People Are Weird

One of the many advantages hidden within the deprivation of never having your own car is the unending, and often unyielding, amount of thinking one can achieve in the hour-long walk to and from your job. Paired with a lost pair of earbuds, I spend hours on end completely alone, juggling memories, anxieties, hopes, dreams, and essentially everything else my brain can mull over in the time it takes to get from one location to another. I tend to frequent thoughts that have already plagued my internal monologue, as it is my personal belief that no dead horse is ever beaten quite enough; but every so often, I encounter an interaction that flushes my brain with new concepts I may have never conceived in the solitude of my own noticeably loud mind. 

Nearing the end of my trek home from work, my surroundings swiftly change from solemn, always empty Mc Mansions, to bustling, busy streets, before eventually turning to the apartment buildings and motor homes that I have come to know and begrudgingly love. My phone is playing a simple walking tune from within my pocket, accompanied by my gloved hands in a meager attempt to keep as much of my body as warm as possible. As I reach the peak of the little hill I was about to finish climbing, I see a woman down the path with two rather ugly little white dogs. Before she sees me, I remove my phone from my pocket and press my nose - the only pointed piece of skin available - against the pause button, ceasing any noise aside from my galumphing footsteps as I march onward. Unfortunately, though the lack of music did keep me from any obvious annoyances that playing music out loud while in public can cause, it did not prevent the louder of the two rat-dogs from sounding an ear-shattering, repetitive yipe in my direction. In an attempt to not disturb her any more than I had already, I reared off to the side, arching around her and giving her enough space and time to keep her little dog away from my ankles, and my good punting boots away from her little dog. As I passed, I glanced up from my feet, and meeting her gaze, gave a mild, potentially white, closed-mouth smile; a look I hoped would read as "I'm sorry for having to walk past you while you let your dogs go pee, but I hope you notice I'm doing everything I can to annoy you as little as possible." She looks at me and begins to turn her head away, leaving her eyes lingering before they eventually follow suit; a side-eye. No smile was returned, her head did not nod in acknowledgment; if I wasn't so secure in my perception and confident that I had not deserved it, I would almost think she was judging me. 

My first thought, as I'm sure many others' first thoughts would be, was that it was most likely not as deep as I made it out to be. She was minding her business, I was trying to mind mine, there is a very good chance that she was simply trying to keep to herself, and my acknowledgement of her was something she was not interested in, nor prepared to exchange. But as I walked onward, I couldn't help but cycle the interaction in my head over and over again. As if the aforementioned recollection wasn't evidence enough, I am someone who overthinks - and perhaps overtries - to be as considerate as possible. If I see someone walking toward me with a dog, I will always walk off the sidewalk to assure I don't disrupt them; if I'm playing music from my phone, I will always pause it before I pass someone as to not be the kind of person I am so easily annoyed by; if I make eye contact with someone, I will always give them some semblance of friendly recognition. I don't do it to seem a certain way, as if the act of being curtious calls for any amount of applause, but rather the way I was raised, and the way I think, things like this are the bare minimum to create somewhat pleasant human interactions - an element of life already rare enough to encounter. And while I convince myself that this stranger does not hate me just because she didn't smile back, I find myself wondering why the 'bare minimum' feels like such a stretch. If interactions like this were rare, I would most likely not find myself so stumped by it, but, as I've gotten older, I repeatedly find myself on the receiving end of what can only be described as shockingly unpleasant people. 

College was one such noticeable time in which I was repeatedly encountering people I simply did not connect with. It felt like no matter who it was, there was a sort of fundamental disconnect, as if the things that informed the way I went about interacting with others were drastically different from their own. That was until I met a girl I would inevitably spend every day with going forward. She was spunky and cool, energetic, and fun to a fault. But most importantly, we related to each other. We struggled in similar ways, connected in similar ways. We conducted ourselves as though we had the same mother's voice directing our first few steps into adulthood. A few years later, as we begun to drift apart as freshman year college friends often do, I found out a plethora of new information that was all new to me. One of the things that allowed our friendship to blossom in the way that it did was that we came from somewhat similar backgrounds. From what she had told me, neither of us was very well off, which, on the arts side of the campus we both lived on, was not as common as I would have thought. We shared stories of how annoying it was to deal with the privileged kids in our classes, the ones who not only come from wealth but have seemingly no idea of how to relate to anything else. Come to find out, she was not only not struggling, but every Uber ride to a frat party, every morning coffee she had covered for me, everything she had immediately asked my friends and I to Venmo her back for, was paid for by her family. She was not only not struggling, but had so much money given to her, she was able to squirrel away her own savings as a seperate fall back plan, something I had very little room to do amidst the seemingly endless spending that college required. This is not to suggest she is necessarily at fault for anything, nor that she did not have her own struggles aside from financial ones to deal with. She worked over the Summers and, as hard as it is for me to admit, given my personal feelings, has succeeded in a very self-made manner over the years. However, it was weird. It was weird to try so hard to relate to a struggle she didnt have. It was weird she felt the need to. It was weird that such a connection would be falsified simply because she seemingly had nothing else to connect with. And it's had me thinking over the years that my weird interactions with strangers may run a little deeper than just an awkward sidewalk encounter. 

