On talking to strangers 11/7 '14
The current discussion of street harrassment has me somewhat interested.
You see, I talk to strangers.
I do it a lot.
I did it in Boston, when I was an undergrad, mostly at coffee shops. (God, I miss talking to strangers in coffee shops. I miss it so much.)
I think I really started doing it when I lived in Ithaca, as a grad student. One of the (many!) things I liked about leaving cold, miserable Boston for cold, welcoming Ithaca (you can't have everything) was the experience that I would walk down the street in Fall Creek (my neighbourhood) and people said hi to me, and I to them.
Over time, I suppose, I acquired a passing connection to these people, but for many of them, I didn't know their first names. But nonetheless, for a really lonely 21-year-old who'd just moved in from afar, it actually helped me feel like I was part of humanity.
There are lots and lots of ways that I talk to strangers. I say hello to people in cafes. When people next to me in line are asking questions to their friends that their friends obviously don't know the answers to, I semi-bashfully say, "um, actually, it's not Rangoon any more, they built a capital in the middle of the country." (Or whatever. I don't do this often. Which is to say I probably drive Daniel nuts with how often I do it.) I pet their dogs. (Really, that's probably half of it.) I admire their scarves. I laugh with them when I nearly decapitate them by talking with my hands and having them walk up behind me without me knowing they were there. I say hello when I stand in line for transit with them.
I've stopped doing some of the talking to strangers I once did, and to be honest, I miss some of it. I don't talk to strangers in coffee shops anymore, because everyone's staring at a screen and half of the people are listening to headphones. I don't compliment black women on their hair anymore. (Maybe I very rarely do?) But I saw a movie a few years ago ("Good Hair", by Chris Rock), where it was made really clear to me that black women largely don't give a shit what white guys think of their hair, and that some feel it's dehumanizing or whatever-the-black-equivalent-to-orientalism is, to focus on the art on people's head. [Oh, right: I compliment strangers on their tattoos, too. Gah.]
And, in general, I've tried to train myself not to compliment women on their appearance. I honestly struggle with this. (Example: two paragraphs ago, I noted that I admire people's scarves. Probably mostly women's scarves.) No, I never did, "hey babe, you and me, how 'bout it", or the like. [I do confess that I look at attractive people, under my sunglasses, at the beach. You do, too. Please don't judge me.] But I have, over time, decided that complimenting most strangers on their appearance doesn't make the world any happier than just, "Gorgeous day, eh?" [Did you see that? I have become Canadian enough that I can use "eh" successfully...]
Again, I kind of regret this, and it feels complicated. I do still compliment men on their clothes, sometimes, as, "those socks are so cool" or, "what a great hat!" (In general, I guess I never really compliment men on any aspect of their bodies, while I might have sometimes complimented women on their outfits. I can't imagine ever complimenting strangers on, say, their figures.)
I talk to strangers about music. I talk to strangers about Muzak. I give directions to strangers. (Favourite single example: in Lille, "SEE VOOO PLAY? EST KAY SAY..." "I speak English natively, and I don't speak French. Are you lost?")
I guess I still probably do talk to strangers about how they look, sometimes. And I probably still will. I don't think I'm making an assumption about women's sexual availability by doing so; in general, I more feel like we're all in drag and I'm acknowledging other people have done especially fierce drag that day.
But this space is hard for me, and I feel I should acknowledge that fact.
I do this pretty often too. I can only think of one time someone didn't care for it... and she had a point because for whatever reason, it came out sounding creepy. So I just made a point of sticking to non-personal-appearance related topics with that person for a while and now we're palz.
I think street harrassment is pretty simple: it's stuff you wouldn't say in front of your mom, said to someone you have not met. (OK, unless your mom is an asshole, in which case it's beyond my pay grade to advise.)
Almost everywhere I went on the tour, people were quite receptive to social interaction that was obviously not intended as a cat-call or some kind of flirting. Even down to nodding/smiling at people in the streets.
It was really quite a challenge moving here and being willing to say hello or nod at people just walking by or make incidental chit-chat, and have people just kind of stare at me "are you seriously talking to me dude? what is your damage?"
I really kind of hate it, but been a decade now and that social wall I've put up since then is really just because I don't like the pushback.
If you don't look, sound, and move like you're comfortable hanging out with street people (I know several people who work in social services and paramedical professions who fit the bill of comfy people) and approach me when it's clear to me from context that I don't know you[*], odds are excellent I will provide you cues that I don't want you to hurt me.
[*] At some point in the course of walking everywhere, I've gotten to know by sight dozens of people who aren't strangers to me though we have never or rarely exchanged words. In a workplace context, I am well enough known that I must reasonably assume someone who acts as though they know me probably does because I have a presence and a reputation.