There’s something about me that draws people who want to talk to me. Call it the Law of Unwanted Attraction. They can’t wait to tell me their obsessions and grudges and insights. Whether I respond doesn’t matter so much as that I hear them. They don’t realize that, even though I may look like a therapist—I’m not. But they see me that way.
(A video version of this essay can be found here.)
These encounters typically happen on public transit or places where I can’t easily get away. The topics range from scary to engaging. Usually I’ll just listen because the world is full of lonely people, and if somebody wants to connect for 30 minutes on the train, I’m up for that. You never know where a chat will go, or what somebody’s needs are. Including my needs. Sometimes we even exchange business cards.
But for ominous, nothing tops what once happened on Metro-North. I was sitting in those facing seats with two women from Japan with a lot of shopping bags. A man got on and offered to move the bags. They didn’t understand and he finally growled, “Fine, I’ll stand in the vestibule.” But they made space and he sat down, knee to knee with me.
He was late 40s, casually dressed, not carrying anything. Unshaven, looked very tightly wound. First he started in on Metro-North. “After the war Germany and Japan got all the best technology and here we are on Metro-North, using technology from the 1840s.”
I kept a neutral tone and said, “Well, the Germans and the Japanese had to pay a pretty high price to get that technology.”
He shot back we could have new infrastructure if we hadn’t spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. He was primed to blow like Mount Saint Helens.
Then he grumbled about the 2008 recession. His house had tanked in value and hadn’t come back. He said, “Nobody wants to move to Westchester County because the schools are becoming too ‘diverse,” although he used cruder language to make that point. As a result, working stiffs like him need to send their kids to private schools.
I really pulled back at this point and he said in an aggrieved tone, “Well, I see you just want to read your book.” He’d be quiet for a station or two and then he’d start again. I didn’t answer anything about who I was, where I lived, what I do for a living. My great fear was we’d both get off at the Katonah station and then our cars would be parked side by side, and he’d harangue me all the way to the parking lot. But he exited at White Plains and I didn’t have to call 911 on him.
Then there was the time I was on a tour bus in Israel, again reading, when a man across the aisle asks me what time it was, an obvious opening conversational gambit. I told him and he was off and running. He was from Italy and had moved to Australia, and now was visiting Israel. He was an evangelical Christian, and ranted about the sign of the beast and the Apocalypse, the whole Book of Revelations shpiel. Clearly being in the Holy Land was letting the bats out of his belfry, a possible case of the Jerusalem Syndrome.
Then he asked, “So, sir, what religion are you?”
I wasn’t gonna go there. I told him, “I don’t want to talk about my religion, and I’m going to get back to reading my book.” So that was that.
Sometimes, however, a conversation catches my attention. I’m empathetic and I’ll think, let’s see what connects. You talk to me, I’ll talk to you. My favorites? When men (always men) notice the camera I often carry with me, my trusty Sony A5000, and ask me about it. Bingo! Because I love to talk about cameras and creativity.
Once at my gym I noticed a man working out, a big guy, had a denim jacket on, covered with motorcycle club patches. Later I saw him again the steam room (no jacket this time), usually a place of total silence among guys. He started talking. He’d been a freelance reporter in the '80s and '90s in New York when I was also a reporter for business magazines. He told me about covering the Yankees and being in the press box. The team always laid out a buffet for the reporters. As a former
reporter myself, I know how we members of the press fall onto the buffet like starving wolves. Anyway, beloved Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto would come in and the reporters would always wave him through to the head of the line. “Hi Phil, go on through, you don't have to wait.” That charmed me as a wonderfully human gesture of respect.
But then Biker Dude said, “There was this really creepy real estate guy, Trump, and he would come in and push everybody out of the way and go to the head of the line. He wanted to get the food without waiting and this really bothered everybody. He was just a creepy, creepy, creepy guy. I did articles about him and he never liked them.”
This all interested me and I hoped we’d see each other again to talk shop about journalism and politics. I’d open up about the time I went to a Jews for Giuliani fundraiser in 2008, which had THE best kosher sushi. Anyway, I was eager to learn more about his interactions with President Trump, I just hoped he wouldn’t talk about Trump and the Apocalypse at the same time.
