It was an interesting day today. I took a break from writing my research paper because I hit a mental block and it was so nice out, and I had a 25% off coupon for a certain crafts store that was burning a hole in my pocket. And, I've been working on this paper for three straight days and I was a bit shack wacky as Kathie would say. So, off to Sheboygan I zoomed and happily noticed how things are starting to green back up a bit after the rains of last week. I can't mention the store, or the names of the people I ran into at this store for mostly reasons that will become apparent, but I don't think anyone would really be able to ID the people of interest in this story anyway.
My husband tells me that I have a personality trait that people and strangers find enticing. Basically, what this means, is that complete strangers will tell me their life stories if given a chance. I never noticed that I could have this affect on people until I started dating Scott and we would constantly run into people who either knew me, or strangers would just talk to me and Scott thought I knew them. I can be in any store or location and if I wanted to I can, and have had, entire conversations with people I don't know for hours. I'm not particularly social, in fact I usually shy away from these contacts because I easily get sucked into their predicaments and I feel bad if it is a bad story, or bad if I can't help them, or some other level of unhappiness that makes me ponder their lives. Today was no different. While browsing around the store looking for things to buy, no less than four people who were looking in the same areas I was starting talking to me and telling me why they were there and what they did for hobbies. I don't mind talking hobbies with anyone because you can find out a lot of information from other people, but I'm not sure I want to know why you came to the store (fight with husband!). Sometimes I think I look like I work at these stores or locations and maybe that's why people talk to me, but after a minute or so it becomes apparent that they just want an anonymous person to listen to them.
After that, I started running into people I do know, some good, some really bad. I saw my next door neighbor and we chatted a bit and lamented about having to cut the grass now. We joked we should have car pooled and that this store needed to organize a bit better. But, then the bad happened. I had a stalker a few years ago and I ran into her walking down the aisle towards me. Needless to say, I didn't recognize her immediately, but she recognized me and made a beeline for me, yelling out my name in the store for EVERYONE to hear. I was close to getting a restraining order on this person when in the midst of this saga a few years ago, but my workplace merged and I moved to a different office building and she moved to a different clinic. However, she still lives in my town but I haven't see her (that I know of) in two years. Luckily, I had a cart which I used as a shield and kept moving away from her and trying to get away in a different aisle. I was happy it was busy in there and there were other people who were getting in the way and I made an escape to a different part of the store and was going to circle around to check out and leave. But, I ran into a fellow classmate and we struck up a conversation.
She told me some very interesting things that I really can't relate here about school and some of the teachers. Again, I always take gossip with a huge grain of salt because it is gossip. And, as I don't live in Sheboygan, I really don't get the full understanding of the community because I'm really just a visitor and now that I've transferred to UWM, I hardly go to Sheboygan anymore. Unless I have a 25% off coupon. Anyway, as I was trying to desperately calm myself from the shock of seeing my stalker, my classmate preceded to relate these stories with no real hesitation or real discretion at all. I kept trying to sway the conversation to something different, but it kept coming back to school, because, really, that's all we have in common. And again, I was reminded that people tell me stuff they probably shouldn't with very little prompting at all. Some things I just don't want to know. But, I didn't see my stalker coming after me and I talked with my classmate for a good length of time so that I could put more time between her and myself. And, I did some grocery shopping just in case she followed me. And, yes, she has. And, on several occasions even when Scott was with me.
The grocery store proved no different as in the check out line, the person behind me wanted to tell me about their groceries. Maybe it's because I can't just give them a stare that shuts them down, or if I do it's not mean enough. Maybe I don't want to do that because I don't want to get good at that either. Even though I don't think I'm particularly social, I don't mind helping someone if they have a question. It's always fun to see their reaction when they realize I don't work at the store. But, after the stalker reminder, I really wasn't in the mood for chatting with strangers. In fact, I think that's how I got the stalker to begin with. 1st shift employees at the Columbia campus had to be shuttled into work because we didn't have adequate parking for us, doctors, patients, visitors, and the scofflaws of UWM students who parked in our structure and weren't supposed to. Anyway, to solve the parking dilemma, the peons had to be shuttled into work. While waiting for the shuttles, we talked with one another and my coworkers were no different than any other stranger I would meet off the street. This person, however, became a problem and I never realized it until it was too late and after the fact. I'm a bit naive sometimes, actually more often than I should be at this point in my life. I began to realize there was a problem when she first insisted I tell her where I live. And then Scott noticed she was following us home one night. And another night, and another night after that. And then she was mad when we kept driving past our house and left Random for Sheboygan. We don't have a police dept, although I think Fredonia has a marshal. She would time getting to the shuttle lot so that she could confront me on why I didn't go home the night before and so that she could be on the same shuttle as I was. It didn't bother her that other people saw these outbursts, and I would try to diffuse the situation by saying we had errands. Wow, I really had "forgotten" a lot of this until I saw her again today. There is so much more to this story as this took place over several years until the merge.
So, I paid a kindness to this person and that was the thanks I got. After the fact I realized it was not the smartest thing in the world to talk with her, but part of me absolutely rebels at the abject meanness of not returning conversations with people. We have so much apathy in society anyway, that to not even return a greeting or pass time waiting in a line with a quick comment or two seems a lost opportunity to restore some humanity to ourselves that gets lost in the walls of insular distrust we put up when "out in public". I still am not sure what it is about me that complete strangers find appealing on a Dr. Phil level. This doesn't happen to Scott and if we are out together, people still only talk to me, not him. So it is me. Even some of my friends have noticed this on occasion, although we never really talk about it in depth. It's something I can't quite put my finger on, but I know, almost immediately if someone will talk to me or not.
I've mentioned before on this blog the story of how I was labeled a storyteller. Not the lie-like-a-rug-make-stuff-up storyteller, but a person who likes stories, loves telling a good story, and appreciates the art of telling stories. And, after reflecting on this, I agree. So does Scott, who is my captive audience. There used to be an art form of this, and maybe somewhere it still lives, but I wonder if the people who made their livings in the "olden" times of telling news and stories had this trait of getting people to open up to them. They could get people to tell them things with just the right question asked and the ability to listen. Now, if I could just turn that into a profession that someone would pay for in today's time, I'd be set.
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