I was also brought up to greet people, but try to greet neighbors in London, UK and they will look at you like you fell from the sky. Most of them will not even give a response. Big cities are a lot like this now.
I am from the US South and not saying hello (or waving when they pass by) is considered bad manners. I have done this all my life and people have told me that they like it when someone says "good morning" with a smile. Maybe I am lucky or biased, but I don't care. I like it when people are nice and I treat people the way that I want to be treated.
I sometimes have to spend a lot of time in New York and the people are the same. I just push through it. They won't change me because I like it when people are pleasant. Plus, the world is a nicer place when people are nice to you.
One problem in New York is that the vast majority of people who try to talk to you on the street want something--they're selling something, canvassing for a candidate, begging, creepily flirting or running a scam--and another big segment are under the influence or mentally ill. Usually the best case is a lost tourist asking for directions. The worst case, that everyone's aware of, is someone trying to get you to stop walking so they can assault you and/or rob you by force or trickery.
I was actually just about to post this, almost word for word, before I read your reply.
I often see lamentations about people not being friendly to strangers in big cities. I've never quite understood it. It's one thing to not greet or acknowledge a person if you're already having some sort of interaction with them, i.e. holding the door for someone as you leave a store. Of course you should say something or at least smile and node politely, perhaps making brief eye contact, in that case. But, outside of situations similar in nature to that I actually think it's pretty rude to accost strangers in a crowded public place. People are going about their business and you're attempting to force them to give you attention, even if that's not your intent.
Experience has taught me that above a certain threshold of crowdedness the only people who are greeting me want something from me in at least one of the ways you mentioned. Everyone else is out and about because they have something to do. When I go to the middle of nowhere Kansas from time to time things are different. There you wave to passing cars and say "hi" to everyone even if you've never seen them before. The odds that some random person is going to try and sell you a watch at the intersection of Main St. and State Highway Whatever is pretty much zero. And, there aren't a hundred other things attempting to distract people so demanding a brief bit of their attention isn't rude at all.
This is my problem with strangers saying hello out of the blue - they think I should stop everything and give them my attention. And in their head they think they're doing something selfless!
Yep. A nod will suffice for greetings in almost all public spaces. When I recognize the tell-tale signs I've been 'marked', I am always prepared to respond with the unusually effective "negative" response and leave it at that.
If nothing else, in many NYC neighborhoods it would be simply impossible to greet every person you see.
Still, there are plenty of residential neighborhoods where no one acknowledges each other on the street, and there is no sense of neighborliness. Paradoxically, given this article, I find that the more wealthy a neighborhood, the less likely you are to be greeted by a stranger. The poorer the neighborhood (I would imagine down to a lower bound – I seldom go to the truly poor neighborhoods simply because they are so far from the city center in New York) the more likely that greeting is, especially in a black neighborhood like Bed Stuy or (when I first moved here) Harlem.
When I was in Harlem the last time, there were a lot of greetings thrown around. Mostly, it was the older guys. The younger guys didn't seem to expect a greeting. I grew up in NYC and in my neighborhood, you saw people greeting each other through the 80's, but when the 90's rolled around, it changed and people stopped trying to know each other in any meaningful way.
In Australia what I hate is when people stand outside supermarkets or on shopping strips and say anything to try and get you to stop so they can sell you on something.
This might be okay if it was someone trying to tell you about a cause that they genuinely believe in but the majority of the time it is likely someone just working on a commission for whatever charity or group they are trying to sell you on.
They are called "chuggers" here, charity muggers. Ironically many are Australians on their gap years - you know the sort, white, dreadlocks, wearing sandals and various pseudo-Indian jewellery.
Yea, totally agree with everything you've said about it being defense mechanism, but the behavior tends to manifest in all aspects of our life and in places where it should not. For example, when I'm sitting in bars and where it's reasonably safe I'm still fairly reserved and I get annoyed when the guy to the left or right of me starts trying to make unsolicited conversation. It's not just me either, when I was younger and first started going out I learned pretty quickly people don't like be disturbed around here any more than I do now.
I always give a dollar to the first person who asks for it in any given day, regardless of whether I think they deserve. If they're asking for money, they probably need it. I don't think telling people they need it for bus fare is a scam, it's just another strategy.
My general experience is that people asking for money don't need it, not in the sense they'd starve without it anyway.
In the UK people asking for money straight out are usually drinkers. Drug users and scammers tend to want more than loose change hence the more elaborate stories.
I should add that I have been homeless and without money. One time my only option of eating was stealing food or asking for money. I chose not to eat.
I could walk you round a city in the UK and I could point out the real homeless and desperate people that you would never see - mainly because these are not the people asking for money.
I appreciate there is a huge difference here between UK and US since we have a welfare system that is many times more generous than yours. The people you encounter may indeed need the money?
You present "I chose not to eat" as if you made the moral choice. But there is no shame in asking for help if you need it. I don't have illusions about what most people asking for money are going to spend it on. Honestly, they have to deal with loneliness and destitution somehow. That is why I specifically say regardless of whether I think they deserve it.
I always found New Yorkers to be exceptionally friendly and not in the way you describe (ie wanting something). It's one of the things I love about the place.
