My little social experiment

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I've been doing a little social experiment for the past few months, so I will share my results here.

I often go walking about in my neighborhood, and when walking, I would encounter other people walking. Every time I saw someone, I would either say hello to them or wait for them to say hello to me. 50/50. I walked in a completely natural manner for me. I do not have an unusual gait, and I do not look unusual in any way.

The result of the experiment was that if I did not say hello to the other person, then the other person did not say hello to me. No one voluntarily greeted me. Not a single time. There were hundreds of encounters, and not a single time did someone say hello to me if I did not say hello to them first. They always responded when I initiated.

I also tried modulating my body language and facial expressions, such as by turning myself slightly towards their direction or looking up and opening up my face from neutral to friendly, but none of these modulations had any effect whatsoever. However, when I walked with my NT mother, people often said hello to her before she said hello to them. I don't know what signals I am sending when I am walking alone, but I must have appeared 1) hostile, 2) lost in my own world, 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) ???, such that no one said hello to me.

Just wanted to share this experiment for funsies.

They may be judging you on what you are wearing or if you have piercings in your face or tattoos. Or your gender. Or hairstyle.

They may feel more comfortable saying hello to a middle aged female, because mostly they are harmless.

Just some theories

I've found that most people (even those I don't know) say hello to me as I'm walking by. Because I'm usually in my own world of thoughts, I never initiate the conversation and rarely reply to it. That's probably the most socially awkward thing about me: starting conversations.

The moral I take from this is: the gregarious bird gets the worm (the pleasure of interaction).

Some years ago, I would jog in a park that had a lot of other joggers. I like animals. So, sometimes I would first see the person's dog running ahead of them, and I think sometimes smile at the dog, then look up at the person and say hello. That seemed to work very well. The person seemed pleased that I took an interest and appreciated their dog.

Now, this same sort of thing does not work as well with parents out with their kids, even though I like kids, too. This day and age people just need to be more careful. Plus, I'm now a middle-aged guy. Maybe if the kid does something just outrageously cute and funny where anyone looking in the direction couldn't help but notice.

Whether or not people greet others in passing depends highly on the local culture of the area.

Generally speaking in smaller American towns people are more likely to greet each other, in larger cities, where you have a very wide assortment of individuals, and many people out and about, people are less likely to great each other.

I've moved around a bit and in some places, it was common place to great people on the street, and in other places, people were so unprepared to be greeted that greetings were often ignored except by a select few elderly individuals who seemed quite happy that someone talked to them,and the occasional out of towner.

I avoid convo with stangers. I am told hello a lot. I stand out.

people say hello to me sometimes but most times they do not. I always thought it was random.

People don't tell me hello either... They greet my NT friend however.. I am kinda bouncy sometimes and smile widely hehe.. prolly scare people off when I am happy...

When I am fine and just minding my own business I get a lot of hellos..

I don't normally enjoy greeting people either, but I did it for the sake of the experiment, and I was totally surprised that no one greeted me. I'm going to need surveillance video now to see what I look like and what I'm doing that's making people automatically ignore me. I wonder if this is similar to how we are often ignored, possibly subconsciously, in conversations, because we are never sending the expected signals that indicate willingness to receive or express.