Is it rude to make eye contact with someone wearing a Human Cone?
Moved here from out past the Krevmire border about six months ago and I keep running into people wearing Cones and I truly do not know the etiquette. Where I'm from we didn't have them. Do you acknowledge it? Pretend it's not there? I accidentally held a door open for someone in a Cone last week and they seemed upset but I couldn't tell if it was about the door or the fact that I looked directly at the Cone.
You pretend it's not there. You don't mention it, you don't look at it, you don't hold doors any differently than you would for anyone else. The whole point of the Cone is that the person is already having a bad time. Don't make it worse by noticing. Exception: if they bring it up first, you're allowed to respond. But keep it brief. Nobody wants to relive whatever got them coned.
In a professional setting, absolutely do not acknowledge it. At a bar, it depends. Some people want to talk. You can usually tell by whether they've decorated it.
Wait. People decorate them? Is that... a thing? Like how?
It's a thing. Stickers, paint, fabric wraps. There's a whole subculture. The general interpretation is that a decorated Cone means the person has accepted the situation and is open to engaging with the world despite it. An undecorated Cone means they are enduring. Do not approach someone who is enduring. My first time I decorated. My second time I did not. The experiences were very different and I will not be elaborating on either.
There's a vendor at the Crambleside weekend market who sells custom Cone accessories. Magnetic clip-on flowers, snap-on visors, little flags. She got coned herself about three years ago, started decorating out of spite, and now it's her primary income. She says her best seller is a bumper sticker that says "I'd rather not talk about it" which to me defeats the purpose of decorating it, but it sells.