Lost and gained opportunities - location, location, location

Does where you live give you a better 'empathy' environment?

Several years ago, I took a sociology class. The teacher talked about a city environment, where we have social 'circles' that we spend time living in. These circles are the folks we see on the bus every day, our co-workers or classmates, the people we see at the grocery store on Saturday mornings and the crowd at the bar at night. There may be nobody in common among all of these circles - that means that my past days as a city dweller were filled with the chance to meet lots and lots of new people.

Look; a diagram!

I left the city over 10 years ago. My reality now is that I still do have these 'social circles' around me, but they are very few and they have many more people in common. The crowd I meet at the school with my kids are the same people I would see at the grocery store, or at the local coffee bar. Also, I travel in a car and not by bus or train; so I'm not likely to meet anyone when going from one place to another.

I think that leaving the city means I left the numerous circles behind, and as a result, have fewer interactions. It seems obvious now - if I live where there are fewer people then I will meet fewer people in my daily life. So is it better? 

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I have no regrets about leaving the city, because I don't think my ability to grow empathy is really affected by how many people I *could* meet every day. All that matters, for me, is to try to make every chance count. If I, by choosing to live in the country, run into less people, that just means I have to be super purposeful with the people I do meet. 

My community is the place where I can take my empathy chances. My community just happens to be a bit smaller than it used to be.

What about you - Where you live, do you have lots of opportunities, or very few? Do you think that where you live makes a difference in your chances to grow your empathy muscles?

Janet

A quick story

Have you ever met someone famous? Was it a good meeting? I would love to hear stories of your encounters. Please use the comments to share.

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As a teenager I had a few odd jobs. Usually my job was 'be the cute white girl sitting at the front desk and answering the telephone'. For a few years though I did some office work at my father's store, bookkeeping and collections mostly. I loved helping out, and it gave me enough pocket money to buy tickets to some great summertime rock concerts. Good times.

My dad's place was in the village in New York City near Canal street, which was a half-hour walk from home.  Using my feet instead of taking the bus or the train gave me a chance to get some exercise, do some window shopping, and listen to some great tunes on my walkman.

One day I was zipping along my usual path; straight uptown on Broadway approaching the shoe stores that lined the avenue near St. Marks. A man was walking quickly toward me. He was crazy-pale white, wearing a grubby tee-shirt, a black jacket and tight black pants, which was fairly typical attire for 1988 in New York City.

He was walking so fast and I was going so fast that I only caught snippets of him, just tiny puzzle piece images. He was really skinny, I remember. I think I could have wrapped my hand around his ankles they were so small. As he passed me I caught a glimpse of long black hair draped sloppily over his face, a prominent nose, and a definite sway to his walk. It was more of a lope, actually, like his whole body went up and down as he took each long step; and he was moving along at a good clip on those teeny tiny legs.

Only after he passed me did the entire image of him come together in my mind, and I stopped. I know him. How do I know him? Who was that? Why do I know him? Was that...Joey Ramone?

I immediately started walking back downtown as fast as I could. "Was it really him?" I thought as I walked. Maybe it's not him. Maybe when I see him up close I'll see, it's definitely not him. He's moving fast, can I catch up to him? Should I be chasing him? All these thoughts came in a quick jumble as I tried to justify why I was now walking really fast away from home, trying to catch up to a guy who maybe, maybe was a member of the Ramones. "I have to know", I thought. I was literally running at this point and about to turn around, when all of a sudden there he was.

I scuttled up and said quickly (slightly out of breath), "Excuse me, are you Joey Ramone?", thinking again, "I have to know." He stopped. He looked at me, said, "Yeah" and I knew, I knew it when held his hand out, I knew it when I shook his hand, I knew it as I looked at his face behind his hair. I must have watched the movie Rock 'n Roll High School a dozen times in the past year, I was certain it was him. I shook his hand, he let go and slung himself away again. He was very quickly out of sight.

I stood there for a moment just letting the experience sit in my belly. Joey Ramone. He said "Yeah". Actually, the way he said "Yeah" was kind of like the rest of him, I reflected, long and drawn out with a bit of a twist in the middle.

I turned around and headed home, repeating the story in my mind so I could tell all my friends later; and now, I've told you. So I guess we're friends then. :)

Did you ever have one of those experiences that went exactly the way you wanted? Yeah, that was one of those times for me.

Janet

We are meant to face each other

Growing up in New York City I learned not to make eye contact with strangers. I've talked about the fear I learned in New York City before and this is another aspect of it. It's the way I learned to let my eyes glide over the people walking towards me, or to look down at my feet.

I learned that making eye contact was dangerous, but now I'm doubting that fear. I had many experiences where a stranger would make eye contact and then try to talk to me; once or twice it was a tourist asking for directions. I'd try to help if I could. Sometimes they were begging and trying to get me to give them money, and sometimes I would give them money. Other times, especially when I was alone, I would walk away quickly. Once I remember a guy who just wanted to smile at me. Still, I learned to be afraid of these interactions. I learned that I could get hurt.

