Sporting shades

“I checked that none of my buttons were undone and that I was wearing matching shoes”

Speaker’s Corner
Áine Ryan

FROM TODAY I refuse to nod at, acknowledge or smile at people I meet on the street. In fact, from now on – no matter what the weather is like – I intend to adopt the armoury of the stars and wear sunglasses during all my public appearances. (Come to think of it, I may consider one exception to my new regime, but more on that later.)
First, let me explain what led me to such a dramatic anti-social decision. Frankly, it has been coming for a long time. You see, I can understand the practicality and the cultural etiquette of ‘looking through people’ if you are strolling down Grafton Street, the Champs Élysées or Time Square. What’s the point of courteously nodding at them all? Odds are you are never going to pass them on the street again. And anyway all that nodding could do untold damage to your neck muscles.
Clearly it is an entirely different matter if the street-walking is in your home town, which in my case, for over a decade, has been Westport. Covies are past-masters at looking the other way, avoiding eye contact, slipping to the other side of the street, blanking you. Really, if only from a tourism perspective, it is high time that the Town Architect diverted his attention from colour co-ordinated fenestration on shop fronts to hosting workshops on elementary street manners.
This social problem was graphically hammered home to me when I recently spent a weekend in Cork city. I don’t exaggerate when I say I was stunned – even worried – by the manner in which passers-by glanced, looked, stared straight at me. Initially, I sidled into side-streets and checked that none of my buttons were undone, that I was wearing matching shoes, that my lipstick wasn’t sprawled up my face like a Marcel Marceau mime artist and, moreover, that the lining of my skirt wasn’t trailing behind me like a billowing bridal train.
All my anxieties assuaged and my sociological and anthropological caps donned, I reflected  on this patent example of cultural heterogeneity. Why does the population of Cork city eyeball all and sundry – even middle-aged Mayo tourists – while the majority of people in one’s adopted town carry out every conceivable contortion to avoid optical interaction?
Admittedly, there have been occasions over the years where shortsightedness has left me in the embarrassing predicament of failing to recognise an acquaintance, even a friend, on the street. In fact, about 20 years ago I landed on a deserted platform of Heuston Station late one cold winter’s night and almost had my own father arrested for attempted assault. George is a bit of a character and I confess his eldest offspring has an over-active imagination (a handy skill in journalism!).
As I proceeded up the platform, I decided that the man menacingly walking towards me in the shadowy twilight was a down-and-out hobo who had nothing else on his mind but to attack and rob me. In situations of extreme stress, I always talk to myself: “Right, Áine, keep your head down, and keep walking.”
The tramp – wearing a long black coat and fedora-style hat – was now about two carriages away from me. And making good progress.
“If all comes to all, there have to be Iarnród Éireann officials here somewhere – so just scream really loudly,” I warned myself.
Before I knew it, we were abreast…. (heart thumping) …..  had passed each other…..Phew! ….. but no ….. next thing I could feel his breath on the back of my neck……aagh! “Help! Help!”
 My scream was blood-curdling. Oh! dear me, George has always been such a trickster. The moral of the story? If only I had looked him in the eye I couldn’t have mistaken that wicked familial twinkle.
After all, visually engaging with a casual acquaintance, a neighbour, a bank teller, or a shop assistant isn’t life-threatening, nor does it mean the beginning of a passionate affair or a lifelong commitment. And, reportedly, smiling is good for those life-enhancing endorphins. To hell with the sunglasses.