What Are You Looking At?

Yesterday, as I exited through the turnstile at the 2nd avenue F stop, on my way to spend way too much on produce at Whole Foods, I made eye contact with a nice enough looking man on his way in to the station. He was walking with his head up, and while he wasn't smiling, he wasn't grimacing or avoiding eye contact like the rest of New York City does on a regular basis, either. I was encouraged by his demeanor, warmed a little by it, even. It's not often that one shares a moment of camaraderie with a stranger, especially in a New York City subway station, but these are moments are truly make all the daily struggle and anonymity worthwhile.

Let me interject here and mention that the rest of New York City doesn't make eye contact, and instead maintains a general look of disgust or indifference in regard to the mass of strangers around them because it works. I mean, every time you look remotely pleasant or like you might not immediately yell "fuck you" at any sort of attempt at an interaction by another stranger, you run the risk of experiencing something unpleasant. People in New York are horrible. They can be aggressive and malicious. Often they want something from you, like your money or your dignity. And New Yorkers know that. So they eliminate any chance that they might be exposed to the horrible people of New York by looking and acting as mean as possible at all times.

On the other hand, sometimes New Yorkers are quite lovely. A couple months ago I met a old woman who takes care of cats for a living. She was wearing a shirt with a huge cat-face design on the front and bejeweled cat-face earrings. She told me that she still misses her siamese cat that died fifteen years ago but that she knows he is in heaven and that eventually she will meet him there. Apparently they used to play hide-and-go-seek in her apartment when he was alive. Disappearing into the mean, faceless crowd of train-riders, and pedestrians means you won't get to meet the lovely people, either.

But back to yesterday and the F train station. I was making a rare, and rather unintentional but also not unwelcome, eye contact with a seemingly harmless fellow New Yorker when, just as we were passing each other, my fellow New Yorker thrust his pelvis towards me and did his best sleazy imitation of Eddie Murphy imitating James Brown. He "uhhhh-ed" at me and followed it with an aggressive and non-too-complimentary, "daaaaaamn!"

I know I shouldn't have been surprised. But I was shocked. I looked quickly away and then back at him as I kept moving out of the station. He was still looking at me and when he caught my eye the second time he yelled "where you're boyfriend at?" Though, what it really sounded like was "I'm going to make you feel as uncomfortable and self-conscious as possible, right now. Also, stupid. How could you be dumb enough to make eye contact with me?"

"Fuck you" I said. But not very loudly and certainly not very convincingly. I'm sure he didn't even hear me. There is nothing worse than feeling angry and intimidated all at the same time. And in my case it was especially aggravating because I had so thoroughly let my guard down and so felt so thoroughly betrayed. He didn't want to talk about cats. He didn't want to ask me for directions. And he certainly didn't want to let my moment of naive vulnerability go by without punishment.

And so, at least for a little while, I'm back to a safer commuting posture: head up but focus down, shoulder's hunched and brow furrowed. I'm avoiding eye-contact and looking as mean as possible. So if you happen to bump into me on the street in the next few weeks and I refuse to acknowledge you or even look up, you'll know why and understand.