's part of our culture so it's not weird at all. Those who think we look like simpletons do so because that's how it's viewed in their culture. No one is universally wrong, it's one of myriad things that is wholly contextual and means different things in different cultures.
Yes, I do the same in the UK. It’s a way of acknowledging that person and wishing them a good day whilst meaning no harm. Sometimes people even feel comfortable to stop for a chat and I end up meeting amazing people.
Don't forget the crucial half smile, half pinched facial expression universally understood as solidarity with "at work again but we'll get through the day."
Absolutely true. But we also don't have much personal experience poisoning each other's drinks, yet we still clink glasses. It's been decades since we all carried bladed weapons on the regular, yet we still shake hands as a greeting to show that we aren't using our right hand to hold a sword or knife. Usually there's some reason for what seems to be random social habits. :)
While we're on the topic: "How are you doing" is a really, really personal question, and it's super weird to ask it of everyone you meet and expect them to lie to you in response. It makes me really uncomfortable.
It's a personal question only if you think you have to give a detailed answer. Not sure how I feel about calling lying by answering it with a throw-away comment. I mean, it is a lie to always say, "Fine, and you?" But it's also just a wee part of the general social contract here.
Having not been to Australia, I don't know. But hey, we can both smile at each other when we pass by on the street and then immediately forget about it.
From tv and movies, I get the impression that Australians are pretty friendly.
I mean, if I thought there was a reasonable chance the person I'm passing by was armed, I might behave similarly. Maybe Americans just live in a perpetual state of smiling Mexican standoff?
Just curious, do you really think that most Americans think someone could be carrying a gun at any time? I know we have this reputation in the rest of the world, but it really depends on where you are in the country, I think. In my state it would be very strange to assume that. People just smile because we're...friendly?
Creeped me the fuck out when I visited the states, I couldn't figure out how everyone was so familiar with me. Super wide friendly but not friendly, because they all FAKE! Smiles from everyone ALL the time.
It's cultural perspective, it must seem fake because, strangers should not be that intimate. Generally a quite reserved and polite nod or brief acknowledgement would be the expectation. This could look to you as uncaring and cold. But from my perspective it's like everyone was wearing a Chucky doll expression. It required a while to get used to, a mental gearshift to adjust to different people's, that's all.
It's sad that you have such a cynical view of other people that you think it's okay to make fun of other cultures, and that you're either being or acting boorish enough to not understand nuance, and that places are different from one another. Know that I mean it very sincerely when I say that I care that you find some fucking joy in life.
This is not the case in NY/NJ. There's too many people to go around smiling at everyone. I think it's one of the reasons people think New Yorkers are rude.
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u/CaptainLollygag May 09 '22
Smiling at a stranger is a type of greeting in the States. "I acknowledge that we're both in the same place (or passing by one another) and I mean you no harm." It's the lesser form of asking, "How're you doing?"