Social Experiment: Perry County, Tennessee

While in town for a get-together with friends, I went to the Food Giant in Linden, TN. While cruising the aisles with my bum-wheeled shopping cart, I passed by a number of adolescent to mid-twenties young men. The first I passed looked down immediately refusing to meet my eyes or return my fake-smile pleasantry. I thought...Weird. Perhaps he is just socially awkward. When I passed another young man and he did the same thing, I most earnestly felt that I was deep within the Twilight Zone. Surely, this isn't something that is taught to young men in Perry County. "When you see a lady, don't you dare look in her eyes. They're all just like that damned Eve. They're here to pull the wool over your eyes and make you get them pregnant."

I then thought it was my duty to seek out other young men (most of them worked there) to verify my paranoia. I looked for them, and my results (without a control group) were startling. They all did it! They all looked at the floor. Now, one would think to inspect themselves before drawing too many conclusions, but I didn't think it was necessary. I had checked the mirror before I'd left my mom's house. I wasn't wearing any potentially revealing even accidentally revealing clothing. I wasn't wearing makeup, so I was neither strikingly beautiful or painfully unsightly. No toilet paper on my shoes. No fancy clothes, accessories, etc. There was no reason for these young men to be just plain un-Southern in their angst. They outright refused to greet me or meet my half-smile. I thought for a moment that there was a strange, Emmett Till-type mentality in the town. They were afraid of me maybe.

I do think that these boys are taught either implicitly or explicitly that they should not look into the eyes of women. It's sort of disgusting. They are hobbled by their raising. How are they expected to make anything of themselves? What if a woman is the interviewer? Or...is any semblance of communication with women possible for them? Is it even anticipated that they will cross the county line?

What is it, friends?