And the survey said

[Marty Halvorson]

 > Wot, you mean they don't grimace back at you like you're some kind of
 > weirdo??? Inconceivable!

Maybe it's because I don't look like an evil pervert.

Some other interesting, to me anyway, items.

It's much harder to get people to notice that you're smiling while in an 
urban (downtown Santa Fe) environment than in the woods, even when the 
population in the woods at noon-time is quite high (near Los Alamos 
National Labs).

Smiling at street people is interesting in that most of the time it's easy 
to get them to notice that you're smiling.  However, the smile seems to be 
interpreted as a threat because quite often, the result is a duck into a 
hunched over defensive posture.  It takes repeated smiles over the course 
of several days to get a smile in return.

Peace,

Marty Halvorson