Desirability. In determining desirability, the individual is “identifying” the other and calculating whether this person, as identified, is someone he or she really wants to talk with. The calculation, like the identification, is based on the information received from the intersection of cues relative to the other's location, appearance, 11 and behavior, but is then coupled with the individual's own mood and purposes. Thus, for example, young unattached male informants invariably report that the people they are most likely to talk to in public are young attractive females. Skid row bums, persons obviously drunk, and persons acting “oddly” are frequently listed as persons one prefers not to talk to, although this latter is not an invariable rule. One young man who was enrolled in a social psychology class, reported that he enjoyed talking to people everyone else was avoiding so as to “experiment with what would happen.”

XREF: Relates to Goffman's dramaturgical sociology and stranger-interaction microsociology — the initial assessment phase of encountering others.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 996