MEN tell me things
It seems that every time I am out working in the garden in my front yard, someone wants to talk to me. It’s nice that my neighbors know me and want to chat, but a few of them are real Talkers if you know what I mean (I mean older men who live alone) and sometimes, I would like to pull weeds or whatever after we have greeted each other. That is, I am not necessarily interested in a 15-minute conversation.
It also seems that when I am canvassing for my candidates, I find the lonely men who are desperate for a listening ear. That is a tricky situation, as I need to keep the focus on my candidate without alienating the voter. How do I steer a conversation
- FROM the Packers or quitting smoking and drinking or a misspent youth that all changed when his son was born
- TO my candidate?
I have not figured out how to do so easily or quickly, so I end up listening to long stories and thinking about how I need to pee and how I still have 20 doors to knock before I finish and go home.
On the one hand, I do feel bad for these lonely men. They are stuck in this system, too, where they do not feel like they can talk about intimate issues – having to move because of health issues, trying to stop drinking to be a better father – with their male friends.
On the other hand, I am not a therapist. I am not even a close friend. In many of these cases, I would say that I am a cordial stranger.
And on the other other hand, these are rarely conversations.
(Sometimes they are conversations. The college freshman who lives up the street stopped yesterday when I was out and he was delightful. We talked about books and native plants and it was an exchange where both of us talked and both of us listened.)
Usually, they are monologues.
Usually, they are sustained monologues.
They are monologues coming from places of pain and fear and isolation and loneliness, but – they are monologues.
And there is only so much I can hear.
So last night,
- after an afternoon of neighbors talking to me while I worked in the yard (or rather, while I stopped what I was doing because I could not listen and pull weeds at the same time because I have to look things up to make sure they are weeds),
- after listening to voters go way off topic – I am delighted to talk about politics while I am doing political stuff – while I was canvassing,
- I was done. I had listened all I could listen in one day.
So when I was in line for an author event at the library, when the older man in line behind me started talking to – I don’t know who – when he just started asking questions to the air, I shut my ears.
I was on my phone, reading the paper.
I was not making eye contact with anyone.
I was not seeking conversation.
And yet.
I heard the man speak. “Why is this taking so long?”
I ignored him. I knew he wasn’t talking to me, because I wasn’t even looking at him and we had not acknowledged each other’s presence in any way. All he could see was the back of my head.
He asked again.
I finally said, without looking up from my phone, without turning around to look at him, “I don’t know.”
(I actually did know – they check attendee names against the reservation list and ask for your zip code and even though there are two people doing the work, it still takes some time, but I didn’t feel like I needed to explain anything to a stranger.)
The woman in front of me said something, too, and he answered her immediately.
“I used to come here every Saturday morning when I was a kid,” he said.
She said something back which I didn’t catch because I was reading the news.
He said something to her.
I looked up and asked, “Are you two together? I don’t want to be blocking your conversation, so I am happy to move back.”
“No!” he said. “Why would you think that?”
“OK,” I said, and returned to my phone.
He started talking again.
She answered his questions, even though I got the sense that she, also, was not that interested. But she was maybe 15 years older than I am, so perhaps a little more steeped in deferring to men? I don’t know.
They continued to talk.
I could tell he was lonely. I thought, “He’s doing the things you’re supposed to do when you are lonely – to try to engage with people.”
But – and this is just occurring to me right now – he wasn’t quite getting it right.
He was talking about himself and expecting someone to listen.
What he could have said was something like, “Wow I wonder why this is taking so long? But it will be worth it. I love (major author). What’s your favorite book of hers?”
But even then – don’t you wait until you have made eye contact with someone to start a conversation? Aren’t there rules for starting conversations in line? Who just talks to the back of the head of the person in front of him?
I am conflicted because I still feel guilty for ignoring him, but then I am annoyed that all I wanted to do was read the story about how they are burying the Minab report and I should have been allowed to exist in quiet peace in line.
What do you think? Should I have engaged with him? What are the rules on this?
Texan in Exile 