City dwellers read body language to grant others the right to be left alone

Evidence

In assessing the appropriateness of initiating an encounter, the individual must consider not only his own relationship to the locale in question but such other matters as the openness to interaction being signaled by the other. Thus, for example, one woman reported that she hated to eat alone and enjoyed talking to strangers in restaurants. However, if the person whose table she joined (in a cafeteria, where lone persons must often sit with strangers) never looked at her when she sat down, remaining engrossed in his or her food or book or whatever, her response was to say nothing, granting him his “right” to be left alone. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 1008

Categorization

• XREF: This is civil inattention in action; connects directly to the reader’s stated goal of reading Lofland alongside Simmel and Cole on the observer.