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In practice, this advice sounds good for men, but I suspect there are a few too many caveats for women.
Trust me on this one: smiling at strangers, eye contact or no, is a good way for a woman to unintentionally invite unwanted attention from guys.
A vaguely-pleasant look, while taking care to always break eye contact to the side rather than down, tends to be (in my experience anyway) a somewhat more reliable way to make those assessments without drawing an unintended response.
Kathy
In practice, this advice sounds good for men, but I suspect there are a few too many caveats for women.
Trust me on this one: smiling at strangers, eye contact or no, is a good way for a woman to unintentionally invite unwanted attention from guys.
A vaguely-pleasant look, while taking care to always break eye contact to the side rather than down, tends to be (in my experience anyway) a somewhat more reliable way to make those assessments without drawing an unintended response.
Kathy
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Good analysis.
And a friendly gesture to a stranger, in some parts of my community, can easily generate a panhandlers's request for a hand out--men included, and burden you with the matter of getting rid of him--easier with some than others.
Don't remember who gave the advice: When on the "street" be polite to everyone and friendly to no one. Maybe it was Walt Rausch, but that sounds like good advice for women and men too.
The point: Might need different rules for different environments. Just going for a walk can take you into different "behavior" zones. Being too friendly or not friendly enough can focus the wrong kind of attention on us.
Now, as a psychology experiment, RBid's ideas sound interesting.