People long for connection. We crave intimacy and relatability in its purest form. While true, life long friendships are always a plus, romance will never not be desired, and the closeness that only shared blood can achieve will be sought after from birth onward, it is the simple greetings, the small gestures, and the rare human moments that can make or break a day - something to show that no matter how iscolating the human experience is, we're never truly alone. And yet simultaneously, it feels as though such elements of life have become rarer and rarer as the days bleed on. Saying we are divided feels like the easy way out, as anyone who has gone outside can readily find available evidence of such a fact. Rather, I think it is the tangible rise in individuality, ego - "main character syndrome" - that is causing this noticeable rift in what used to be the given in any common interaction. We got cocky, and maybe more self-assured than we needed to. We started telling ourselves that no matter how much we had in common with those we deemed lesser or greater, we were the special case - the good one. And it's that separation, the minute distinction that no matter what the shared experience was that grouped us all together, our experiences should be the most prominant. We started thinking about life in what we owe. We don't owe a stranger a friendly smile; we don't owe our friends a shoulder to cry on; we don't owe anyone anything. 

A few years ago, on a walk to work, I had an interaction that I think speaks volumes to the spread that an issue such as this can cause. As I stomped to the beat of whatever late 90s song I was listening to at the time, a girl turned the corner ahead of me and began making strides in my direction. The first thing I noticed as she got closer to my range of site, were a pair of starch white, platform Go Go Boots, a very 'in' style at the time, strutting down the sidewalk. In my moment of awe, I took out one earbud, noticing none in hers, and as she passed, I said in my calmest, least nassaly voice, "I love your boots". Without a second thought or a head turn in my direction, she marched onward. I didnt even like the boots all that much, but the energy she exuded, the power each step had in her elevated heels, pulled the most genuine reaction from my mind, and I felt moved to tell her how cool I thought she was. But I got snubbed nonetheless. I remember asking myself whether or not she heard me. Maybe she did have earbuds in, maybe, as a man, I misjudged how comfortable she was being spoken to. Regardless, I couldn't help but feel a little insulted. In my experiences, an outfit-oriented compliment was the means for a great day, much less a very positive interaction, often met when an excited "Thank you so much" and a boost in confidence. I felt myself slipping into a spiral about it - how weird it was, how maybe I was the weird one, why I felt insulted, why I gave the compliment. It would be many years after that before I gained the confidence to compliment a stranger on their outfit again, perhaps out of spite, or bitterness, or maybe just insecurity. But I realized the root of the problem I had was not that she didnt say thank you, or acknowledge me in any way, it was because I wanted something in return. 

Niceities are only nice because they are done out of the kindness of your heart. And I realized in those moments that I had fallen victim to the "owed" complex. I felt I was owed a reaction, that my compliment called for something to make myself as happy as I hoped my words would make her. And I think it is this effect that snowballed into creating the dilemma that we face today. A world populated by people no longer motivated to be kind for kindness, but for reward. I hate that that interaction stopped me from giving compliments, because for as long as I have known myself, I have always loved telling people how cool they are - I have always enjoyed doing the 'nice' thing, not for a reward, or a compliment in return, but because that's how I hope others act toward me. The golden rule. 

People will always be weird. But the fine line is that not everyone will be. So long as we keep consideration at the forefront, and connection in the deepest, most honest parts of ourselves, the weirdness can always be overlooked. The customers who forgot that your paycheck doesn't negate the fact that youre a person, the stranger who stops walking directly in front of you to check their phone, none of it matters so long as you don't fall victim to it. So long as we don't let the weirdness weird us out, as I so often do, and remind ourselves that no matter the oddities and ponderful encounters, we are, whether we like it or not, in this together.