Smile Study Part I

Have you ever tried to smile at someone while you were on the train? Have you tried to make that most intimate of gestures–eye contact–with no other intent than to see if pursed lips would become a smiley face?

I decided to try an experiment today just to see how smiley New York subway riders could be. Note that I’m not equating a smile with friendliness. A rabid dog smiles before it bites you. But I do think there is something to say about a smile upon downtrodden, underground, I-can’t-wait-to-see-the-sunshine lips.

 Here are today’s results. 

7:32 a.m.– Enter a standing-room only F train. It’s cold so hats are on and scarves are still wound tightly around necks and some faces. Coats are thick and it feels humid in the car. I have to loosen my fleece scarf. I start to sweat as my body cools off after the long walk to the train station heated me up. I figure I’ll be lucky if I don’t catch a cold.  

I gaze at two men who, before I can even smile, look away. A woman smiles back briefly, the smile flickering across her lips, then turns away.  

7:40 a.m.– 21st Street stop and more folks get on. I shift to my favorite spot by the door so I can have a good view of the interior of the car. I get my courage up and prepare to look around to see how many people will make eye contact with me and then, if it’s made, how many will return a smile.

I swallow hard. I know I’m living dangerously but I make the choice, in the name of subway research, to go forward and start my scan. Here’s what I see. A pregnant woman and her male partner sit to my left, reading Griffen’s Something Blue. I can’t hear what they’re talking about because my iPod is blasting. I adjust the volume and glance away. They are too absorbed in each other to look up at me.

One man faces me directly but his eyes are closed.  I think he’s asleep. Three people are reading the papers (one Wall Street Journal, two Daily News). Two face me obliquely, their profiles lifted towards the billboards above them, their eyes unfocused in the patented New York subway blank stare.

One man to my right connects with my gaze. Before I can smile, he looks away, his head gliding on well-greased gears. Another man looks away too as our eyes lock for a fraction of a second.

By the door that connects the trains there is a brief scuffle and two men push against each other. The pregnant woman looks up with her partner to see what’s happening. The two men are arguing. One is mid-thirties and the other man in his fifties, both with black knit hats on, the younger man with an iPod earphones tucked into his earflaps. 

“Don’t do that,” the older one says, eyes widening, voice taking on a threatening tone. 

“I’m not doing nothing,” the young man says. 

“That’s right, you’re not.” 

The young man looks away and stares past the older man. The older man looks back towards me.  

I look away. I’m a scientist but I’m not stupid. I write down my observations in a wild chicken scratch because the train is going under the East River and that’s always a bumpy ride.

Then I cap my pen, turn up the volume on my iPod and let a blank stare come over my face as I ponder the data and just what it all means.

[orig. run date March 6]