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Sit here or I'm a muggle

7/28/2019

2 Comments

 
Picture
​I spent a good portion of my life on the commuter train, juggling a cup of coffee and a donut and a broadsheet newspaper or two. When boredom set in, I’d play a game I almost always lost: Seat Selection Psychic.

Anyone can play a round of on the train, the bus, a fast-food restaurant…pretty much anywhere that seats aren’t assigned in advance. Somebody walks in and you try to anticipate where they will plant themselves for the duration of their visit. Aisle or window? Booth or table? Alone or next to someone? Same sex or opposite?

Per usual, this game said nothing about the people I was watching, because it was really a test of the assumptions I make when I first see someone. What’s their gender, race, age? How are they dressed? Are they carrying coffee or a briefcase or a grocery bag or a protest sign? We use all of these visual cues to get a sense of who the person is, whether they are friendly or cold or professional or unemployed or fugitives from another galaxy.

I know a few people who would be wizards at this game, but I am clearly a Muggle. Over a period of years, I don’t think I ever predicted the new rider’s destination accurately. Still, the exercise reminded me about the limited insights provided by first impressions.
 
People, like ogres, are like onions. It takes a while to peel back all the layers. Some people grow on you as you get to know them better, while others prove to be less human than they appeared at first. We like to pride ourselves on our ability to size people up quickly, but we’re off base much more often than we’d want to admit.

​It might be true that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, but we have many chances to make a good impression or, at least, a real one. Fairly often, I’ve found my first impressions to be just a trifle shallow and arrogant, only to be softened and better informed by subsequent encounters.  That experience has made me better at withholding judgment, which just might enable me to get better at life.

Maybe, just maybe, the relentless patter of nattering at dadwrites will grow on you and you’ll want to savor every noun and verb on a weekly basis. All you need to do is click here to become a subscriber; then just sit back and wait for us to dump new wisdom into your inbox. 

2 Comments
Beth Weinstein
7/28/2019 03:44:00 pm

I forwarded this "game" to a commuter I know who blogs about it too.

Reply
Larry Clark
7/29/2019 04:17:16 pm

I used to commute from Princeton Junction, NJ to Manhattan on New Jersey Transit. A buddy of mine showed me the ropes on the 5:40 am train.

We were the second stop, so most of the seats were open, but it seems that all the regulars had their car and their seat picked out. Periodically, a non-regular would step onto the car.

Was he/she just a one-trip rider? Or a new regular?

You see, that person had to sit somewhere, and often it meant that on the next stop, the person who usually sat there couldn't set there...So there was a subtle ripple effect. A disturbance in the force. Eventually, the (planetary) bodies would adjust, and life would resume normalcy.

My buddy was an engineer, and he enjoyed watching (and perhaps mentally calculating) the dynamics of it all.

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    Dadwrites oozes from the warped mind of Michael Rosenbaum, an award-winning author who spends most of his time these days as a start-up business mentor, book coach, photographer and, mostly, a grandfather. All views are his alone, largely due to the fact that he can’t find anyone who agrees with him. 

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