As I was coming home today, I encountered a woman in her late sixties, and she had dyed her hair purple, a deep lilac, which I love. It was such a beautiful colour and it suited it her quite well. I found myself itching to tell her how beautiful it was, but we were on the subway and she was sitting so far away from me. By the time I had thought of wanting to do this, up to the point when I had to leave the train, I had already thought about it too much, making myself incredibly self-conscious. I had the usual worries of seeming creepy, even though I was going to give her a compliment, which I'm sure she would have appreciated. But the mind plays tricks on you, and unfortunately I let my mind win.
It got me thinking that sometimes we are all too self-conscious. I'm not this way all the time, and when I let myself be impulsive on some occasions, I end up feeling really good about it. Why not take a chance to connect to someone? To let them know that they caught your eye and that we aren't all just moving objects trying to get from location A to B. It made me want to make more of an effort with strangers. Conversations with strangers are sometimes the funnest to have because there are no expectations. Honestly, it can feel really good to leave your mark on someone you don't know and will probably never see again, even for a moment, and to let them leave their mark on you.
In this moment of sudden inspiration to be more connected, I thought to myself "from now on I'm going to smile at anyone who makes eye contact with me." Naturally, I came back to my senses and thought "fuck that." Obviously I'm not going to actually smile at everyone that makes eye contact with me, because I don't want to attract all the crazies (which I end up doing enough as is) but at least I thought about it. So I suppose lesson numero due would be: Everyone is a dickhead, but a lot of the times when you're nice to people they are nice back, unless they are super dickheads, in which case you can flip them the finger and tell them to go fuck a duck. Again, you are welcome.
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