“Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many…”
-Phaedrus
Before I was a law school dropout, I was an angsty law student. The deeper into law school I got, the more I resented it, and the more I looked for ways to rebel against everything I associated with it.
Like many other angsty kids before me, I found my solace in the world of skateboarding. What better way to be anti-anything than skateboarding?
I decided to ride a skateboard to law school every day. My thought was that if I hated where I was going, then I might as well enjoy the ride there. Also, it gave me an excuse to carry a skateboard around the law school building, which felt like a subtle one-finger-wave to the establishment.
Besides trying to boost my rebellious streak by carrying around a skateboard and not cutting my hair (which Willow absolutely hated btw), I would spend an hour at the Waco skatepark every day or two. It was usually first thing in the morning, so I wouldn’t get in the way of the skaters who actually knew what they were doing and I could just explore and learn on my own.
One morning, a stranger interrupted my routine. He walked over from the street smoking a cigarette, looked to be in his mid 40’s, and was wearing a pair of black high top Air Force 1’s. My immediate thought was, “this guy is homeless and is about to ask me for some money.”
He didn’t ask me for money.
Next thing I know, he’s asking for my board so he could show me a thing or two. My immediate next thought was, “probably still homeless, probably doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Wrong again.
He proceeded to show me how to transfer my weight and practice cruising back and forth between the two ramps to get comfortable on the board. He said he hadn’t skated in over a decade, but I couldn’t tell. He was comfortable, and fluid, and natural. Basically everything I wasn’t.
He handed my board back to me, we shook hands, and he finished his cigarette as he hopped in his truck to head off to work.
How was I so wrong about this guy? Was it the cigarette? Was it the color of his skin? Am I just suspicious of strangers in general?
I’m not exactly sure what it was, and it was probably a few different factors put together that led to my wildly inaccurate estimation of this man. I am confident of two things, though:
I was wrong about this guy.
I almost missed out on a memorable experience because of my off-base assumptions.
I don’t have all of the answers worked out for these types of situations that we find ourselves in almost daily where we assume something inaccurate about a stranger, but I think it’s something worth giving some thought to. Thankfully, Malcom Gladwell has given a lot of thought to this topic and he’s put it all into his book, Talking to Strangers, which I highly recommend.
Talking to Strangers is well worth your time if you are open to thinking a little deeper about your daily personal interactions as well as the effect that our daily interactions and misconceptions have on our broader society as a whole. It makes you think a little harder and walk a little more humbly through a very complicated and interconnected life.
I’m going to try something new in my interactions with strangers, and you’re more than welcome to join me in my experiment: I’m going to try to listen to what they have to say first, and then I am going to make my assumptions using that extra bit of information they just gave me.
It fights against most of our learned behavior and is unnatural, but it might help us connect better with the people around us. I don’t know your situation, but I know that I haven’t had near the same amount of social interactions since Covid, and I don’t feel like waisting any of the precious few that come my way.
Want to join the experiment?