The Smile

This issue has been on my mind since I arrived in St Andrews. At first, it was just that I did not understand it: why did people I had met just a couple of days earlier ignore me when we passed each other on the street? It took me a while, and then I realised people here are just not as good at remembering faces or names. Then I just learnt to deal with it, and come to terms with the fact that people often just 'blank' each other here for no apparent reason.

My never-ending question in relation to this is: what is so wrong with smiling in this town? Not even saying 'hi', but just a smile of recognition. People look so uncomfortable when I do it. A smile doesn't mean much, I think, but blanking a person really does. "What did I do?", one wonders. Smiling is just a friendly way of acknowledging people you kind of know, but with whom you've never really spoken: a way of saying "we know each other", and then moving on. Ironically, smiling can even be a way of keeping this, seemingly, very desired distance. Smiling politely does not mean "let's have a conversation right here, right now", which is what I think most people must think it means. But at least it doesn't leave you feeling like you are some sort of non-person, something the eyes must avoid.

The worse is when the blanking is accompanied by the 'raped walk'. This applies to men only, I think. Have you noticed how some men who think highly of themselves walk with their legs kind of really apart, with a strange little bounce that suggests some kind of pain in the butt area? The blanking in these cases is so much more arrogant, but then again, watching this kind of person walk away, I can never resist but to crack a little smile.