It’s not that people are unfriendly. Quite the opposite—this is a place full of thoughtful, driven, often generous people. But they are also, like me, frequently elsewhere: in their heads, in their work, in the quiet urgency of whatever problem they are trying to solve.
And yet, even in that inward state, I find myself drawn to say hello.
The conversations begin simply: “How are you? How long have you been driving?” But sometimes they unfold into something more—stories exchanged, small intimacies offered without obligation. My parents would never describe this as “seeing” someone, not in the language we use now. But that is what they are doing. They are acknowledging another person’s existence, briefly but sincerely.
I don’t pretend to know exactly why. There are obvious explanations: people are busy, preoccupied, cautious. In a densely populated place like New York City, if you stopped to greet every passerby, you would never get down the street. And there are good reasons to be guarded. But I’m not thinking about crowded sidewalks or moments that feel unsafe. I’m thinking about the quieter, in-between spaces. An after-dinner stroll. Standing in line for coffee. A passing moment where a greeting could happen and doesn’t.
It is not dramatic. But it is noticeable. You begin to feel, over the course of a day, that you are moving through a place where people register one another.
While writing my recent novel, I became fascinated by mycelium networks: vast underground systems through which fungi connect entire forests, allowing trees to exchange nutrients and information. A forest, it turns out, is not a collection of individual organisms but a network: interdependent, communicative, sustained by invisible connections.
A hello is not a conversation. It is not a commitment. It is, at most, a few seconds of eye contact and a word. But it is also a signal that says: I recognize you. You are not invisible to me. In isolation, it seems trivial. In aggregate, it begins to look like infrastructure—the social equivalent of roots beneath the surface, holding something together that we might not notice until it’s gone.
But when I close my laptop and go outside, I’m reminded that most people are not like that. Most people are ordinary, occupied with what to make for dinner, an email they forgot to send, something they said three days ago that won’t quite leave their heads. They are moving through their lives in ways that are benign, sometimes more generous than we tend to assume.
Have we become more fearful of one another? Or simply more practiced at looking past one another and avoiding eye contact?
A hello is a small risk. It is also a small act of faith—that the person passing you is not a threat, but a neighbor you haven’t met yet.
Lately, it feels like a risk worth taking.
Hence then, the article about in defense of saying hello was published today ( ) and is available on Time ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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