<p>“It’s not about being insecure so much as to convey how attitudes such as yours tends to be perceived by those who don’t share those perspectives”</p>
<p>Well, that’s your problem if you wish to worry about what other people think to the extent that you do. </p>
<p>And cromette, I am :-)</p>
<p>“I think opinions vary. Some say, absolutely. Others say, yes, maybe, if they’re not “sloppy sweats”, and they’re worn sometimes, not every day.”</p>
<p>You got it!</p>
<p>PG,</p>
<p>IRL, if that was the given situation…I’d probably do a double take because dressing up like that would really stick out at my local supermarket/grocers, give a smile, and go back to minding my business. </p>
<p>If it was the Midwest, I may even try striking up a conversation as so many Midwestern locals in my college town tended to do. </p>
<p>Then again, I’ve been inclined to strike up conversations with variously dressed random folks…including a few homeless folks with hygiene issues if they were friendly and amenable enough. </p>
<p>Some of the most interesting conversations I’ve had. A reason why I try to de-emphasize judging on appearances is the fear I may miss out on meeting and learning from another interesting person…regardless of their dressage standards or station in life.</p>
<p>Marian, sorry about your car! Unfortunately there are miscreants across all kinds of socioeconomic lines.</p>
<p>Several of my docs are in downtown Bethesda, so I am in that area on a regular basis. Yoga clothes are standard. Lululemon counts on them :)</p>
<p>Here’s a professor who took casual attire to the limit.
[Michigan</a> State Math Professor Strips Naked in Class, Is Promptly Arrested](<a href=“http://hypervocal.com/news/2012/msu-prof-naked-arrest/]Michigan”>http://hypervocal.com/news/2012/msu-prof-naked-arrest/)</p>
<p>At least he kept his socks on.</p>
<p>I think it’s pretty obvious that he had a mental break down. It’s quite sad to see the comments from my “friends” at a rival school who are posting about this.</p>
<p>“Just ring me out and we will be polite and courteous to one another. That’s enough for me.”</p>
<p>Well, I’m from the northeast, and at least in the small, local shops, the cashiers were very likely people we knew outside of their jobs. The local market was owned by a family in our church. The barber was an old friend of my dad’s. The dentist, a former classmate of his. And so on. So we DID chat, and it WAS sincere.</p>
<p>Around Seattle, I’ve seen some of the same checkers for several years. They ask after my youngest if she isn’t with me, I ask about their vacation to see their kids. One has a D the same age and grade as mine, so we compare homework-I like it. While we don’t socialize outside of these encounters, I think they’d miss it if I just kept my mouth shut. I know I’d miss hearing from them!</p>
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<p>Pizzagirl – I respect your position on wearing clothes that are nicer. I also respect your desire not to chat with the checker at the grocery store. However, when I talk about community standards, I could just as well be talking about grocery store conversations as I could attire.</p>
<p>For example, just a few days ago I bought a lot of milk at a nearby store. The checker, a young woman I’d never met, commented (in a very pleasant voice), “You like to drink a lot of milk, don’t you?” I told her that our family drinks milk at all meals, and she asked about my children, where they were in school, etc. She continued to scan groceries very efficiently while we talked. In my community, this is normal, expected conversation. Moreover, someone who would not engage in conversation with this checker would probably be considered rude, the “lowest common denominator”. Again, that’s where community standards come in.</p>
<p>It doesn’t mean that my community is right and yours is wrong or vice versa. It does mean, however, that when you use terms like “lowest common denominator,” you should recognize that those terms could just as easily be applied to you.</p>
<p>Sseamom: Perhaps I shouldn’t speak for her, but I feel confident Pizzagirl is not suggesting she wouldn’t talk to people she knows who happen to be grocery store clerks. Some of us live in towns that are big enough that we are not likely to know the people who ring up and bag our groceries.</p>
<p>absweetmarie - you are always so balanced. :)</p>
<p>Living in the NE, most grocery stores are very big and busy. In general sales clerks are friendly, but after first greeting they generally focus on ringing up grocery as fast as possible. It bothers me when I go to grocery stores around SF that the sales clerk would engage in long conversation with customers before me or try to chat with me when it is my turn. I am with Pizzagirl on this - I don’t think you really care about how I am doing, and stop asking questions.</p>
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<p>Pizzagirl – I probably take language as seriously as you take your appearance. You are obviously serious about making sure you are “put together” when you go out. I don’t, however, dismiss your desire to do so, because that is who you are and how you feel comfortable. Likewise, I would hope that my concern for how we use language, especially when it refers to women, would be taken seriously.</p>
<p>“Little” isn’t just a word meaning little in the visual sense. It is also a word that frequently is used to diminish something, and it has been used in the past to diminish women: “the little woman,” “her little job,” etc. Think of how many ways society uses terms that, on their face, don’t seem so negative, but that are really putting women down. Sometimes newspapers report something about a “woman pilot” or “woman driver” where they would never use “male pilot” or “male driver” – as if male is the standard, the norm. What about “man” to refer to humanity?</p>
<p>When we continue to describe women’s clothes as “cute” and/or “little,” without doing the same for men’s, we are continuing to perpetuate, although perhaps subconsciously, the notion that women are somehow lesser. Language does matter, and we need to pay more attention to it.</p>
<p>Thanks, oldfort! </p>
<p>Marsian, I agree that language matters. At the same time, I do not think it’s necessarily advancing the dialogue on these important matters to seize on the words of a stranger who innocently posted in a thread on a quite different topic to make a point. We all get what you are saying about the newspapers. Whether they are “really putting women down” is a matter for another thread, though (really). </p>
<p>As it happens, I often refer to men’s clothing as cute. I have a friend at work who has told me, time and again, that 60-year-old men aren’t cute. Labrador retriever puppies, he says, are cute. It’s a 10-year-old inside joke with us.</p>