How many of you live somewhere with a lot of people, and maybe have learned the same thing? Now that I've lived outside of the city for a few years I believe I've lost this skill; and I'm not sure I want it back.

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I believe that our bodies are designed to interact with each other. We're built with faces that are flat, and faces that are full of expression. I believe that we are meant to look into each other's eyes and see how people are feeling, to react and to interact with those emotions and to hear other people's ideas.

Now when I visit a city I see that it takes hard work and focused effort to ignore people. This 'skill' of ignoring the people around us may be necessary in certain situations, but I believe it's hard for me to do because it's not what I'm meant to do. I'm going against my nature. What's easier for me is letting go of that. I'm trying to open myself up to making eye contact - making complete contact, that is, with everyone I meet in my life.

There's this famous scene from the old movie Crocodile Dundee where he says hello to everyone he meets while walking down a crowded street. You can see it in the preview:

It's a funny scene because most people in New York City don't act this way. I don't think it's funny anymore, think it's admirable.

How do you 'see' people in your town?

Janet

The importance of a friendly face

I honestly think I haven't spent enough time smiling at people. Maybe it's my history of living in New York City, but I definitely haven't smiled enough. I was taught that smiling at strangers will get you into trouble. I've since learned that smiling at strangers can fill your day with awesome moments.

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A few days ago I walked into my local bagel shop to pick up breakfast for the family. It was cold, really cold, biting cold. Cold enough to wear gloves and layers and hats and other things that I've kept buried in my closet for months.

The bagel place (I'm not going to name it, because honestly it's just not that great of a place*) has a double-door to keep the cold out and the warm in. As I was leaving, warm bag of bagel sandwiches in my hand, a family of six was coming in. I thought, "I'll hold the door for them". The mom and the teenage daughter were first, herding two smaller kids with them. I smiled at them but they were arguing about something - they were very engrossed in their conversation.

I was about to let the door go when I saw the dad, bringing up the rear. I still had my smile on and kept it for him, holding the inner door. He was holding the outer door. He looked at me - and smiled back.

He said, "Okay, let's do this! In one, two, three!"

I laughed and we both let go of our doors at the same time, each grabbing the other's door.

He laughed too.

Janet

*In my opinion the best bagels are from Ess A Bagel in New York City. I know that there are advantages to living in New York, and the bagels are definitely one of them.

The band

In high school, I played drums in a rock band. We were three girls (me, D and A) with old instruments, taking our best shot at "Smoke on the Water" in a scummy practice studio. It was great fun.

The building with the practice studio was completely ridiculous. It was a run down building with loft size spaces up five flights of stairs. There may have been an elevator, I don't remember. There were walls of rusty exposed pipes, and everything was covered in black paint. The restroom I recall vividly - because it wasn't really a room. It was an open, dark hallway with a dirty seat-less toilet smack in the center. A bare bulb swung from a cord about 15 feet above my head while I did my business (and you can be sure I did it really, really fast in that place).

The practice rooms themselves were pretty good, although I wouldn't go so far as to call them 'nice'. Most of them had usable drum kits (again, not 'nice'), they all had amps and mic stands, and for $10 an hour I could make as much noise as I wanted. I could do paradiddles for half an hour, badly, and nobody would mind. I could pretend to be Larry Mullen, Jr., or Ringo Starr, and it felt real.

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We started meeting there for our practice sessions. After some of our sessions, we would all go back to A's place (she was our guitarist) and hang out. We could talk about our insecurities, dream about the bands (and guys) we liked, and revel in how amazing it felt to take off our bras at day's end and just be sweaty chicks.

One time, we were walking back to A's place when our bassist D cornered me. She wanted to tell me her story. I couldn't believe her at first, because her life was so different than any life I'd known.

Her family hated her, she said. "They want to kick me out. I don't do drugs, but they keep accusing me." I asked her why and she said she didn't know. Then she said, "Sometimes I feel like I'm not myself. It's like I blackout, and have these missing times where I don't know what's happened for hours."

I thought about how well I knew her. Did I think she did drugs? Did I think they were falsely accusing her? Should I be the supportive friend? She was clearly upset, and when I didn't immediately say anything she said, "Never mind, forget it." and skipped ahead to talk to A.

Back at A's place, after sitting on the floor and chatting for a bit I saw that some of A's left arm was covered in little marks. They looked like scars. She saw me looking and said, "Sometimes I cut myself, y'know? No big deal."

D rolled up her sleeve. "Yeah, me too." they looked at each other and laughed. It blew my tiny teenage mind. I was scared, and confused. Who does that? Who hurts themselves on purpose, and then laughs about it?

