Whoever coined the phrase “Southern hospitality” was not kidding around. I was raised by a bunch of easterners whose idea of hospitality was pretty much limited to bagels and nose-hair-curling coffee. Moving to the South has made me painfully aware that the version of hospitality I learned is the equivalent of kindergarten-level here. I am now studying the veritable art form that is Southern Hospitality. Or, in my own words: How to Be Nice to People.
In New York you go out of your way not to acknowledge other people. It is never permissible to make eye contact with anybody, since it could result in a situation involving the police. With eye contact considered rude at best and dangerous at worst, pleasant conversation was out of the question. You went about your business pretending you were the only person on the street, and everybody else did the same. If you didn’t have anything important to say, such as “get out of my way,” you kept your mouth shut.
It did not take long for me to learn the basic, expected gestures of Southern Hospitality. But it’s taking me a good deal longer to actually put them into practice. The finger wave from the steering wheel, for example. Aside from the fact that any distraction from my form of driving could be lethal, it’s just not a gesture that comes naturally to me. In New York our finger gestures had a whole different meaning.
The art of pleasant small talk is another aspect of Southern Hospitality I am trying to master. My Love is from the South and well versed in pointless chit-chat. He can strike up an impressively mundane conversation about the weather or Applebee’s menu or the aesthetics of a license plate tag or any number of pointless, mind-numbing topics of conversation with strangers he may run into at, say, the gas station, with no difficulty. My conversations with complete strangers have always been limited to “How are you?” and “Fine.” Anything more drew wariness and irritation.
It’s not just an inability to perform these little niceties that troubles me; I am equally uncomfortable receiving them. People who wave to me when I am walking to the mailbox make me suspicious. When someone asks me a question in line at the grocery store I become flustered and tongue-tied. I immediately assume they are trying to steal my wallet. Because it can’t be that people are just this nice.
But the hospitality of strangers is nothing compared to the hospitality of people you know, which can border on terrifying. When I visit My Love’s family, I am so unnerved by their hospitality that I develop a stutter. My Love’s mother will, from the moment I walk in the door, try to press all her most precious belongings on me. “Do you see anything you like?” she’ll ask eagerly, while I stumble about her antique-furnished home, looking for the bagels. At first I thought she meant, Did I like her home? I came to realize she meant, did I see anything I’d like to actually appropriate?
My upbringing has taught me that it is rude to make a habit of going shopping in other people’s houses, and yet here it seems it’s rude if you don’t. Southerners are so gracious they would rather politely transfer all their possessions to you, and sit on the floor in an empty house, then worry for the rest of their lives that there may have been something you saw and liked in their home that they didn’t give to you.
I’m trying, really I am. On our last visit I accepted from My Love’s mother four framed prints, a mirror, and a canoe. I continue to develop my polite conversation skills, which still have the awkward quality of a child’s first steps. And, like those early walkers, I often trip over my own feet. It just doesn’t seem natural, all this niceness. It embarrasses me and makes me uncomfortable. So if you are a true master of Southern Hospitality, please put me at ease by ignoring my presence except to cut me off in line or give me the other finger in traffic. Then I’ll truly feel welcome.
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