Current mood:

strange creature

In a city, people don't say hi to each other as they pass. If you're lucky you can even avoid making smalltalk with most cashiers, too. It's not so much an issue of niceness vs rudeness as it is of volume; living in Chicago, I could go downtown anytime and walk by a hundred people I'll never see again. It's not an effective use of energy.

In the most technical terms, greeting people is an imposition on them, because while it isn't always necessary to initiate the contact, it would be much more unacceptable for them to not reply. You're demanding their attention. It's just an imposition that most people don't necessarily notice because they like the exchange anyway, or that they expect. But someone working a busy job, who might themselves see a hundred customers in a day, may not have the time or energy to talk with all of them, so isn't it almost selfish to insist they do so for you?

Well, maybe going that far is just me. A book in my linguistics class last year told me that in some parts, it's required for a host to offer drinks repeatedly and insistently, and taboo for a guest to accept them, which situation as a whole sounds pretty hellish to me. These are rituals with no meaning in and of themselves; they could as well be a big sign that says "I AM MORE OR LESS POSITIVELY INCLINED TOWARDS YOU AND WILLING TO ENGAGE YOU SOCIALLY." And empty talk is not my cup of tea.

Personally, I grew up in the city, but at least as much as that, it's simply my personality; I don't like talking. (Well, I kind of like talking to my cat. Wracking my imagination for the most awful things to say to an animal who can't tell the difference is a fantastic game.) I've been noticing this here at school, for instance that in the dorm cafeterias the employees are mainly very friendly and it totally annoys me. When I'm there I'm generally hungry and focusing very hard on which food might be tastiest, I don't want to be distracted by meaningless chatter! But what can you do; it would still be ruder not to reply.

Anyway, that's all well and good for introverts and misanthropes, but some time ago I noticed, much to my surprise, that while I don't have the habit of saying hi to people I pass on the street, I do have one of saying hi to animals. That's... really weird. As the kids say, orz.