I must have had a crazy look on my face, or how I acted the rest of that night threw them off, because a week later they kicked me out of the band.

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Now I wonder what happened to them, and where their lives took them.

Janet

At the pool; ignoring the fear impulse

The other day I was at a public pool. It was hot, and there were many other families there enjoying the summer sun.

I wear a wedding ring, and whenever I end up somewhere where random crime is more likely to happen (a NY City train, for example) I turn the ring around* so as to hide the center stone, and to avoid unwanted attention. To me, doing so is a means of protection, but I know it's also a sign of defensiveness. I'm scared, and I'm showing it. 

By the poolside, I caught myself several times turning my ring around. Every time someone of another skin color or culture walked by, my hand moved to my fingers. I believe that I was doing it unconsciously but I was determined to figure out why.

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I was definitely uncomfortable being at this pool. I was in an unfamiliar place surrounded by people I didn't know. Where I used to live (New York City) I was always among people of different cultures and races. People mixed in offices and sat together on buses and walked down the street together and I wasn't scared. Sure, there were neighborhoods that I wouldn't want to walk through on a dark night alone, but mostly I felt safe there. People of color were just people.

Where I live now is fantastic; but most of them time I only see people of one color. I've been living here for a few years and I guess I've gotten used to it. I remember when I first moved here it was a bit of a shock how 'white' it was. Now at this pool it was another shock to be surrounded by different-looking people again.

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The first time it happened I turned it, then thought, "Why did I do that? We're all just families here. Parents and kids and groups of friends. Nobody's threatening me."

The second time I turned it, then immediately turned it back. I was thinking about how one of these other people might feel if they saw me do it. They might feel judged. Unfairly so. 

The third time I caught myself in mid-reach. I was going to break this habit!

It took a lot of practice, but at least for that day, I didn't turn it again.

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I firmly believe that all people, no matter how they look on the outside are just people (amazing people, as I've said before). I have habits (I think we all do) that communicate messages to others that they are not welcome. Even if my emotions tell me 'be scared' when my environment changes, that doesn't mean I have to act on them.

What habits do you have that send the 'wrong' message? What about the 'right' message?

Janet

*I grew up in New York City, and I learned several other 'habits' that have to do with protecting myself in public against unwanted threats or attention. The 'turning the ring' habit is just one. I also know that I lock doors whenever driving in unfamiliar neighborhoods, I look down and don't make eye contact when walking on a public street.

Rushing to judgements - update

In my previous post about rushing to judgments, I said that I was going to try to stop being judgmental. I've been trying, and failing, and trying again. I was trying this:

I'm doing it by focusing on a person's eyes and facial expressions before I do anything else. I have been trying to avoid looking at what people are wearing or how their bodies look, and to try to see them as people first.

So, that's not working. :(

I think it's not working because judging is a strong habit. For instance, I was at a playground this weekend and there were other parents around. I caught myself several times making up stories about them; this one was a cab driver, that one was an ex-punk rocker, this one was taking zumba classes. Ugh. Each time I realized what I was doing I stopped myself. But it was very discouraging.

The 'eye contact' thing isn't working for, I think, several reasons. First I think people are uncomfortable making eye contact in non-social situations like elevators or train stations. Also, some people see me making eye contact and they expect a conversation. I seem to be scaring people.

For now, I'm  trying to simply be aware of when I'm doing it. Hopefully this will give me the practice I need to stop judging, and open up to the possibility of empathy.

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A recent trip to New York City reminded me something about my habits. See, growing up there I learned the habit of looking down. Looking up, or looking around, was something I believed that only tourists did. Well now here I am, not as a tourist, but not looking down. I broke the habit, and now I look all around.

On the subway, I wasn't looking where I was going (yes, I wasn't looking down) and I bumped someone, hard. I turned and apologized, and she gave me a look. The look was, "uh, why are you apologizing?" which just shows how long I've been NOT a city-dweller. Yet another New York City habit broken. I don't assume that it's all-right to bump into people.

If I can break habits here, I can break them anywhere. :)

Have you ever broken a habit? Tell us about it.

Tourism Hospitality and Empathy

I've been comparing the people I meet, in everyday life, as to how easy or hard it is to create an empathy connection. As was recently pointed out to me in our comments section, differences in culture and background can make empathy harder to create and build.

For example, I live very close to a tourist area. I also grew up in a touristy town, New York City. It has been my observation that folks working in the service industry for tourism are both easier to be around, because they are so 'nice', and also significantly harder to connect to. I assume it is due to training. They have to interact with people from dozens of cultures and backgrounds, and must remain detached from them all to keep themselves from offending the customers with their own personality.

I can and do feel sympathy for them, but it's hard to be empathetic when the person you are talking to is not permitted to express their own self.

Is this something you've seen? Have you worked a tourist job, what was it like for you?