Just heard a young guy next to me talking with a girl that he's obviously "working." His conversation started with:
- Last year at an art exhibition that was featuring my work...
Him: Her: I do all the wine ordering for the business
you do such a good job with that, I really love your selection
Man, Saturday night I was at the liquor store and this loud as fuck woman on her cell phone followed me inside, followed me to the mixers section, followed me to wines, then to champagne, paid at the same time as me, followed me to Walgreens next door when I went in for soda, and then I killed her/myself. Or she hung up and left. She was yelling, really shouting, about how her husband has forced her to go to the liquor store for Crown (why the fuck was she in champagnes?) as a separate trip from groceries because he couldn't wait for her to go get the whiskey, then get groceries, then come home. So I mean, legitimate complaint, but if I was married to her I would be permanently drunk too.
I always have my headphones on, so this happens rarely. Maybe I should take 'em off now and again. The most recent time I heard someone while eavesdropping, I ended up intervening. My bus cuts through the nearby highschool right when class gets out (God bless my soul), so a lot of highschoolers get on said bus. Two of them, last week, were pointing and sniggering at some lady further up the bus. Eventually they were passing a phone back and forth to each other to type messages next to me. I gave 'em the side-eye and saw "Do you think the sweater makes her that fat, or is she actually that fat?" That's pretty much where I had enough. As I got up and waited for the bus to pull up at my stop, I just said "that's not cool you guys." Of course they pulled the "what are you talking about!?!?! lol" thing, so I followed up with "you know exactly what I'm talking about," and then got off. Did it do anything, maybe convince them to reform their shitty ways? ...Probably not. But I'd like to think the next time they rag on someone for some stupid reason, I'll be there in the back of their heads (as _refugee_ and Quatrarius and I were saying on IRC: ALWAYS LISTENING. ALWAYS WATCHING).
One of my absolute best friends I made in New York was a result of eavesdropping. I was having a smoke outside and this guy was obviously in the process of re-breaking up with his boyfriend. It was obvious that he didn't want to hurt anyone and the guy on the other end was flying between pitiful and livid. It was a pretty fascinating thing to hear one side of and try to guess what the hell their relationship was, to the whys and how's and all of that. Every little detail gleaned is like a new path. I pretended to be completely unaware and just sat on my phone playing my game and smoking.
Cut to the next day as I'm leaving my apartment to go to class. Right in front of me is the poor soul from the stoop the night before. I smiled politely and asked if he was having a better day, not even realizing that he didn't realize I had heard everything the night before. Apparently it wasn't a totally creepy maneuver (or it was just destiny) and we ended up talking and getting to know each other over the next few weeks, without actually ever committing to hanging out. Of course it just took us both being shit faced one night and running into each other to go from friendly cigarette smoking buddies to hang out every night doing homework and blow and getting generally trashed.
I went and got the quarterly haircut today. Every time I go to this place, I might as well have stepped into a foreign nation, or maybe onto the surface of an alien planet. The talk there consists of people on television, most of whom I don't recognize. Sometimes they will talk about what their kids are doing, or not doing more often than not. The people in this place are not "bad" people and I have no ill will against them, it is just that we live in different places. I describe my job as "I make the computers work" and that stops the conversation. They were talking about some TV star that said something stupid and went to social media to defend herself. They were also talking about the tests their kids had to take for NCLB that are coming up. They might as well have been speaking Korean. The last time I was there I got one of the younger and newer employees. She could not wrap her brain around my not owning a television, not being on Netflix of Hulu and not watching movies on Amazon. She asked me "so, what DO you do?" and it felt like the saddest question ever. We live in a world where you can watch live HD video from the SPACE STATION on your phone anywhere there is civilization! I live in a city that is building three brand new libraries, one not even a mile from this place! I used to be very frustrated and angry when people "waste my time" with talk of TV and celebrity gossip and pop culture fluff; now I just find it sad and keep my mouth shut. Nod, smile, and move on. Today I did mention to my hair cutter that if her kid was having trouble in school he should go to khanacademy.org and search for videos on what he was having trouble with. Hopefully she passes the info along.
Isn't that a disturbing outlook on the world? That's not very far from a "sheeple" mentality. What makes enjoying different things frustrating or sad?
Funny that. I've talked to over a dozen people this weekend not counting the haircut. The closest person to me physically was about 1000 miles away. Two skype calls, a tech support call with a guy in the Philippines and a few chats with the game buddies out of state. I probably talked and interacted more people this weekend than a person at work who counts themselves as a "social butterfly."
This is my secret hobby, even though its considered rude. I think that something that you say in public, in a volume that is high enough to be heard by anyone around you is not only meant for your conversation partner, but also meant for the joy of the secret eavesdropper. And, the word "eavesdrop" is one of my favourites in the english language. Most of the things that I remember overhearing are in German and funny when taken out of context. But sometimes, I get into interesting conversations with people after I have listened to them for a while. Like during my last train ride where I heard two people talking about Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". Now I am connected with them on Facebook and they are binging on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - thanks flagamuffin . What I find interesting is that, throughout the years I have been doing this, I did not have any complaint about the fact that I was actively listening to other people's conversations... Are the people afraid to confront me? Or, do actually enjoy when an absolute stranger jumps in to correct their assumptions about medical processes?
I heard the following conversation between an African-American couple walking in the middle of the street while I was jogging past: Her: Stop dragging on me, you're hurting me!
Him: I'm dragging yo fat ass along.
Her: You like this fat ass!
Definitely the highlight of my run.
Based on that conversation alone, I would feel confident in saying that they have a solid marriage. No joke.
I couldn't get a good feel on if they were joking or not. I would guess it was a mix of both.
Once I listened to a stepmother semi-hysterically relate how she had had to put her possibly-autistic step-child's ancient awful cat down. It was pretty priceless. The child was about six years old. The woman felt bad about it but was also milking the story for attention. The cat had gone down for surgery and they just weren't able to wake it up again at the vet. I believe she was able to bring the 6 year old (and other kid) in to say goodbye before they gave up on resuscitation. She said it looked like a leather handbag the way it was stitched up. I also listened to one guy talk about how he'd been cheated on in every relationship that mattered. That got pretty boring fast though. I eavesdrop a fair bit at the bar. Most of it's not that interesting though. More interesting? trying to guess which # date a couple is on.
I'm working tomorrow. Will do my best to overhear. Meantime, a couple random sentences from conversations at my school: "Damn it, now I have enormous penis stuck in my head." "Hey everyone, [galen]'s Pope Francis!" "Let’s say you want cake. But you’re in Detroit. You wanna have cake. But you’re gonna get mugged." "I'm not a female. You don't wanna write that down, you should remember it."