You...(not) talking to me?

For the past few months, I’ve been going around a fair bit with another person. Said person is just over 6ft tall and not Asian and a man. He's from Europe (Austria) so has an accent. The reason I bring all these identity markers up here is that I’ve found it interesting to see how people react to each of us. For me, I have noticed that shopkeepers, service personnel, cashiers, librarians, etc all talk to me more than to him. They chitchat, asking questions about the book/thing I’ve bought or just general convo about the weather (we love the weather here. We’re almost British in how much we talk about it). For him, it’s people at pubs/bars/restaurants and also (we’re both at university) at uni. The most interesting difference I’ve noted is how many people at uni ask him about what his research is on while people generally talk to me about…yes, weather or student quirks or something that is unrelated to my research. 

In general university settings, folks from other departments and colleges talk to him usually, not me even if we are stood together. I think this is partly upon me----I do not exude charm or friendliness and find large (or largish) social situations quite stressful so am probably stood there looking as though I'm suffering through it all. If there’s someone else around, I’m happy to let them take up the slack of talking while I stand around and try to fade into the nearest wall. He, on the other hand, is laid back and casual and enjoys talking to university people*. But I think, too, our differing experiences indicate the gendered nature of certain types of spaces and places here: folks in shops, libraries, animal rescues, etc tend to be women and especially local women. From talking to some of my department’s administrative staff, I’ve realized that quite a few of the women here tend to be self conscious about their accents and a bit intimidated when they are talking to someone else, especially if the someone else is a foreign academic. “I feel the way I speak is funny”, as one of my department’s staff people said it. Also, the university settings where my friend tends to be talked to/with more are mainly populated by male faculty. These men seem to be more comfortable talking to other men, especially if they are from engineering or computing science (two of the biggest departments at my university).

There really isn't any grand conclusion to draw from this but just something that I found interesting...observation of trifles, as it were. Which was (and is) sort of the theme of this blog. At which I'll try to be more frequent in the future (but then I always say this, don't I?)

* Definitely not to locals, though--there's a story for another day there about foreign expectations of "the US South" and attitudes therein.