(A video version of this essay can be found here.)
These encounters typically happen on public transit or places where I can’t easily get away. The topics range from scary to engaging. Usually I’ll just listen because the world is full of lonely people, and if somebody wants to connect for 30 minutes on the train, I’m up for that. You never know where a chat will go, or what somebody’s needs are. Including my needs. Sometimes we even exchange business cards.
But for ominous, nothing tops what once happened on Metro-North. I was sitting in those facing seats with two women from Japan with a lot of shopping bags. A man got on and offered to move the bags. They didn’t understand and he finally growled, “Fine, I’ll stand in the vestibule.” But they made space and he sat down, knee to knee with me.
He was late 40s, casually dressed, not carrying anything. Unshaven, looked very tightly wound. First he started in on Metro-North. “After the war Germany and Japan got all the best technology and here we are on Metro-North, using technology from the 1840s.”
I kept a neutral tone and said, “Well, the Germans and the Japanese had to pay a pretty high price to get that technology.”
He shot back we could have new infrastructure if we hadn’t spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. He was primed to blow like Mount Saint Helens.
Then he grumbled about the 2008 recession. His house had tanked in value and hadn’t come back. He said, “Nobody wants to move to Westchester County because the schools are becoming too ‘diverse,” although he used cruder language to make that point. As a result, working stiffs like him need to send their kids to private schools.
I really pulled back at this point and he said in an aggrieved tone, “Well, I see you just want to read your book.” He’d be quiet for a station or two and then he’d start again. I didn’t answer anything about who I was, where I lived, what I do for a living. My great fear was we’d both get off at the Katonah station and then our cars would be parked side by side, and he’d harangue me all the way to the parking lot. But he exited at White Plains and I didn’t have to call 911 on him.
Then there was the time I was on a tour bus in Israel, again reading, when a man across the aisle asks me what time it was, an obvious opening conversational gambit. I told him and he was off and running. He was from Italy and had moved to Australia, and now was visiting Israel. He was an evangelical Christian, and ranted about the sign of the beast and the Apocalypse, the whole Book of Revelations shpiel. Clearly being in the Holy Land was letting the bats out of his belfry, a possible case of the Jerusalem Syndrome.
Then he asked, “So, sir, what religion are you?”
I wasn’t gonna go there. I told him, “I don’t want to talk about my religion, and I’m going to get back to reading my book.” So that was that.
Sometimes, however, a conversation catches my attention. I’m empathetic and I’ll think, let’s see what connects. You talk to me, I’ll talk to you. My favorites? When men (always men) notice the camera I often carry with me, my trusty Sony A5000, and ask me about it. Bingo! Because I love to talk about cameras and creativity.
Once at my gym I noticed a man working out, a big guy, had a denim jacket on, covered with motorcycle club patches. Later I saw him again the steam room (no jacket this time), usually a place of total silence among guys. He started talking. He’d been a freelance reporter in the '80s and '90s in New York when I was also a reporter for business magazines. He told me about covering the Yankees and being in the press box. The team always laid out a buffet for the reporters. As a former
reporter myself, I know how we members of the press fall onto the buffet like starving wolves. Anyway, beloved Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto would come in and the reporters would always wave him through to the head of the line. “Hi Phil, go on through, you don't have to wait.” That charmed me as a wonderfully human gesture of respect.
But then Biker Dude said, “There was this really creepy real estate guy, Trump, and he would come in and push everybody out of the way and go to the head of the line. He wanted to get the food without waiting and this really bothered everybody. He was just a creepy, creepy, creepy guy. I did articles about him and he never liked them.”
This all interested me and I hoped we’d see each other again to talk shop about journalism and politics. I’d open up about the time I went to a Jews for Giuliani fundraiser in 2008, which had THE best kosher sushi. Anyway, I was eager to learn more about his interactions with President Trump, I just hoped he wouldn’t talk about Trump and the Apocalypse at the same time.
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