New England guy here. I was surprised when I read OrphanWilde’s comment yesterday; I went out last night and observed. These are the rules most of us follow:
Someone trying to initiate eye contact wants to talk to you—even just “hey, how are ya” or a gesture of acknowledgement like when you pass them on the street. But the eye contact is always a prelude.
If you don’t want to interact, look in their general direction, but not into their eyes. If you do catch their eye, either look away fast or give ’em a nod or make your eyes wide or something.
You get one freebie look when you walk into a room or get on the bus, or when someone pulls up next to you in their car, that sort of thing. Gotta know who’s there.
It feels kind of evasive, I guess, but I don’t believe that in other parts of the world the rules are much different than this. Especially other cities, obeying the meta-rule of “your acknowledgement of a stranger is inversely proportional to the number of other people around.”
I don’t see any connection to aggression, creepiness, or man/woman.
Some examples:
I’m at the store trying to find something. Someone walks up beside me to get something. I ignore them, grab the thing, leave. Eye contact in this situation would be unusual.
Walking past someone on the street. Here eye contact is optional, but mostly avoided. In Boston you generally will not get a response from a greeting anyway, but in Western Mass you will. In Boston people won’t even notice you’re trying to look at them, most of the time, so in those cases a verbal greeting is actually surprising.
I sit down across from you on the train. Take your freebie look if you want it, greeting optional. For the rest of the ride, don’t look into my eyes. The first time you do it, I’ll give you the look-back. The second time, I’ll start a conversation.
Airplane. Completely average to never look into the eyes of your neighbor. But those have people from all over on them.
This matches my experience in several large cities in several different countries, so this is probably a default, not anything peculiar to Boston. And in rural areas people tend to react to eye contact more, regardless of location. Even hikers on a trail do.
This sounds like an exactly correct description of the phenomenon (although when you dismiss the connection to aggression and creepiness, consider the ramifications of somebody -not following these rules-, and even apparently flaunting them, on other people).
It does not describe most other cities in the US, although I suddenly realize that anybody who follows these rules would never notice they weren’t being followed. (Some variant on acknowledgment inverse proportionality to number of people rules are followed, but nowhere else in the nation do people treat eye contact in the transactional manner you seem to here).
Hmm, that’s an interesting observation. I’ve hear people from elsewhere say that something about New Englanders makes us seem “cold” and I wonder if this is the cause.
It’s far more than eye contact. I’m a New Englander who moved to Virginia, I get totally creeped out by people with whom I’m trying to conduct activity of a purely transactional nature (e.g. a real estate agent showing a property) who act with a degree of familiarity that is only considered socially acceptable among actual social relations in New England. They probably think they’re being friendly and I’m oddly cold in response; I think they come off sounding like con artists and need to back the f-ck off,
As another New Englander who moved away, I have a reaction very similar to Prismattic.
I also think of eye contact as aggressive, (and avoid making eye contact for that reason—I expect to come across as creepy) but until five minutes ago I thought that was my personal brain damage, and had never considered that it might be a local-culture thing. I’m not sure if it’s correct, but it’s an interesting idea.
I heard about a study once that found lower rates of autism diagnosis in England than in most other places, and postulated that it was because English culture considers eccentricity more normal. (I can’t vouch for this being true, since I never saw the actual paper, but it would be interesting if it was.) I wonder if New England would show the same pattern.
New England guy here. I was surprised when I read OrphanWilde’s comment yesterday; I went out last night and observed. These are the rules most of us follow:
Someone trying to initiate eye contact wants to talk to you—even just “hey, how are ya” or a gesture of acknowledgement like when you pass them on the street. But the eye contact is always a prelude.
If you don’t want to interact, look in their general direction, but not into their eyes. If you do catch their eye, either look away fast or give ’em a nod or make your eyes wide or something.
You get one freebie look when you walk into a room or get on the bus, or when someone pulls up next to you in their car, that sort of thing. Gotta know who’s there.
It feels kind of evasive, I guess, but I don’t believe that in other parts of the world the rules are much different than this. Especially other cities, obeying the meta-rule of “your acknowledgement of a stranger is inversely proportional to the number of other people around.”
I don’t see any connection to aggression, creepiness, or man/woman.
Some examples:
I’m at the store trying to find something. Someone walks up beside me to get something. I ignore them, grab the thing, leave. Eye contact in this situation would be unusual.
Walking past someone on the street. Here eye contact is optional, but mostly avoided. In Boston you generally will not get a response from a greeting anyway, but in Western Mass you will. In Boston people won’t even notice you’re trying to look at them, most of the time, so in those cases a verbal greeting is actually surprising.
I sit down across from you on the train. Take your freebie look if you want it, greeting optional. For the rest of the ride, don’t look into my eyes. The first time you do it, I’ll give you the look-back. The second time, I’ll start a conversation.
Airplane. Completely average to never look into the eyes of your neighbor. But those have people from all over on them.
This matches my experience in several large cities in several different countries, so this is probably a default, not anything peculiar to Boston. And in rural areas people tend to react to eye contact more, regardless of location. Even hikers on a trail do.
This sounds like an exactly correct description of the phenomenon (although when you dismiss the connection to aggression and creepiness, consider the ramifications of somebody -not following these rules-, and even apparently flaunting them, on other people).
It does not describe most other cities in the US, although I suddenly realize that anybody who follows these rules would never notice they weren’t being followed. (Some variant on acknowledgment inverse proportionality to number of people rules are followed, but nowhere else in the nation do people treat eye contact in the transactional manner you seem to here).
Hmm, that’s an interesting observation. I’ve hear people from elsewhere say that something about New Englanders makes us seem “cold” and I wonder if this is the cause.
It’s far more than eye contact. I’m a New Englander who moved to Virginia, I get totally creeped out by people with whom I’m trying to conduct activity of a purely transactional nature (e.g. a real estate agent showing a property) who act with a degree of familiarity that is only considered socially acceptable among actual social relations in New England. They probably think they’re being friendly and I’m oddly cold in response; I think they come off sounding like con artists and need to back the f-ck off,
As another New Englander who moved away, I have a reaction very similar to Prismattic.
I also think of eye contact as aggressive, (and avoid making eye contact for that reason—I expect to come across as creepy) but until five minutes ago I thought that was my personal brain damage, and had never considered that it might be a local-culture thing. I’m not sure if it’s correct, but it’s an interesting idea.
I heard about a study once that found lower rates of autism diagnosis in England than in most other places, and postulated that it was because English culture considers eccentricity more normal. (I can’t vouch for this being true, since I never saw the actual paper, but it would be interesting if it was.) I wonder if New England would show the same pattern.