As the reader has probably already noted, to utilize body management as a device for avoiding the city, the urbanite is required to call upon a considerable amount of city know-how. He must not only understand the meanings of various body movements, positions, and so forth; he must have the skills to apply this understanding to his own behavior. That all this skill should be put to such a negative use is perhaps one of the great ironies of city life.

SEED: Angle: the ironic inversion where urban competence is spent on withdrawal rather than engagement — a piece on how city skills serve avoidance.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 869