Every year Kevin and I get season tickets to the UW World Music series. We rarely know any of the performers on the schedule and do no research on them beforehand. Every show is an adventure.
Last night in the theater lobby, we realized we were at least twenty years younger than the rest of the ticket holders. I told Kevin it was a good thing he knew CPR. He didn’t think his skills were necessary since every third person in there looked like a retired doctor.
It turned out that the evening’s entertainment was pianist Leon Bates and opera singers Louise Toppin and Robert Sims doing the best of George Gershwin. I’m not a huge opera fan but who in cold, gray, drizzly Seattle can resist a hot summer night on Broadway? Even Kevin, who would rather eat ground glass than watch any sort of musical, was riveted. It was over too soon.
Walking back to the car, Kevin mused, “Why were so many of those old people staring at us?”
“My theory,” I replied, “is that people of a certain age have the guts to look strangers in the eye because they just don’t give a shit what you think of them.”
In Seattle, looking at strangers all, let alone staring, is an anomaly. Maybe it’s the Scandinavian roots, but the majority of people here are not overtly friendly en mass.They are perfectly fine one-on-one, like when you order your latte. But when they pass one another on the street, sit next to each other on the crowded bus, or mill about in theater lobbies, thou shalt not look at any human being you do not know longer than half a second, lest they look back at you and the dreaded eye contact is made. 1
What’s so bad about eye contact? Well, it’s the subtlest form of acknowledgment. And no one wants to be the first to acknowledge someone who might ignore them, which is the subtlest form of contempt. This “ignore them before they ignore you” is a passive-aggressive kind of self-protection used by people who care too much about what other people think.
Who doesn’t care what you think of them? Small children. The homeless.
And the old folks, the true pirates in our communities.
When I am an old woman, I shall wear a pearl earring and look into your eyes.
A very beautiful old woman by pedrosimoes7
- Current graffiti on the Why don’t Seattle-ites Talk to One Another? Facebook group: “If you ever see this face walkin’ down the road, please say hi! I can take it, promise!” [↩]
