People in Austin don't smile at you. Ever.
In New Orleans everyone smiled at everyone. I even smiled at people that I was flipping off on the interstate. You also said hello to perfect strangers and they never looked back at you like you were going to steal their purse. Wait, get this, the person you said hello to, they even said hello back to you! Imagine that!
Here in Austin I've tried my New Orleans charm on a few random strangers and they just think I'm crazy.
First I said hello to a girl that lives in my apartment complex when we were both getting clothes from the laundryroom. She just looked back at me blankly, grabbed her underwear, and escaped as quickly as she could. Yeah, all I said was hi.
Next I tried saying hello to people in some of my classes and that didn't work. Apparently at UT you only talk to people that you share a dorm room with/ pledge to a frat with/ or drunkenly molest one night at a party.
Finally tonight I tried to smile, not even speak to, but just smile at some other neighbors from my complex. The guy smiled back at me, which leads me to believe he's not from Austin, but the girl didn't smile at me. In fact she made eye contact but looked away so quickly you would have thought I looked that kid from the Mask.
Stupid, nonfriendly Austin. Learn how to smile back because I REFUSE to let you make me mean.
Same thing happened to me when I moved from New Orleans to Los Angeles, and I thought the same thing - "I'm not going to steal your darn purse." I kinda hated it. It's much better in Miss'ippi, because when you say hello to a perfect stranger, they generally wind up giving your a recipe for hush puppies.
ReplyDeleteI love hush puppies.