Eye contact/interacting with strangers

[Bob_Jackson_2019]

Being from the US, like most people have said it is common etiquette there to acknowledge strangers with a hello or nod/smile. The exception being Seattle where the phrase 'Seattle freeze' comes from with strangers not interacting with each other like most other places outside North America. Moving to England I got funny looks when I nodded at strangers on the street almost as if they were confused even got someone saying do I know you? You don't look familiar. Back in the US you acknowledge everyone it is just the way we are raised. In England my neighbors who I see every day don't even make eye contact yet all of my neigbors back home said hello in passing, many engaging in small talk. Only neighbours I speak to are my next door neighbors who I talk to while in my back yard although the neighbors over the other fence are very cold and avoid eye contact and have spoken to them maybe once the entire eighteen months I have lived here. I tend to not make eye contact anymore even though this is very strange to me because I feel uncomfortable doing so as nobody else around me does. It feels a very lonely place to live, I think more countries should adopt the small talk to strangers like the US does and the whole 'superficial' thing, it is not fake we are not reading from a script we are genuinely interested in talking to strangers because it is our manners and how we have been raised since birth. I think it is very difficult to make friends in the UK unless you talk to them first. Once you do talk first the friendships are strong and the people who as strangers appear aloof distant and cold actually seem nice friendly and good people. Many immigrants understandably become confused by American small talk thinking this random stranger is trying to befriend me. We don't want to come over to your house and meet your family 2 minutes after meeting in person, we are just being nice. I think it is easier to make friends in the US as people are more sociable, although the British can be sociable in a conformed setting where people have to talk like a committee or club or sports team or at school or whatever. It is easy to make friends there as long as you put in the effort to be sociable which most people do. In the US people are generally more sociable and it is easier to make friendships.

[Sassybluesy]

Originally Posted by The Dissenter

I can see where that poster is coming from. Having people who don’t know want to ask if you are ok 10x times is annoying as hell. That cashier was probably the 11th which the poster had reached the breaking point. Plus when you are from a place where strangers never talk (DC where I live for example) that experience can be off putting.

I can't really. In my mind, there's never a good reason to cuss someone out for inquiring about your welfare.


He's in a new place for 1 week, and decides to go off on a stranger. That's not normal.

[Sonic_Spork]

I saw a show once where researchers were watching people interact in public somewhere (pretty sure in the US) and they noted that there is a specific distance when you are walking toward a stranger, passing them on a sidewalk, where it's appropriate to make eye contact, and any further or closer than this very particular range is seen as threatening or odd. Like everybody does it, and nobody realizes that there is a very specific formula of how it works.

I notice that when I'm at work and passing coworkers I'm not very friendly with in a corridor, there's also that almost silly, awkward, stiff smile face we make at each other. There was a video on Facebook making fun of people doing that in offices.

Of course most offices I've worked in have a standard of casual friendliness too where people say, "Good morning" or "How are you?" in passing. The one that drives me weirdly crazy, just a bit of a pet peeve, is when people say what day of the week it is, either in a greeting, or in response to "How are you?" Like how is, "It's Tuesday!" a response to that question, Karen? How??