It is Saturday. I have finished working and i am sitting on a broken futon in the walmart automotive center waiting room. Its been 2 hours. They are still not finished changing the oil and inflating the tires but ive been here before so i know the drill and i brought a book. I am going through and highlighting the verses of the bible which i understand or think i understand at this point. I leave the bits whose meaning still escapes me unhighlighted so that i may return to those verses later in life and see if i understand them yet. It gives me an idea of where to focus my study and understanding. There is a skeleton dressed in a walmart vest with a name tag sitting on the couch across the room, as the nearest holiday is halloween. An older scruffy and heavy set man who is very sunburnt and hasnt shaved in a while walks in and i see out of the corner of my eye that he is looking at me. He is looking at me too long. I dont know him and therefore we have no business between us and so his extended gaze indicates to me that he now has it in his head that he wants something from me. What, i dont know yet but i have recently learned the hard way that when a man you dont know looks at you for an extended period of time when he thinks you cant see his gaze, he is deciding how he’s going to get something that he wants from you, and to my knowledge, ive entered into no contracts and have no business with these men that take a look at me and decide im going to be the one to give them something. I am nearing 40, have been on my own for 12 years at this point, and have no desire to be with or give anything to a man at this point. After recent events i’ve vowed to get better at recognizing the moment a man decides i owe him something and refuting that idea at its birth rather than when it comes to my attention. This man turns towards me, cocking his head and gesturing to the skeleton across the room, “if you dont mind, i dont care to sit next to him even if he is dressed as a walmart employee. I dont trust him.” This is a ridiculous statement as the skeleton is not a sentient being but a holiday decoration and he is equally incapable of being trustworthy or untrustworthy. He then plops his full weight on the futon closer to me than he needs to be despite the fact that there is another couch next to the one the skeleton is on and the seat next to me is not the only other seat available. The lack of grace with which he lowered himself bounced me up and down on the futon and the arm draped over the back of the futon let me know he was interested in invading my space. He was not making any attempt to be polite for real because if he was he wouldnt have crash landed to bounce me up and down…he would have tried not to bother others by sitting carefully. He was trying to see if he could jar me out of my task and get me to engage. I offered a grimaced polite smile without making eye contact and continued my task. He launched into a conversation as if we were old friends and i had asked him about his day. This is where i would usually stop what i was doing, make eye contact, and listen, because id been taught that when someone’s talking to you you dont ignore them, but ive learned that for some this is a test, a tool, to see if you are someone open to manipulation, and they’re not so much socially awkward as they are socially manipulative and sizing up their prey. I was doing something. Something i had no intention of foregoing in order to listen to this stranger’s babble about his day. We were not friends, and so he had no reason to be telling me about it. People who sit down and just begin talking to you as if you are someone to them are sometimes trying to see if they can make you someone to them by just plugging you into the place they think you will fit. So i ignored him. I continued my task. I did not look up or listen intently or shake hands and introduce myself. He shifted in his seat and moved closer, shaking the busted futon as he did so. He tried again, launching into conversation. He ended up talking to himself.
I did not answer. And just like that, his efforts ceased, his face changed to one of disinterest, and he left the room to go shopping.
Ive had a complicated time of navigating people and who they think they are to me recently. In the interest of peace and de-escalation i will probably not speak on the past few months’ events for the next few decades. Maybe when im an old lady i’ll revisit the topic but for now i prefer to put life’s recent events to bed and try my best to get back to some semblance of normalcy. all i can say is that im happiest when alone. A wild horse is beautiful because it’s wild. And what do you have when you run it down, capture it, and break it? Something broken. That’s what you have. The majesty of the animal is in the fact that it’s free. Leave it there. Let it be.