One woman’s quest to get a smile from fellow Melbourne joggers fails

ONE woman tried to bring a smile to the mean streets of Melbourne. She failed miserably.

MELBOURNE might pride itself on being the world’s friendliest city, but if you’re out exercising, you might beg to differ. Try getting a smile, a grin or a g’day out of passers-by and you’ll be sorely disappointed.

The grim nature of my neighbourhood Elwood (near iconic St Kilda) was brought to my attention after a recent trip to visit family in Wodonga.

During an early morning jog around Wodonga’s hills I was inundated with greetings from dog walkers and joggers. As I attempted the World’s Steepest Hill, I received a friendly call of encouragement from a jogger making the descent. Not a single passer-by ignored me or kept their eyes to the pavement.

I put the extra endorphins that day down to the fact the run was bloody hard compared to my ludicrously flat route at home, but when I hit the Elwood pavement a couple of days later I realised what’d made it so great — it was the eye contact and good nature of the people I passed.

I took it upon myself to see if I could bring a bit of the country friendliness to Melbourne and decided to grin or make eye contact with anyone who passed me and see how they would react.

The trouble was, not a single person would make eye contact to open the possibility for a happy holler.

Kimberly Gillan ran around Elwood with a grin on her face, trying to make eye contact with passers-by.

I craned my neck, grinned like a hyena and even got in the way of a particularly focused jogger so we could do that “which way” game you play when you’re in someone’s path that usually ends in a bit of a laugh. He grunted an apology without looking at me and continued on his sweaty way.

I’ll admit I felt a bit creepy when a buff bloke was jogging towards me and I was expectantly smiling at him so I’ll let his unfriendliness off the hook given I probably looked like I was propositioning him.

All up, I reckon I passed 30 individuals or couples on my friendliness experiment without so much as a sideways glance of interaction. A lot were glued to their phones, others blatantly ignored me, while some were wrapped up in conversations (which you might excuse, but it wasn’t enough to stop the Wodongarians from a nod and a smile).

And you can’t blame this one on self-absorbed Gen Ys either — Baby Boomers made up at least half of my sample size and they were as steely as the rest of them.

I know that people use exercise for stress relief and sometimes you just need to get in the zone, but surely we could manage a sideways glance and a nod of acknowledgment even if our heart is hammering at 190bpm.

Psychologists say eye contact is one of the most important forms of communication, and if you add a friendly greeting your chances of pepping up someone’s day seriously magnify.

So if you see a huffing redhead jogging along the Elwood foreshore smiling like a right dill, then do me a favour and say hi. I’ll try not to bear hug you.

Melbourne: She might be beautiful, but try getting a smile out of anyone. Picture: Inniss Cam