In Oxford the man asked, "What are you?"
My friend replied, "Americans."
I said, "A free thinker and a sleep walker, both human."
Talking to a young man standing on the campus lawn, he asked, "What are
you?"
"Sophmores.", my friend replied.
"We are luminous spirits encased in the fleshy prison of the meat", I said.
In an online chat room someone asked, "What are you?"
My friend answered, "We're both males."
I typed, "Thoughts transmitted over the wire."
At a theological forum, a group of women asked my friend and I, "What are
you?"
"Presbyterians.", my friend answered.
"Zen Baptist wanderers", I said.
Some of them heard only 'Baptist', and I related to them in one way; others
thought that I said 'Zen Buddhist', and I related to them in a different way.
Alas, no one understood what I really said.
When I was a little kid my friend and I would go Trick-or-Treating every
Halloween. At every house the question was the same, "What are you?"
My friend would answer, "A pirate and a space man."
I would say, "Cold and filled with an intense longing for more candy."
On the first day of classes, the teacher has the students go around the
room and tell "who they are".
"I'm Greg", says Greg.
"I'm Suzy", says Suzy.
It is TM's turn; he pauses. "I am a young man who before yesterday was
spending all of his time sleeping and watching TV and now finds himself thrust
back into the world of academia. I am a human who needs to be loved..." The
other kids in the class are frowning at TM and the teacher looks perplexed.
"...And my name is TM", he says.
I once agreed to meet someone for coffee who I had previously known only
over email. She had to back out at the last moment but requested that I
send her a photograph of myself, saying that "At least then I can see who
you are." And I told her, "What I look like has very little to do with who
I am. If you don't know me by now, you never will."
TM wears his watch backwards, or upside-down, depending on your
perspective; regardless, it is worn such that the numbers are showing and
are upside down. Every time TM checks his watch, which is to say, constantly,
he is reminded of the fact that there is more than one way to see everything.
I wear a soda can "tab" tied into the end of the lace of each shoe. When
people ask my why I have tabs tied into my shoe laces, I tell them that it's
a symbol that I'm a 6th grade girl trapped in a young man's body. Usually
they go away and leave me alone after that. The ones that stick around
become some of my best friends.
I don't know when I first started watching people. I guess I just got
bored one day and started watching the people around me to entertain myself.
Now it's become a habit. On the bus, standing in a line, sitting outside,
wherever there are people around and I'm bored, watch them. I like to pick
one out and watch him or her for a while, trying to figure out what kind of
person (s)he is, trying to figure out what (s)he is thinking, what (s)he
thinks of him/her-self. I'll never know if I'm right, because I probably
won't ever meet these people.
Only..., a while back I was seeing this girl and.... well, I got rather
lust-crazed at times. And I could look at her and pretty much tell what she
was thinking, what she was probably going to say before she said it. And so
almost every time she tried to protest that we were moving too fast, I had
an answer already prepared. I always knew what to say to her to get my way,
what she needed to hear or to feel.
I told her that I had this mental model of her based on her actions and
my own conjecture, and that it was frightening because I not only knew
exactly what affect each of my words and actions would have on her, but I
also knew exactly what she thought about a lot of things we'd never really
talked about. I didn't think she believed me, so I told her exactly why it
was that our actions behind locked doors scared her. And from her expression,
I knew I was right.
And so now I wonder if that would work with anyone. After all the
practice I've had trying to pick up on subtle physical clues to understand
stangers, do I have but to make a concious effort and I will be able to
understand people on a hitherfore unknown level?
I don't think I'll ever know, because, I don't want to try to peer into
the minds of people I know anymore. I don't want to know their inner
thoughts unless they want to tell me them.
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