This is a highly culturally dependent practice; here in the UK, saying "hello" to strangers is weird/creepy/intrusive and suggests you want something from them. (Also: the American practice of baring your teeth when smiling is often received as aggression.)
It doesn't mean they're not nice people: just that by starting an interaction trivially you've invaded their comfort zone.
Only in UK cities. In villages and hamlets almost everyone says Hello to everyone, even if they don't know them. This also extends to drivers raising their hand from the steering wheel in a little greeting when passing in country lanes.
American here, I have always found it disingenuous and a little creepy when people smile while baring all of their teeth. There is a difference from showing some when extremely happy and the practiced facade people selling something have learned to do unconsciously, notably when lower lip curls down for more dental exposure.
A lot of it's cultural. I'm from Boston and the NYC anecdote resonates with how I operate. If you talk to me on street or on the T or really anywhere i'm not expecting you to talk to me and we don't have some business talking together then I've just been raised to assume you're crazy or asking for something. I feel like 80% of the time it's a good strategy.
I hate then stranger says hi to me, because i dont want it be done to me i also never say hi to anyone.
For me saying hi is start of business, like if u enter shop and want ask shop keeper something u initiate with hi, other than that it is invasion of my privacy. I can tell if i want talk to u or not just from looking at u and no need for stupid small talk.
Living in Portland now after moving from SF. Jarring at first how many people will actually just look at you, and half the time will actually pop a quick "Mornin'" or "Hi" to you. A friend from NYC was here visiting and expressed how much it freaked him out to have people looking at him in the eye -- given his experience, he felt like they were being aggressive or nosy.
Anyway, having originally been from a small rural town in Arizona (where many people just knew each other by last name), it really bothered me how people in SF would seem to actively ignore your existence.
As a Swede coming to SF, it was a refreshing eye-opener how some people actually talked to strangers at all. Here in Sweden, it's literally just panhandlers, salespeople, drunks and the mentally deranged who talk to strangers in public. Every time I have been abroad, I try to bring some of that spontaneity and sociability with me back home.
I've found plenty of people in SF will look at you, the real problem is figuring out how to connect with them as an introvert. If all you want is for them to do the former just hit the gym more as fitness is a mainstream way to at least have a mutual appreciation of each other in this city, beyond just connecting with other devs and ops people via your open source contributions.
>it really bothered me how people in SF would seem to actively ignore your existence.
This city is full of insane mental patients walking the streets, which puts normal people on the defensive. You very quickly learn to never make eye contact while walking around, just keep moving and try to ignore it.
I never actually had that shock, and I grew up just north of NYC (near White Plains, a quick train ride right into Manhattan). You quickly learn to size people up and know who is likely to try to sell you something, often by how they dress, their mannerisms, and how they approach you.
A big part of the problem is that when you just walk up to someone they don't really know what your intentions are. My wife is actually currently working on this problem though. She is an event planner and has started running meetups specifically for people who are looking to meet new people. It has worked pretty well in the US, but we're actually going to be moving to London (assuming my visa comes through...).
People need more venues to meet new people, but by greeting I meant more like saying "evening!" when you pass your next door neighbor in the hallway. I don't think there's an expectation to chat in this case. If I wanted to chat I'd start with "excuse me," and probably walk up first as you say.
A greeting can be made from across the street, and sometimes just lifting your hat in response is enough (I don't have one, but I have seen people do this).
The idea is to make yourself visible as someone who is friendly, so that people approach you. (Granted, this might not be something you want to start out with as a total newcomer to a neighborhood like London.)
The thing with British people is, they love to socialise but above everything else they believe there is a time and a place for everything. If stuff happens out of time or place, things get really awkward. If you murder someone during lunch time, they'll be more offended by the indiscretion than the murdering. A good murder should happen during dinner, and the body found just before the cheese is served. Otherwise, it's just not right, know what I'm saying?
So if you want to talk to strangers, get yourself in a situation where strangers talk to each other. First stop: your local (pub). Or try gigs, festivals, open-air markets, that soft of thing. Or get a hobby and go to a club for the hobby, that's a great way to make friends (if you're a nerd with a hobby. I'm a nerd with many hobbies and it's worked fine for me).
If you just walk up to people on the street, or in the transport, and go "Hi, my name is Joe Schmoe of Peoria, Alabama, I work for Giant Corp Ltd and I have three kids and a wife I love" they'll probably only freak out and clam up. Obviously some won't, but it's a bit of a crap shoot.
I bet when you say you 're used to greet people, you also learned there's a time and a place for that too. You won't go and greet a cop making an arrest, or a firefighter putting out a fire, you don't go into insta-greet mode like a mindless automaton every time you see someone. The same goes for talking to people in the UK: you have to be mindful of the social situation.
I'm talking like a bloody foreigner here. Brits have a good side and a bad side. The trick is to learn which is the good side, and talk to that side. When they're nice, they're really nice, so it's worth it. Find that good side and say "hi" to it. You won't regret it.
Not all big cities are unfriendly - I think you'll find levels of friendliness in the UK towards strangers differing depending on the city or area. It is a cliche, but the further North (or even West) you go in the UK, people tend to be more amenable to chatting to strangers or striking up a conversation.
