Coming up on four years in New York, I’ve fully adopted to a very New York way of moving through the streets.
Headphones in, volume up, avoid eye contact, and walk as fast as possible without it looking like you’re actually in a rush. I adhere to this solipsistic bodymind anytime I’m walking by myself, blasting moody music and pretending I’m in a self-directed, self-starring, and self-written short film. Walking becomes a creative endeavor.
This morning, I walked to get coffee from the cafe near my apartment that wants very badly to be Mexico City-core. Small, flower-shaped tables pepper the open layout, while terra cotta-colored tiles, strategically placed mirrors, and snake plants with good posture detail the spot. Whenever I’m there I post a photo to my story with a CMDX location tag in a very tired and overdone gag to convince people that I’m actually in Mexico. I did it today! Sorry.
On my way to CMDXville, a woman stopped me mid-power walk.
Note: despite my incognito, fast-paced gait, it can take only brief eye contact to get me to stop in my tracks. That’s why those people who stand on sidewalks in busy neighborhoods and try to manipulate you into signing a petition for some general ‘good’ are so conniving and evil… the guilt of knowing they saw you see them is enough to suck the weak (like me) into their little schemes.
In these moments, I know that once I stop, I am fully subjecting myself to a three-part social encounter, with an introduction, body, and ending.
We become acquainted with each other by the stopper (in this case, the woman) explaining to the stopped (me) why they have been stopped. A request for money, a signature, taking their flyer, getting you into the shopfront they’re advertising.
Then comes the body, which is the 2 seconds that feel like eons, where you awkwardly decide in real-time if you are going to fulfill this request or fumble through your rejection/dismissal of it.
And finally, the ending. This is where they try to actually not let it end, and instead press you to fulfill their original request, to which you must sever the social contract you’ve both entered into, usually by saying ‘sorry’ or ‘I don’t have cash’ or ‘no…’ or simply just walking away.
But today was different! The woman locked eyes with me, and I took an AirPod out, asking her ‘hi?’ before I realized that ‘hi’ is not a question, and looking at her quizzically. Her response and the following moments blew my mind.
‘High-five?’ she asked. Her palm raised up, facing me, open and ready to receive.
My face was painted incredulous as I quickly analyzed this exchange. A high-five? What the fuck? At 8:45am on a random residential street corner? I had no choice but to Yes And her.
‘Yes!’ I said. I high-fived her. She smiled, and I said ‘Thank you!’
She said, ‘of course!’ and was on her way. I don’t know why I thanked her.
I kept walking to CMDXville, my brain absolutely blown to bits by this chance encounter, a pure moment that felt completely and utterly in a vacuum. It reminded me of a quote my friend cited to me after I asked him whether I should accept money from a stranger on the internet who was obsessed with me — that’s right, a sugar baby moment.
The quote was about transactional relationships, and I cannot be bothered to accurately remember it, but it was something like ‘there’s no such thing as a transactional relationship that doesn’t require something from both parties.’ As in, if you freely take money from a stranger, you’ll start to develop this inkling that you owe them more of your time, your conversation, your headspace, and so on. I.e., there’s never just ‘free money.’
But this woman didn’t really want anything, and what she gave me was a quick high-five, a very plain gesture that actually made me feel really good afterward. And she probably felt good, too? A win-win, perhaps? Two strangers come up to breathe from their respective private spheres, basking in a public interaction but for a brief moment, experiencing and affirming one another before slipping back into anonymity.
Much to think about…
Of course, I made it hardly one more block before experiencing another odd interaction with a stranger. I passed this man, fast-walking as I do, and suddenly he sped up his gait to match mine. Everyone knows you’re not supposed to walk at the same speed as any other pedestrian. You space it out… We aren’t barbarians… Or so I thought!
This man matched me step-for-step for an entire two blocks as my brain agonized over whether to speed up even more, which would mean nearly breaking into a jog, or slow down, which would weirdly feel like defeat. Were we in competition? Were we equals? Were we doing our best impression of the Haim sisters in the ‘Don’t Wanna’ music video?
Nobody will ever know. Before I could decide what my move was, CDMXville appeared to my left, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I veered towards it and away from my shadow twin.