Saying Hello

You are walking on the street, and someone happens to walk the other way, towards you. What do you do? Do you look straight ahead, look down, or look at the stranger? Do you take your phone out and pretend you are busy?

I wasn't always like this, but when I cross someone, I look them in the eye. If that person looks back, there is usually an acknowledgement ("good day", a nod, a wave, a smile...). Thing is, practically nobody looks back. It's as if everyone wanted to be left alone in their own world, and not have anything to do with anyone. Or they instinctively feel I am not worthy or their time. But doing that enabled me to notice trends, and these are the major ones I saw, in generally-decreasing order of importance.

(Only one-on-one standard encounters are looked into. No group of thugs, no hobo-looking creepy, no drunk, no cell phone, no baseball bat... These would just drop the probability to near-zero. Just basic and normal situations here.)


Activity
If you and a stranger are doing something similar, there is a high probability of acknowledgement. For example, if you are both jogging, walking a dog, etc.

Age
The older you are, the more likely you are to acknowledge a stranger walking on the street. Old people seem to be very friendly. Teenagers and young adults rarely have visual contact with strangers on the street.

Time of Day
A surprise here. If I didn't notice that myself, I never thought that the time of day was such an important factor. Basically, people are a lot friendlier in the morning. This could be because in the evening, we have a whole day of work or stress on our shoulders, and we want to be done with it. I couldn't really notice anything about when it is still dark in the morning. It seems to be linked more to the time since waking up, than the time since sunrise.

Weather
A beautiful sunny day gets me more "hello" than a cloudy one. On rainy days, people are sulky. I also noticed that when it's a beautiful day right after an ugly day, people are happier.

Gender
That was an easy one. Women acknowledge strangers more often. I don't think it's because I'm a guy, mostly because of the "age" point here.

Location
If you are on opposite sides of the road, chances are that there won't be any acknowledgement. Same if you are both walking in the same direction.

Conclusion
On average, I'd say about 10-25% of strangers have a visual contact with me, followed by an acknowledgement. When I run, it drops to about 1%, except when the stranger is also running, in which case it's about 95%. It's the only case I know when I can wave to someone across the street.

One man I see once in a while when I walk to work in the morning greets me with a very loud and clear "Good day, sir!". This cheers me up and brightens my morning even more.