Hi friends.

Can someone give me the lowdown on how guys acknowledge each other with the "head nod?" Like, passing someone in a hallway of a building? On the street? What is the head nod all about, what does it look like, and is there eye contact and anything verbal? Do you do it in the rest room? Or just ignore the other guys? Please help me learn the secrets of the head nod.

I don't know what is too much of a greeting and what is too little. Dang female socialization!

Thanks!

Its just something that happens... there you are, minding your own bussines, then, you loke at someone and nod. Why? Well, Why not?! lol

lol, that is the male form of hello, how are doing today, you look smashing in that flannel the color really accents your eyes. and from my experience is best only replied to with a returning nod. on a special passing one may be required to puff up a bit as the nod begins, not sure but this may indicate dominance. good luck with all that boy stuff I was really not so good at it. so do not take my reply as anything more than light humor

Fact is it's just an acknowledgment. Nothing more and nothing less. The fact that it's occurring shows that he is treating you like any other guy including himself. A head nod looks like any other head. It's not something I recall generally happening in the restroom. My recommendation would be to nod back if they nod to you. It's nothing special though. Head goes down and then goes up a moment later. Jerri might be right that dominance maybe part of why they not to you. As she stated, I was never good at the guy stuff either so take it for what it's worth. I hope this helps. Hugs
Mariah

Quote from: Clever on July 07, 2015, 09:15:58 AM
Hi friends.

Can someone give me the lowdown on how guys acknowledge each other with the "head nod?" Like, passing someone in a hallway of a building? On the street? What is the head nod all about, what does it look like, and is there eye contact and anything verbal? Do you do it in the rest room? Or just ignore the other guys? Please help me learn the secrets of the head nod.

I don't know what is too much of a greeting and what is too little. Dang female socialization!

Thanks!

If you're getting the nod, you're in the "Men's Club." Just nod back, it's just a general acknowledgement that you're both men and that he respects you, on some level, as his peer in gender. I've never nodded in the restroom or been nodded at, or I might think a guy was trying to hook up with me (depending on the place)  . Men's restroom culture is pretty straightforward, don't look at anyone but yourself, minimal eye contact/talking; get in, get out. So yeah, unless someone gave you a nod, I wouldn't nod in the restroom. But other places are pretty much fair game.

EDIT: About verbal communication alongside the nod, I haven't actually done it to a stranger, but a "Hey, man," or something easy to utter while passing by would be fine. It's especially acceptable if you know the guy.

Thanks a lot for your replies, friends! I appreciate it 

Headnods for when you're too lazy to say something or just want to say hi to a guy on the streets.
like "nod" yeah we both live in the same part of town.
An affirmative and understanding aswell parts social action, I suppose.

Men tend to grunt and read each others body language like that 

What andrew said!

Quote from: Jerri on July 07, 2015, 10:06:18 AM
you look smashing in that flannel the color really accents your eyes.

Several smaller nods with shaped mouth HMMMM NOT BAD also 

I don't tend to do that inside buildings unless i'm busy and have a lot of work and see another person with also a lot of work?
Depends what you do in life I suppose.

I always felt the traditional head nod was sort of like a "Hello, Pardner."  I never felt like that was my style, having grown up as a male in the inner city.  I adopted the 'sup nod'.  It is an up-down nod as if to say: "'sup?" or "Wassup?"  Example animated gif.
I have to stop myself from doing it by rote sometimes now, since it is not necessarily a female greeting. lol

pretty much what Andrew said.  Head nods are a short one pump either up and back to neutral or down and back. It is literally "hey you exist" guys tend not to look at each other any longer than to acknowledge each others presence and judge whatever you can with a brief glance (threat potential, social class, age, etc) Mind you this is with strangers rules are a bit different with friends, bros, etc. .In the bathroom its pretty quiet except for grunts of effort, sighs, etc. or that jacka....err jerk on the phone.

The male head nod means many things depending on the situation, it's best summed up with the cover all phrase "I see you, I accept you", amongst friends it better translated as "howya doin?"
If two male strangers make eye contact it's a way of diverting the rare response of "whatchu looking at?"

If you recieve a head nod whilst in the toilets then it's a way of avoiding verbal communication.
As a general rule, whilst in toilets keep eye contact to a minimum & avoid conversations whilst doing your stuff in a cubicle. If you're at the urinals & a friend speaks to you then keep eyes forward for the majority of the time, brief glances as speaking are acceptable but try to avoid prolonged eye contact as the other person may start to feel uncomfortable.
If you keep this in mind it'll keep you safe until you pick up the subtle unspoken rules for toilets.

Recently I did it towards a young craftsman at my place of work whom i had never seen before.
Immediately it felt extremely awkward to me and I thought "I must learn not to do this any more".
But now when I think about why I did it, I would say it was to make him feel welcome and accepted. Had it been a girl, I would just have smiled to express the same.

I nod at people all the time. It works faster than my brain and throat trying to form audible words. It tends to work great for strangers as voice gives away gender to those pre-T.

Thank you for starting this thread, it is very helpful for me.  I never realized that the nod had a variety of meanings attached to it.

Alexander

I think minorqback does a good job explaining it...

downward nod - acknowledgement
upward nod - greeting

where i work the customers are mainly male and my department is mainly men. when i'm walking by people i don't talk to often but i work with, it's usually a downward nod as to acknowledge them. when i'm working with people i talk to often, we all do the upward nod. i also do the upward nod when a male customer makes eye contact with me that needs my help but downward nod to acknowledge them still even if they don't need my help. customers also do the upward nod to me to greet me if they need my help without having to verbally say so.

I do it all the time with me and my boys, especially if I was in a hallway and I was trying to get to class mainly the upward nod it means wassup or waz good its another way to great sometimes, sometimes we will just do a head nod and sometimes we will do a head nod while giving eachother dap, there is only eye contact for like a second or 2, with the upward head nod, you just jerk your head upward in a quick motion, the other one is a downward motion nod that older people tend to do, its just to acknowlage that you are there

It's an instinctive greeting for me and I like how short and non-verbal it is while simultaneously communicating respect and acknowledgment. I just quickly lift my chin up while making eye contact and move on. I agree with the poster who mentioned it as the male version of a woman's smile -- it's just a way to make a passing stranger feel comfortable and at ease.

The guys in Chicago seem to headnod at everybody indiscriminately, because I definitely don't look like a member of the boys' club.

My return nod is kind of flimsy, though, so I just smile back. Even though I'd like to master the nod. I like that quick, non-verbal communication, and I hate fake smiling.

Wish I had more advice to give. I suppose I have a thing or two to learn from this thread.

There's really nothing mysterious or complicated about it. It just means "Hey, I saw you and am acknowledging you." That's about all there is to it.

Okay, just so I understand: any time I catch the eye of another dude I can employ this nod?

Is just averting your eyes to avoid contact all together ever okay? Or is that rude?

Smiling is just seen as weird, right?

I know this is elementary to lots of you guys, but I've never had a lot of guy friends and I've never been tomboyish, so this is all brand new to me.