The smiling saga continues

The discussion of the issues of men, women, smiling, and sexual overtures keeps getting more complicated here and here. It's bound to be complicated because in all the interactions that people have, there are levels upon levels of meaning and tons of potential for misunderstanding. Naturally.

To begin with, the comment that Hugo made that caused me to respond that I don't feel like I "owe" anyone a smile. (By the way, he is referring to his younger self--this isn't how he feels now.)

Why is it that men are always guilty until proven innocent? I know there are some "bad guys" out there, but it is incredibly hurtful to me that women won't smile at me in the hallways or on the street because they have lumped me in with all the others! I get so tired of paying the price -- in terms of women's mistrust -- for other men's failures and betrayals and bad behavior. Why can't women see what a good guy I am?

By pointing out that some men try to "fix" the situation of women who don't smile at them by "correcting" them and telling them to smile, I meant to point out that even though some women don't grin at every man on the sidewalk for reasons all their own, men who would tell them what to do are conveying the message that women are on the sidewalk for his personal enjoyment and someone is falling down on the job. Not all men feel this way, not most men. But enough men that it can create some seriously tense situations.

It's true that most of the time most people pretty much ignore each other. I work on a college campus and walk by roughly one gazillion strangers a day and most of us don't make eye contact not because that's way too time-consuming. I am under no illusions that men pay much attention to me or to anyone else (barring of course some of the fashion disasters that everyone is staring at).

But a man who is frustrated that a woman doesn't smile at him is clearly paying attention and expecting a smile from that woman. And a startling number of men think that if they try to get a smile out of a woman and she doesn't smile that it's because she is angry at him or angry at men in general. A man barking at a woman and telling her to smile is just an asshole about it. But even someone like 19-year-old Hugo who wondered why women didn't smile in the halls was assuming that they were noticing him and choosing not to smile. I'll bet that in a lot of those cases they just didn't see him at all because they were lost in their own thoughts.

And that's exactly what I think offends the men who get up in your shit and tell you what to do. As La Lubu points out in Hugo's comments, men who do this probably know that they aren't going to get a smile for their hostility. My guess is it's either punishment then for not doing what they want you to do, or more likely just a way to draw your attention to where they think it belongs--on them. I don't think it's self-flattery to say that someone who bothers to bother you is wanting your attention on one level or another.

My only point was that women are supposed to be nice to everyone and can attract really hostile reactions for extremely minor infractions against the cult of femininity--read all the stories in Hugo's comments about getting yelled at for not smiling, turning down a date, whatever. A surprising number of them did have a sexual component to them, which has really caused me to rethink things a little.

Of course, in a situation this complex, it's difficult to really put forward any kind of bold assertion about people's behavior. I think that it's obviously true that the vast majority of expected "receptiveness" from women has very little to do with flirting and sex and stuff. But if there's reason to believe that a man does have a sexual motive, does it ratchet up the chance of an interaction turning hostile? If so, why?

Luckily, I live in like the perfect enviroment to observe this stuff. Not only are there gazillions of people interacting on a college campus, the sexual tension is high, as can be expected. Even so, I can safely say, I think, that most men who I have quick and friendly interactions with aren't thinking about that at all--not the guy who sold me my soda this morning with the shit-eating grin (yes, I smiled back), not the one who opened the door for me, etc. Tough call on the one who chased me down to ask what book I was reading this morning. (I have a funny feeling what my boyfriend's idea on that would be, but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and figure that he was just asking what the book was.) But sometimes, you can tell that a guy is trying to pull you into a conversation for specifically that reason. And since Austin is a very cool city, most of the time when you weasel out of it, they don't care and just go on their merry way. But I have lived in places where prying yourself out of a conversation with a man who was trying to ask you out is a delicate operation because there was a high chance of getting called a bitch or whatever.

No one likes to be rejected, of course, not me, not anyone. Taking rejection well is an art, as is rejecting someone nicely. (That's why it's wise to pull out of a conversation as quickly as possible with someone who is fixing to hit on you--the less they put on the line before they get rejected, the less rejected they'll feel.) And rejection is a two-way street. Women hit on men all the time and get blown off all the time and I'm certainly not denying that. But take a man who feels like he's superior to women and that situation and things can get nasty quickly. Not dragged off and raped nasty, generally. Name-calling nasty, butt-grabbing, whatever. If you live in a conservative part of the country, this could be something that happens quite a bit.

Anyway, a lot of stuff to think about, but I don't want to get long-winded. Generally I'm not a guarded person around men, even strange men. Part of that is just me, but I'm beginning to think part of it is because I'm shielded for various reasons from having hostile men "misinterpret" my smiles and general friendliness--by virtue of living in a liberal city where cruising and flirting is so common that no one takes it seriously, by virtue of being quick on my feet and able to play a little bullshit ji-jitsu with men who won't take no for an answer, by virtue of having a boyfriend or male friends around me in most social situations who scare off asshole guys, you name it. But if these things weren't true, I can see where I might be a little more afraid to just smile at any old person.