Life is too short not to stare at people in anticlimatic

My girlfriend, who is very demure, very mindful in public (read: neurotic)- constantly yells at me for staring at people. People in the grocery store. People in their yards when we’re walking down the sidewalk. People in traffic. All the various strangers we get to share a visual proximity with.

She thinks it’s rude, but she just doesn’t understand how it works in our small town rural Midwest communities vs how it works in more urban environments that are less safe, overall. In the city, observing the people around you and really taking your time with it to get to know all the lore you can pluck from them at basic sight, is not really an option. Comes off more like a gesture of aggression, and can be met with unpleasant reactions.

In the small, safe towns, it’s both your birth right and privilege to stare at whoever the fuck you goddamn well please. Standing on the street corner, watching some vehicle not from these parts drive slowly by, we can all swivel our heads in perfect unison as it passes. Full eye contact with the driver. Or the passenger. Really, it’s rude not to. What if he or she wants to reciprocate the stare, and flag us with a flat-palm wave just outside the rolled down window? If we weren’t staring at him, we might not see the wave, and we might cause offense in not returning the gesture.

It’s a more open kind of society. Maybe not completely, but the option is there, at least to the extent that the targets are also interested in that kind of thing. I am at least always open to finding out, and have made a few decent friends out of our neighbors. I like to look at people when I pass them on the trails. If they return the eye contact, I’ll smile. If they smile back, I’ll say hello. And that is the end of that particular social contract. Some people don’t want to look. Some people aren’t there to make friends. I respect that. Sometimes I take that tunnel myself.

But when and where possible, I think it’s good to be open with your community. And other people are the best part of life, so the more of them you can get to know and enjoy, the better.