Some time ago I wrote about several incidents that I have since largely forgotten, and I have been recently reminded of a few others.
I may be conflating some of these, and I am eliding some instances of taking my headphones off in public because they’re a) infrequent, b) not particularly bothersome, and c) for those reasons uninteresting. That said:
The one that reminded me of these previous few occurred to me while out walking, when I was asked by a man on a street corner to point him to a subway stop. The nearest subway stop, mind, was at the opposite corner, and I directed him to it with a simple point of my finger.
Then he asked to be shown the way to Penn Station, and so I explained to him that the quickest way was to jump on that train and take it until the stop was, well, ‘Penn Station.’ I was then asked to buy a train ticket, at which point I engaged in a polite refusal and headed on my way.
I recall once being asked, while reading Harry Potter on the bus (the sixth one (the book, not the bus)) to explain the plot. I was in middle school, as evidenced by my reading Harry Potter, and furthermore the physical copy thereof, but I already had my protocol down; I gave a paragraph-length explanation and returned to reading.
Then the man asked me to explain the plot again, and so I did, because I didn’t at all feel threatened —it was daytime, on a relatively crowded bus, after all— and subsequent repetitions only furthered my bemusement until it happened to be my stop.
Almost contemporaneous with those in the previous post, and about which I believed I had written until looking up that post, was a curious encounter I had riding the subway very early in the morning. A man claimed that his phone was lost, and asked for mine to use the function to locate it.
There wasn’t a train coming onto which he could easily step, nor were we near the exit of the platform, and I didn’t see a way that he could escape with my cell phone, so I handed mine over. I watched him as he fiddled around with the ‘find my phone’ feature, pulled up a location in another borough, and handed my phone back to me with a mutter to himself about having somehow lost it.
For the most part, when just asked for information or the like, and not to go somewhere or buy something, I try to oblige as far as my schedule and better judgment allow. People may be in need of help, after all, and if they’re not, well,
I know there will be readers of this newsletter who disagree with that approach, and they may even be right, and besides, our circumstances may differ. In the original post, I noted that despite having a few such stories to relate, I don’t get messed around with much, and attributed at least part of that to factors mostly outside the average person’s control.
But if I had actually misplaced my phone, and could only think to ask a stranger, at four in the morning, for his help— I wouldn’t expect to get a ‘yes,’ but it sure wouldn’t hurt, would it?
(Which isn’t ‘hey, take my cell phone;’ I am more discerning than that, as stated, but there’s a point to this, and I’m simplifying.)
I consider it to be something like a noblesse oblige to offer directions in the same way that opening a jar or reaching something on the top shelf is, even as I’m no giant or all-knowing local guide. It’s possible to be sucked into a religious pitch, for example, but, y’know,
I don’t bring a laptop to cafés. I don’t frequent any on a sit-down basis, and if I did, I wouldn’t bring a laptop, because I don’t like people looking over my shoulder and I think it makes you look like a bit of a dork.
But, as you might ascertain, I would with only mild annoyance and a sense of definite responsibility, watch somebody else’s laptop for long enough that the email-checker might make use of the water closet.
I would stick my computer in my bag, if I were running off to contend with the aftereffects of an octuple espresso, and take my bag with me, but I would watch someone else’s things, which makes me a better person than anyone who wouldn’t.
But if (for some reason) I couldn’t, and I harbored no suspicion about the joint’s other clientele, I might just pick a person and go for it. ‘Hey you,’ I might say, ‘watch this,’ and Laptop Joe at the next table would be Bound by Social Rules to either do it or politely decline.
And all that is well and good, so I believe, up until the moment such a stranger is holding a sign offering to do it, whether for a price which in Hypothetical-land I am willing to pay, or for no cost at all. Similarly, even in Hypothetical-land, where for the purposes of this sentence I am a hugging-person, I am skeptical of anyone offering a hug for roughly the same reason that if you see the below button,
I’ve almost certainly checked the wrong box when formatting one of these posts into the otherwise-pretty-decent Substack interface. It’s not that I wouldn’t want anyone to subscribe, if a reader happened to come across this publication by means other than an inbox, but simply that it’s something of an intrusion.
A sign advertising the guardianship of a possession —any possession, but especially one that’s especially valuable or difficult to replace— speaks to a premeditation separate from habitual camaraderie. No longer do we linger in the domain of trust and comity, wherein through iterated interactions we would all shake out even, but Joe With the Sign now seems to be deriving some value I’m not— or else, why the sign?
Say, ‘Joe With the Sign,’ here’s my laptop, and through powers unknown, theft defies the natural laws of the universe within this coffee shop; it is thoroughly and completely impossible. But then, why must I hand you my laptop?
And it is possible to talk in circles in this manner for as long as you please, without realizing that because Joe’s actions are unusual, we’re trying to find a reason for them. But we can’t control Joe; we can only control ourselves, and so: what is Joe With the Sign asking as pertains to us, when he makes such an offer?
Put simply and, preferably, put shortly.
Joe entreats a vulnerability to the Laptop-Owner just as ‘hey, where’s the subway station’ doesn’t, whether or not Subway Station Carol has posted up with a sign asking for directions. Joe requests an actual, tangible resource and physical separation from that resource. Any of the examples with which we began this post don’t, even the last one.
The above paragraph, at least, was roughly my first, snap reaction put to figurative paper, and it remains close enough to help you get the context for this claim:
In a hypothetical pinch, I take the field, very much including Sign-Holding Joe, over someone who would, when asked to guard a laptop, accept with no intention of actually guarding it.
Yes, plausibly most of the value of the commitment, and therefore most of the commitment, is just to keep a baleful, T.-J.-Eckleburg stare in your arsenal against any potential thief. Yes, depending on the thief, it may be foolish to intervene, and yes, the wisest course may actually be to Take Down Information so that the L.O. can File a Police Report. Yes, in this hypothetical, we have no connection other than a singular hasty compact.
None of us can know with certainty what we would do in any given situation, and that I concede readily, perhaps even with an all-too-disclamatory ease.
Yet to agree to watch a laptop and then to shirk such a responsibility? To sit idly by as a criminal strolls out with the belongings of another, supposedly placed under your watchful purview?
It is a sobering thought to believe that a fellow patron might, and yet it is all-too-thinkable. Some can and will liken it to the supposed naïveté described above, thinking that another, willfully entrusted with the defense of my property, would actually leap up to engage in such a task.
I don’t shrug at that.
It’s not as if this particular flavor of proactivity is found on every street corner. Even a bystander to a terrible car accident might have trouble with actually picking up a phone and dialing the emergency number. Even aided by ‘say, Joe With the Phone, call an ambulance!’
The two primary mechanisms with which a common citizen might encourage good behavior, however, are to praise it when it’s presented and to demonstrate it oneself.
If someone’s trying to make you more vulnerable, I’d consider it a good sign that such a person doesn’t have your best interests at heart.
Still, a society in which everyone can muster up the gumption to shake hands with one another is better than one in which you’re fearful enough to stand two meters apart and shun attempts to bridge the gap.
To ‘trust, but verify,’ first you have to trust. In order to trust, it sure does help to be able to verify, for a compelled trust is flawed straight through.
How’s your New Year’s resolution going?
Me, I give it about five hours before I throw some music on, drink some coffee, and hit the gym.
Orion