Confronting the Lebanese Gaze

Background
A little while ago, I started running. Shortly thereafter I determined that I needed a better way to handle unwanted attention (in the form of comments from passers-by and rather obnoxious staring). My plan was to take some advice from Art History, and confront the gaze.

Implementation
Well, its been almost a week, and I've faithfully been out running and putting the lessons of history into practice. Along the way I have observed who is looking and how they react when they see I am looking.

Lessons Learned
1. Adolescent and young adult males are the ones cat calling. Although Men over 23(? I can never guess ages) sometimes look, they are not the ones who comment.
2. Young men seem to feel most comfortable commenting when they are in the presence of at least one friend. Moral support perhaps?
3. The Lebanese (like most everyone else I've ever met) don't like to be caught staring. In roughly 60% of cases, they look away when they see I'm looking back.
4. The other 40% percent were looking at my face anyway. They tend to maintain eye contact when I look. No doubt they recognize me. I've been there every morning for two weeks now. (Yippee for me! I haven't given up yet!)

Case Studies
1. One morning I ran past two young men who were walking the opposite direction. One called out to me "Good morning Sweetheart! Welcome to Lebanon!". I looked right at him the whole time, expressionless except for an increasingly arched eyebrow. On my return leg I passed these two again. They neither looked nor spoke to me.
2. On another occasion I ran past two young men who were standing around doing nothing (who hangs out at 6 am??). One of them called out in Arabic with that look on his face. I did not overt my gaze, which I could tell by his expression was quite unexpected. I ran on, and noticed a few hundred yards later that the two were following me on a scooter. The same youth called out something else in Arabic before making a U-turn and vanishing.

Results and Evaluation
Yesterday and today, I have not been welcomed to Lebanon. No one has stared in an untoward fashion. I consider my implementation a success, and by extension, have proven the significance of what Manet did over a century ago.