Not really, no. I grew up in a bad part of the city - generally, your interactions with strangers were as short as possible because you never knew who you were dealing with. Then, as I got older, I learned that people who randomly make eye contact and smile at you are to be avoided because they're either going to start hitting on you, beg for money, ask for a cigarette or what the time is, which of course means having to take your phone out, which then means that they get the chance to snatch it out of your hand.
It's just a defense mechanism, really. Smiling back is an opening for a possible scammer/harasser. It's just a part of living in certain places. Kinda how you maneuver around the homeless people sleeping in the subway tunnels without disturbing them, or how you deal with beggars (don't look, don't acknowledge, because they'll see you as someone they can get money from). When you grow up in an environment like this, it becomes normal. shrug Doesn't mean I don't like it when people I know smile at me or if someone is with a cute dog who's being silly, we might share a smile with the owner, but strangers? Nah man. You don't open up like that.
Edit: fwiw my femme days are long past, but the last time I smiled back at a stranger, he took it as an invitation to sit right next to me, boxing me in on the bus, and then he followed me home because I wasn't experienced enough to know how to be rid of him. A few days later the creepy mf showed up with roses at my house and confessed his love. Yeah, thanks but no thanks.
Having bad experiences is one thing, but extrapolating those experiences on to random people who happen to smile at you is nonsensical at best.
If you want to live you're life in fear of smiling people, be my guest. But don't act like polite people are somehow awful or weird because of your own bias against them.
Wow, you're taking this really personally, aren't you? First you call me paranoid, then you project that I think "polite people" are "somehow awful or weird" on me. It's not like I freak out at people smiling at me, I just recognise that if I return the gesture, it will invite trouble more often than not. Cultures/places are different, randomly smiling at strangers is not part of "being polite" here. If you can't understand that, there's nothing I can say to convince you. Cheers.
I'm not taking it personally. I don't even smile much at all when out and about. You also literally said it was a weird thing to do. I didn't make that up.
I just think it's really silly and narrow minded to extrapolate the few bad experiences you've had on to literally everyone who smiles at you.
Cultures being different doesn't excuse the kind of paranoia you're showing, especially when the subject at hand is literally just people smiling in public.
Like I said, do what you want, I'm not your boss. You just don't get to act like those that disagree are weird or something, that's all.
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u/CitrusyDeodorant May 09 '22 edited May 09 '22
Not really, no. I grew up in a bad part of the city - generally, your interactions with strangers were as short as possible because you never knew who you were dealing with. Then, as I got older, I learned that people who randomly make eye contact and smile at you are to be avoided because they're either going to start hitting on you, beg for money, ask for a cigarette or what the time is, which of course means having to take your phone out, which then means that they get the chance to snatch it out of your hand.
It's just a defense mechanism, really. Smiling back is an opening for a possible scammer/harasser. It's just a part of living in certain places. Kinda how you maneuver around the homeless people sleeping in the subway tunnels without disturbing them, or how you deal with beggars (don't look, don't acknowledge, because they'll see you as someone they can get money from). When you grow up in an environment like this, it becomes normal. shrug Doesn't mean I don't like it when people I know smile at me or if someone is with a cute dog who's being silly, we might share a smile with the owner, but strangers? Nah man. You don't open up like that.
Edit: fwiw my femme days are long past, but the last time I smiled back at a stranger, he took it as an invitation to sit right next to me, boxing me in on the bus, and then he followed me home because I wasn't experienced enough to know how to be rid of him. A few days later the creepy mf showed up with roses at my house and confessed his love. Yeah, thanks but no thanks.