Passing strangers
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There's an obvious urban/rural divide in the culture of eye contact and greetings, and I suspect that within cities there are differences among neighborhoods, related to pedestrian density and the relative proportions of neighbors and strangers. Some of the (17,962) comments on this YouTube video support these ideas, but many of them suggest peculiar sensitivities in London, e.g.
As a pint-sized, teenage visitor to london, I asked a passing Londoner for directions. He leapt off the pavement in panic-stricken horror and was almost run over by a bus.
I'm a New Zealander. I tried to say hello to a person on a train station in London and they actually flinched with fear. It was 1991 and I still remember it.
As a Northerner who lived in central London I can attest that this is far more accurate than people may think. I remember getting the tube to work every morning at the same time and because it was so early there was only ever me and another bloke on the platform every day. After a few months of this one day I said "Good morning" to him and he looked at me like I'd just landed from another planet. This is the case all over London.
But the culture of eye contact in the UK is largely beyond my experience, so perhaps some readers will fill us in on the dimensions involved in this joke.
Stephanie Ellis said,
November 11, 2025 @ 9:18 am
As one born and bred in Yorkshire and then moving mid-career down to London, I can confirm the issue.
I have entertained friends and family with the truism that at a bus stop in London people will be shocked and appalled if you talk to them, assuming you to be a nutter, whereas in Yorkshire if you don’t talk to the others at the bus stop you are assumed to be a nutter. (In fairness it should be added that in London, if a bus hasn’t arrived within five minutes you are worried that the world might have come to an end whereas in Yorkshire you know that you have several in depth conversations with people before the bus finally appears.
The other, slightly less linguistic difference, is what to do when hoping to cross the road – in London you sprint across the moment there is a gap in the traffic, in Yorkshire you pause at the kerb knowing that motorists will slow down to let you across. When I travel between London and the north it always takes me a couple of days to adjust my pace.
To almost return to linguistics and the YouTube video, the worry about looking in your eyes when speaking is a bit more complex. Yes, in London conversations when in modes of transport tends to be eyes-averted but this to avoid being ensnared by a weirdo, but there is a sufficiently strong Scandinavian genotype for many Yorkshire people to be very friendly and chatty but still prefer to focus on something safe like your shoes.
When I watch Nordic films I am always amused by the different ways of showing passion as compared to, say, Italian opera. I remember one film in which the two protagonists finally realise they are made for each other. There was no histrionics but just the quiet observation that one of them better tidy up the storeroom. It was a beautiful scene and its “low-keyness”, if that is a term, that made so touching.
Jerry Packard said,
November 11, 2025 @ 10:05 am
This seems similar to the difference between ‘Midwest nice’ and the northeast urban coast in the US. In Illinois, Wisconsin or Minnesota, casually saying hi or striking up a conversation while standing in line or out jogging is no big deal, while the same behaviors in Boston or NY may get you all sorts of strange stares.
Barbara Phillips Long said,
November 11, 2025 @ 1:37 pm
When our family was transferred from central New York State to rural Kentucky, people at the grocery store were clearly disconcerted when I made chatty remarks to them over the produce. Now I live near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and commentary over the groceries seems to be acceptable.
I haven't taken this quiz, but the Washington Post is offering a quiz on the urban-rural divide in the U.S,:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2025/gapminder-quiz-urban-rural-differences/?itid=sr_0_dffe15fc-5016-42cc-94f4-b3a5f8f5bc9d
AntC said,
November 11, 2025 @ 3:45 pm
per @Stephanie, as one born and bred in (West) London, and then moving to Yorkshire straight after 'varsity, I can confirm the issue. I've never moved back to London. New Zealanders are even more friendly.
David L said,
November 11, 2025 @ 4:42 pm
I've never lived in London, but I grew up in southern England before moving to the US. The phenomenon mocked in the video is, in my experience, not an urban-rural divide but a south-north difference. More specifically, when I say south I mean mostly what used to be called the Home Counties.
Some years ago, after I'd lived in the US for a long time, I was visiting England and needed to make copies of some paperwork. I found a small business in a small town in Oxfordshire where I could do what I needed. In the course of running my papers through the Xerox machine, I started chatting idly to the proprietor. He seemed astonished and quite at a loss for how to react, so he stealthily retreated to his office.
I told this story to one of my sisters-in-law, who laughed knowingly and said "I suppose you're one of those people who has conversations with the checkout girls at the supermarket." Guilty as charged.
I live in Maine now. People here are very sociable and not at all the dour, laconic New Englanders of wide repute.
C Baker said,
November 11, 2025 @ 5:24 pm
> In Illinois, Wisconsin or Minnesota, casually saying hi or striking up a conversation while standing in line or out jogging is no big deal, while the same behaviors in Boston or NY may get you all sorts of strange stares.
People talk on line all the time in NYC. What do you even think you're talking about?
Doctor Science said,
November 11, 2025 @ 6:01 pm
I worked in NYC in the early 80s and traveled there from NJ or PA quite often during the 80s & 90s. In the 2000s I went into the city from NJ much less often, but *every single time* someone stopped me & asked for directions. Most (but not all) of the askers were women, of every age, race, & facility with English. Of course, I always helped, and I *could* help, because I knew the city & the basics of its transportation system pretty well.
Talking this over with other people, it seems that middle-aged white women get asked for directions MUCH more than other people, at least when our clothes are neither too poor nor too rich.
So I wonder how much the "Londoners don't talk to strangers" or other generalizations are overlooking important general or regional patterns in *which* strangers people talk to–by age, by race, by perceived class …