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> My father-in-law used to like to come into the City to take pictures of people’s faces. He doesn’t come in much any more. Everyone is looking down at their ph
by galleywest200 4y ago
> My father-in-law used to like to come into the City to take pictures of people’s faces. He doesn’t come in much any more. Everyone is looking down at their phones.
>This raises a critical point: the loss of random encounters that are the basis of being what the French call a flâneur.
Maybe this is just the Seattle resident in me, but if a bunch of random people are trying to talk to me on my walk I would become annoyed very fast. I am trying to walk here, I am thinking!
I love walking aimlessly to no specific destination, I do it often. But don't "randomly encounter" me if I appear to be thinking.
- joe_fishfish 4y agoI think in London people would prefer you actually mugged them rather than try and engage them in a conversation.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoIt is not a Seattle thing. It is a living in a highly populated dense urban environment thing because the probability of a stranger talking to you out of nowhere being a scammer or salesperson is very high. Even in SEA or other big cities, people are more than happy to strike up conversation while waiting in line for food or tickets or any activity with mutual interest, but accepting random conversations while transiting from one place to another is a recipe for wasting one’s time or worse.