Fight or Fuck

Rules are rules.  Eye contact is an important part of human communication, widows to the soul and all that.  Culturally speaking there are human societies where looking at each other eye ball to eye ball is a no-no, from their viewpoint. 

Most eye contact avoidance issues are people driven customs, derive from historically grounded events and are due to their forebears undergoing abusive suffering by dominant overseers.  To be seen not heard and most definitely to be not looking directly at superior me in the eye, type of rules.  No problem at all with such customized rulings, especially in the homes of those unfamiliar foreign cultured people, with whom one is not familiar with.

However, there are places that end up espousing cultural norms, when in fact the majority of people living there are definitely not of that culturally shaped background.  Places that are in fact only shaped by the theoretical majority mindset of people who live there.  An adoption of a way of life that isn’t of your cultural background, is usually either an ability to be open and receptive to other ways of thinking leading therefore to being, or a sure sign of latching onto a way of being through insecurity fear and sheep following mentality.

The human world revolves on fascinating cultural habits.  From the weird and wonderful to strange and endearing, it’s what keeps us interested interesting and ultimately selfishly destructive.  The huge array of nation by nation customs, keep us grounded in myth merriment and madness.  Making sense of a chaotic world takes dedication to foibles and traditions.  It’s customary in most custom driven countries to screw up, when it comes to putting your foot in habits that you have no previous knowledge of.  Getting killed for causing offence is rare, although when customs are blended in law, outcomes can be dire indeed.  Thankfully and usually, levels that carry lethal implication are well advertised and brought to your attention in many various ways.  Customs cultures and habits really are what bind people.   They also pit them against each other.

So when it comes to the ‘what are you looking at, you looking at me’ aggressive type statements, it’s a part of the reaction to a culture.  A culture that expects if you’re physically in that environment you should know the rule(s).  The only problem with the rule, resulting from the culture embedded in the environment, is the fact that it’s not advertised.

The base banal rule that direct eye contact sends a message that you want to fight or fuck is hysterical, if it weren’t so serious in regard to its reality.  Hysterical in action, how do you know if I’m looking at you unless you’re looking at me and who does the rule apply to, looker or lookee.  Serious in outcome, rules must have consequences.

What is left out, apart from notices at airport entry and large printed billboard signage, is a most obvious question.  What does it take to fight and fuck at the same time?

Guess that would denote a brand new unspoken rule to add to a culture that already has enough domestic violence locked and loaded right in.

Image credit.  http://www.deviantart.com/tag/jthmnnyjohnny