Person to Person

Task 16, April 12 to April 19

"Hell is other people".  Jean-Paul Sartre

You know that old axiom: No man is an island? Unfortunately, it's true. We not only NEED other people, we DEPEND on other people for our very existence, whether we like it or not.  

Sure, there are those living off the grid in some forgotten corner of the country who have no human interaction, but their very existence proves the theory that we are all interdependent, as their solitude is a reaction to that very dependency. And for the rest of us, even the self-professed loner has to run to Ralphs or buy stamps, or get gas or go to the pet shop to get the mice that's fed to their boa constrictor that's kept in a cage next to their bed...

And that's not me. I am right in the thick of it, interacting with all sorts of people all day long.

Just last night my wife and I met another couple at a restaurant for dinner. It was one of those old funky places--there were peanut shells on the floor and a bar full of old sots sipping bottom shelf whiskey and talking in raspy half-sentences.

We went to dinner with another couple--I'll call them Dan and Marge (I know--there are no "Marges" anymore, but that's why I'm using it);  My wife and Marge were old friends so they got their chatter on and ignored Dan and I. I didn't know Dan. But I sure did by the end of the night. Dan is a garage-door salesman who rides a bike fifty miles a day, knows everything there is to know about the fuel capacity of mid-size vehicles and reverse mortgages (ugh); he has the smartest/most beautiful daughter, and asked me five times: "what do you do again?", and before I could answer he would meander off onto another topic that I didn't care about...

So as he blathered away I thought about that mythical island that no man lives on, and I wished that I was there..and so went the evening.

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The next morning, in the car on the way to work, I thought about my unpleasant non-conversation I'd had with Dan, and then I ran through all the other unpleasant interactions that I'd had the day before, including, but not limited to, the mechanic who tried to rip me off for a new muffler, and the barista who was oh so annoyed with me because I couldn't figure out where to tap my card...

But every interaction I'd had wasn't dismal, of course--one of my younger co-workers asked me to go to lunch to "pick my brain", which sounds macabre but was, in truth, interesting; and amazingly, my wife THANKED me for going to dinner with Dan and Marge, and appreciated that I listened to Dan's prattling.

I decided to write up a list of everyone I interacted with during the course of a week. And Christ, it was a long list. I made contact in one way or another with dozens of people. And it's not like I'm in customer service or some other job that forces me to deal with other people--I'm not. But still--it was a LOT of people, ranging from family and co-workers--that's obvious, but there was also the dry cleaning guy, the postman, the bastard mechanic I mentioned, the greasy fellow at the hamburger stand, the bartender, the woman who asked me for a cigarette, which wasn't a come-on, which I thought it was--she just wanted a cigarette. I talked with a priest and my kid's teacher; I told a homeless guy that I didn't have any change; I talked with a guy at the car wash--not because I wanted to but he just started up a conversation because we were both standing outside waiting for our cars; I spoke, by phone, with someone at the DMV, and with a pollster who caught me at home and wanted to know if I was a registered gun owner (I'm not).And there were a bunch of others...

The list was so long that it took me by surprise. So I decided to divide it up into 2 big columns: GOOD/NECESSARY INTERACTIONS, AND UNNECESSARY INTERACTIONS.

There were a lot of interactions that I enjoyed and some I had to have, like work interactions, but there were a lot that I could have avoided. Which is what I am going to do, for my own sanity.

TASK:

Open your notebook. Do what I did. Write down every interaction you have with another person for an entire week, then break them down--the ones you like/are necessary—and figure out how to get rest.