Enter The Net

When I Spoke to Someone I Used to Ignore

3–4–2023, Portland, Oregon

I decided to kill about an hour at the Lloyd Center Shopping Mall. I parked in the garage near the Barnes & Noble. If a walk through the old mall did not fill the time, I could shed minutes wandering around the bookstore.

But the direct entrance into Barnes & Noble was locked. Signage directed me to the mall entrance instead. A youngish-looking man stood next to the locked door. He was neatly-groomed, wearing a black jacket and dark pants. At his feet was a buttoned-up daypack.

I stepped up onto the sidewalk to his left and walked in front of him along the sidewalk toward the mall entrance, a good fifty yards away.

“Don’t you want to talk to me?” I turned to face him and I could see the look of buzz in his eyes. Seemed like he didn’t blink at all.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Why don’t you want to talk to me?”

On my many walks around town, I had been working on my communication with houseless people, mostly just saying hello. Mostly just trying not to be one of those people who look away. I could at least say hello. So, I turned toward this guy.

“Sure, I can talk with you. How’s it going? What do you want to talk about?”

He just stared at me. There’s a cadence to conversation and when the rhythm is broken by a too-long delay in responding, things get uncomfortable. This was getting uncomfortable, but maybe he was trying to come up with something to talk about? I’ll just wait it out a little.

He said “there have been some car crashes on this road.” He gestured to the entrance to the garage.

“Crashes,” I said. “How many?”

Again, the too-long delay. It really was uncomfortable because it just was, but also because of the blinkless stare. I’ve been around people who tilt toward violence and I was sensing that in this stare.

“Two,” he said.

“Wow. Right here on this road?” Then I wanted to ask if the crashes happened on the same day, but I couldn’t figure out how to word it because I also wanted to know if the crashes happened today. I mean, I didn’t want to know really; I just figured it seemed like the logical next step in the conversation. I was only talking to this guy to prove to him that I didn’t not want to talk to him. I was getting flustered. So, this is what I came up with: “How, um, how frequently did the crashes happen?”

That seemed to produce an even longer pause.

He said “frequent.” I just nodded and honestly just thought about how dumb my question was and how I had no idea what to say next and how I kinda just wanted to go into to the mall now.

The man kept staring at me and then he did the thing I have seen people who favor violence do. It’s a subtle movement, just a small pivot really where his hands go into a ready position around his pockets and he squares up so he is facing me. The stare continues but the eyes narrow a little bit, the beginning of a scowl. I fixed on his hands, realizing I had no idea what he had in his pockets. There was at least six feet between us. Talk about the cadence of conversation being interrupted. The silence lingered.

Still facing me, he said “can’t you just let me be drunk in peace?”

“Yes,” I said. “I will leave you in peace.” And I walked away from him toward the mall entrance.

When the time had been killed and I returned to my car, I used a different mall exit so as to not go back in front of the man. But, by then he was gone.

Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking to People We Don’t Know (on Amazon)

Posted by Pablo 3/5/2023

3–4–2023, Portland, Oregon I decided to kill about an hour at the Lloyd Center Shopping Mall. I parked in the garage near the Barnes & Noble. If a walk through the old mall did not fill the time, I could shed minutes wandering around the bookstore. But the direct entrance…

3–4–2023, Portland, Oregon I decided to kill about an hour at the Lloyd Center Shopping Mall. I parked in the garage near the Barnes & Noble. If a walk through the old mall did not fill the time, I could shed minutes wandering around the bookstore. But the direct entrance…