<p>I for one am not that hung up on all of those male/female stuff. To me proof is in the pudding. I am little and I am cute (on a good day), but I am also often the only woman in the boardroom. They can call me whatever they want, but fact of the matter is I have a seat in the room. If you can’t make it there, it won’t matter how people address you. </p>
<p>Fact of the matter is that traditionally there has been more male pilots and male drivers, so if it is female, I would like to know, there is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it is better to acknowledge what IS, then we can proceed to try to change it, instead of pretending it is not by sugar coating it with words. Have you ever thought by mentioning “female pilot” could possibly bring it to people’s attention that maybe we should have more female pilots?</p>
<p>I am very feminine at work, but I don’t think there are that many men who would go up against me when it comes to productivity. I don’t wave my feminism banners around, I just live it.</p>
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<p>I can see how this might be perceived as judgemental rather than friendly. I suppose the pleasant voice helps code it as a pleasant comment rather than a snarky one, though.</p>
<p>Could you imagine if you bought some laxative and the checker said something about that? I think less is more when it comes to chit chatting. I tell my kids that, especially when they are at work.</p>
<p>If you work in the service industry - well, really any industry - hopefully you learn to “read” people. This is a very important, very valuable skill.</p>
<p>If someone comes up to the checkout counter and looks like they’re in a hurry, and the line has been long. A brief “Good afternoon, ma’am” while you’re whisking their groceries through at lightening speed is in order. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if someone comes up beaming from ear to ear, obviously about to explode with excitement, a cheerful and questioning, “Good morning! Wow, you look happy! Having a great morning?” is ok, and if she wants to tell you about it, then there you go.</p>
<p>You might be surprised how much the checker really DOES care what kind of day you’re having. The people we come in contact with all day can curse us or bless us. They are the seasoning that can make life really grand if we pay attention. It really is what life is all about, I think. OTHER PEOPLE.</p>
<p>I live in a pretty big place and converse with the checkers all the time. They ask about the kids, their sports, etc. IN fact the friendlier checkers have the longest lines because people will wait a bit to be with their favorite checker if not in a hurry. These are not people who I know from the community. There are some checkers at our local Trader Joe’s who I know from outside and they are chatty and efficient at the same time. I like your last paragraph, cromette.
Off topic to a degree, but in HS I did an exchange program where a girl lived with our family and went to school with me for a semester then I lived with her family. This difference was a constant sticking point. She was surprised that we would speak to people casually on the bus who we didn’t know. She was offended when kids in the hall would say, “Hi, how’s it going?” as they walked by. She felt that they didn’t REALLY care how she was. My response was they they are trying to make you feel welcome and noticed. When I went to live there it was the opposite. You could be the only 2 people standing at the train and there there was not even a nod of recognition. Every interaction was formalized. It can be a lonely way to live.</p>
<p>Did those responding to me about grocery checkers not notice that I live in a large city called Seattle? While it isn’t NYC size, it IS big, but don’t most people shop at the same grocery stores all the time? If I’m in another part of the city I wouldn’t know the checkers, but I’d still be polite and at least make a comment or two, as would they. It seems so much nicer that just standing there waiting for your tab. </p>
<p>If it’s one of my usual places, chances are I DO know the person waiting on me, by name, and we’ll chat as the food is scanned. It doesn’t take any longer. Believe me, having been a checker, chatting with the customers can name or break your day and certainly diminishes the boredom.</p>
<p>And saintfan-when I had to ride our buses, some of the best rides were when I met a stranger interested in talking. Usually it was bonding over our kids, but sometimes you just clicked with a fellow rider. Not always, of course, there were plenty of times I just pulled out my book, but I liked that conversation wasn’t considered intrusive or odd.</p>
<p>Sorry, sseamom, I didn’t notice you were from Seattle. In any case, I would say one’s preferences about talking to grocery store clerks is very much a personal matter. I really don’t like idle chitchat in the grocery store checkout line. This is not to say I am not friendly to or open to conversations with strangers. I see the same people at my local supermarkets, too. I smile at them and thank them. I do not want to talk about my kid with them. Really, I don’t. I’m sure, as cromette said, most clerks can read a person and know whether they are in the mood to talk. (Although not at Trader Joe’s, where it appears to be corporate culture to strike up conversations; I can handle that, but it bugs me.) Anyway, I don’t even know what the argument is. Different people have different preferences. I think the ONLY common denominator is that we agree one should be courteous to the people who serve us.</p>
<p>It’s interesting to see how people from different regions may interact (on the whole). </p>
<p>I visited Seattle, and I met some of the nicest people in the world, once you engaged them in the proper forum, etc.</p>
<p>But in general, on the street, we were surprised by how isolated most people seemed. My husband holds the door open for people - any people - who happen to be in front or behind us coming through the door. It’s just what he does, it’s how he was raised. Young, old, male, female, it doesn’t matter. He got a lot of weird looks. It seemed like most people just preferred to NOT interact. The door thing is just one example. Not a whole lot of smiles, nods or acknowledgements either - which is also common where we live. </p>
<p>But again - get these people relaxed, in the right forum and they were all smiles, laughing, having a blast, interacting.</p>
<p>I’m sure that there are people that find some folks seeming INSISTANCE on casual interaction in public…well, annoying. 
I mean, here I am in my bubble, and that’s where I’m comfortable, and that’s where I wanna be, and here you are trying to share my bubble with me. Get the heck out. LOL</p>
<p>It’s just subtle differences that I think are interesting.</p>