Stared At

[Tobus]

When we get to the Dairy Store its full of young men in their late teens and early 20s.

That's a little odd! Don't kids that age generally find somewhere more interesting to hang out than a dairy store?

Anyway, I get really annoyed at people who stare. It's one thing to look at someone for a few seconds, or even to make obvious signs of interest like poking your buddy or nodding your head in the direction of the person of interest. But to sit there and simply stare is the height of rudeness. My wife tells me she just wants to go slap those people who stare.

Why is it that staring is so rude? What is it about simply looking at someone for more than a few seconds that makes it downright uncomfortable or even challenging? Is it something that's unique to our particular culture, or is it pretty much universal? I can't think of any culture where it's polite to stare at people, so it would seem to me that it's simply human nature to be offended or affronted by staring.

[piperdbh]

Did you flash them a big

CHEESY

grin, Ron?

[LitTrog]

Why is it that staring is so rude? What is it about simply looking at someone for more than a few seconds that makes it downright uncomfortable or even challenging?

As I understand it, it's just a cultural expression of something very primitive and universal across the animal kingdom. In a social group, prolonged eye contact denotes either intimacy or challenge. If a stranger is staring, people are uncomfortable because of the unresolved hierarchy. And, for prey animals (like we sometimes were) something staring at us sparks that visceral suspicion that we're about to be a meal.

Fight or flight, avert your eyes or slap. Eyes are as useful in communication as a larynx.