Individuals dont talk to each other

I have noticed one of the marks of our individualist culture: the total lack of general greetings.  There actually seems to an expectation that you will not greet people in general.  This is more true in Chicago than anywhere else I have been.  If you have no reason to have a relationship with someone, then the expectation is that your interaction will be purely business.  There is sometimes not even space available to ask questions about the business, just do it and move along.

I see it every day scanning cards at the gym.  People come up and look as uncomfortable as if they had just wet themselves if they have a question or are unsure of something.  As if it is a social violation to not know, intuitively and intrinsically, how the membership system works.  The same goes when I have been getting on the bus, shopping, at a coffee shop...it can pop up anywhere.

This is just odd to me.  Especially hearing some of Julie's accounts of Ghana where greetings are a ubiquitous part of normal interaction.  From her descriptions you didnt need to know all that much of the language to get along, if you could get the greetings down then you were "in."  Here it seems that if you can get the non-greeting down then you're "in" but I wonder exactly where it is you have gotten yourself into.  Wherever it is everyone else there will be donning nothing more than staring down at there feet, encased in their own private bubble and maybe listening to an ipod with those oh-so-trendy white ear buds.