As the World Turns
I saw this woman today. She had a bunch of flowers. She didn't look like a gardner, but she looked familiar. I followed her up the street. It wasn't a stalking sort of follow, I was going that direction. Home was that direction. I didn't have the foot speed to overtake her. I was slowed by trying to place her face. She glanced over her shoulder. She pulled out her phone and started talking. I suspect she was talking to no one. She just wanted me, her follower, to see that she was connected. She wanted me to know that if I was currently debating some vile act like asking her if I knew her from somewhere, that she was busy and her friend on the phone would know about it. I wasn't really debating an act. I was trying to figure out where I could follow without being creepy. This happens too often. I slow my pace. I move to one side trying to get into peripheral vision. Then I just end up wandering to the other side of peripheral vision. It's a creepy little dance. It leaves everybody tense. Finally she crossed the street and I could breathe a sigh of relief. I was exhausted from being a potential killer/stalker/annoying hobo. As I came to an intersection, a man purposefully crossed the street away from me. It wasn't me. It was him. He didn't want to be the potential killer/stalker/annoying hobo. That's the sense I had in the .5 seconds I considered his departure from my path. Was that gender bias? Was my sense real? When is it ok to follow? Is it my awareness of the situation that creates the tension? Do monkeys have this problem?