Men When Walking

There are seven buildings interconnected by stone walkways on our office compound. It is not uncommon for employees to walk from one building to another several times in one day and pass one another while doing so. I love it when this happens--it is always an opportunity for me to study the psychology of other men.

Male co-workers who pass each other by will already have seen each other from a distance but pretend not to have done so. They will look up at each other barely three steps away with eye contact as brief as three seconds. The typical greetings are  "Good morning/day," "How are you?," How're you doing?," "Hello," "Hi," and "Hey." The typical responses to the second and third questions are "Fine, thank you" and "Good." Anything longer than that--such as "I'm having a three-day migraine," "I saw you yesterday in the cafeteria," "Nice shirt," and the like is considered improper and unnecessarily over-friendly. The point, after all, is not to greet the other but to acknowledge the other's existence on the same turf. The messages exchanged are tantamount to "I am not an enemy; I hope you are not an enemy either." It is barely one step ahead of the Stone Age.

There are men, of course, who ignore one another or deliberately look away--these are men who begrudge you something, who resent the fact that you have something they do not have or know something they do not know.

There are also those who are so steeped in thought about their work that they don't even notice you.

And then there are those who test others' mettle by doing the unexpected to watch their reactions: prolong eye contact, smile warmly, and wave. I am one of the last. I am a writer and an artist, and I love making people step out of their boxes.