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Saturday 10 January 2015

The Strange Man In Subway

I was in line at a Subway the other day and at the front of the line was a man who immediately to me and clearly to everyone else seemed strange. He was quite loud when he spoke which was quite often. He was telling the Subway employees, people he had just met, personal information about himself and sharing about his weekend. He went to a boat show in Toronto and saw some fairly expensive boats. He pulled his phone out and showed a picture of a boat worth several million dollars to one of the employees. The whole time he was there he wouldn't stop talking and he was in no rush to leave. As I was leaving I thought to myself, "What a strange dude". I got into my car and I turned it on, but I didn't take it out of park yet, I had another thought to myself and it was disgust...for myself. I was calling this man strange because he was kind and open. I replayed what I had just witnessed back over in my head. He was making conversation with these employees. They were smiling and responding back to him with as much enthusiasm as him, so they weren't annoyed by his presence. He was never rude, not once. In fact he seemed like an extremely kind person. He had what seemed like a girlfriend with him, so hes clearly doing something better than me. He didn't bother or annoy anyone. I thought back and realized I wasn't annoyed either, in fact I was interested in how a boat could be worth so much. He was in no rush because he was enjoying himself and just taking his time; I had no place to be. And most importantly he made those employees smile; he made conversation with them, he didn't see them as just the people making his sand which, he saw them as people. I was disgusted with myself because I immediately thought that this guy was strange because he was kind. Unfortunately that's normal in our world. It should be that I was strange one for not acting the way he did. It made me think about social conventions and how its good to be a nice and open person as long as it doesn't make people too uncomfortable. Respect that people have places to be and just let them get on with their day. That's bull s***. Whats life if not a good conversation with a complete stranger. I would like to be a little more strange.