Your eyes cross path with a stranger - What do you do?

[rel=alternate]

I had a few years to figure this shit out, and I am barely starting to understand that smiling is fucking great. I am curious to know what you guys do.

It really makes you at ease. You cross eyes with someone, and they just smile at you. Immediately, it's not awkward anymore.

I am still struggling a lot not to avert my eyes, but I find smiling to people when your eyes cross to be a very rewarding, because everybody always smile back. And I know it feels good when a stranger smiles at me. It's just difficult when it does not come naturally. It's not a reflex yet, I still need to think about it.

I also have my staring back moments when under the influence, and they turn out 50/50 happy.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

People smile at you? Look at Chad over here, everyone. People smile at him.

 

[Neo-Nazi Rich Evans]

if it is a nigger you dont look them in the eyes. im not even internet memeing here. we have lots of niggers around here and it is a well known survival tactic, you do not look a strange nigger in the eyes.

i have a life time of feeling large discomfort at eye contact but i have forced myself to get a bit better at it. when i meet a stranger i tend to make eye contact for a brief second then look back to what i was doing. if it is a woman i make it a second and half, not only to assert my male dominance but also as further training on eye contact and getting me out of my normal autstic self who hates eye contact.

but no, i dont walk up and talk to strangers. screw that. if i dont already know you then i have no reason to know you.

 

[rel=alternate]

if it is a nigger you dont look them in the eyes. im not even internet memeing here. we have lots of niggers around here and it is a well known survival tactic, you do not look a strange nigger in the eyes.

i have a life time of feeling large discomfort at eye contact but i have forced myself to get a bit better at it. when i meet a stranger i tend to make eye contact for a brief second then look back to what i was doing. if it is a woman i make it a second and half, not only to assert my male dominance but also as further training on eye contact and getting me out of my normal autstic self who hates eye contact.

but no, i dont walk up and talk to strangers. screw that. if i dont already know you then i have no reason to know you.

Lol, yeah, I'll admit it, niggers never crossed my mind in this scenario. It's basic survival instinct, you're not supposed to fight this.

 

[Shamefur Dispray]

I lick my teeth all sexual like

 

[BlueSpark]

Pokemon battle

 

[Ultrapenguin]

Kiwis discuss basic human interaction

But yes, you shouldn't be a weirdo and an autist. Especially nowadays everyone is kind of nervous and scared of each other, so it's a wise idea to take some initiative and make it clear that you're an actual mentally present human being who doesn't harbor ill will.

Plus I could see some liberal journalist writing an article about how making eye contact and smiling non-consensually was toxic, and any time you could imagine a journalist complaining about something you know it's probably good to do.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

I bite their face off.

 

[Not a bee]

I misread the title and thought it meant having your eyes-crossed at a stranger

 

[Night Crawler]

I don't like prolonged eye contact. I see it as sign of aggression. It's also just weird. I just quickly look somewhere else. I don't like it so I know other people do. I just casually look away. I don't act like a spastic about. I have mastered looking away in a manner that shows I don't really care. I don't go around saying hello to people either unless they speak to me first. I do this because I know I really don't like being bothered by strangers so I do the same. But if someone shoots me a quick hello I say it back so I don't look like some kind of soulless inhuman weirdo. I am not exactly an aggressively friendly or social person. I really don't like having to deal with strangers. I know, everyone is a stranger unless you get to know them. I am definitely an introvert. It's not shyness. I just don't feel the need to be that social. Around people I know I am more friendly and talkative. But again not aggressively.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

If it's a woman I quickly avert my gaze and stare at their tits.

 

[SleepingBull]

For the past couple years I've been trying to be more mindful about how I present myself. Fixing my posture when I walk (no more virgin-meme stance), making proper eye contact, making that slight smile upon eye contact, stuff like that.

Lately, I've started getting random "Hi" or "hello" from people I've been walking past, which has caught me off guard. It happened twice today just stopping at a convenience store just a bit earlier. Unable to decide on which response greeting to use and unprepared to say something in general, I think the first time I mumbled "hey", and the second time I was slightly louder but ended up mixing hey and hello into just saying "ho". I'll probably be more ready for it next time. I need to overcome and switch my "howdy/hey" habit to "hello". I can't entirely explain why, but they don't feel right anymore to me. At least I'm no longer stumbling and tripping over myself like I did a couple weeks ago when I received a slight smile and hello from some girl I was walking past on the sidewalk to the farmer's market. To be fair, I had moved a bit to the side to give her and her friend room, so I was tripping over myself from being on the edge in new boots.

Kiwis discuss basic human interaction

Well, yes. Blame the parents that handed us some screen to carry and look at when we were 3. That OG gameboy, the dot matrix of pixels on that soothing green field, that was what the eyes were looking at when we learned to talk and converse. I'm sure the dinner conversations being held gathered around the TV didn't help. Anyways, just because these things are easy and trivial to learn at a young age doesn't mean they can't be learned later. The hard part, I think, is finding the humility and self-awareness required to want to modify such things.

 

[POWER IN MISERY]

bare teeth like great ape

 

[DavidS877]

It depends on if I'm armed that day or not.

 

[AnOminous]

"I was walking down the street. Something caught my eye. And dragged it 15 feet." Emo Phillips