The Three Maybes I Consider When Dealing With Strangers (Spotlight Creative Challenge)

@acolucky lives in Minnesota. He has worked in both the service industry and entertainment (specifically, bars and performance theater) and has experience dealing with strange people and strange things. You can find a majority of his Steemit work on the #punchline hashtag.

This photograph is taken on a secluded lake in central Minnesota. Any talk about hermit living within the article refers to this place. I want to thank Spotlight for considering this educational Writing Stream essay. I also want to thank the reader for your support.

The Three Maybes I Consider When Dealing With Strangers

On any given day, you will encounter dozens of people you have never encountered before and, in all likelihood, will never encounter again. Specifically, I am thinking about the person driving the vehicle next to you on the highway, the salty internet commenter, the person in line behind you at the gasoline station, pedestrians, the so-and-so telemarketer calling for no good reason, and so on.

Books are written about meeting friends and influencing others in a business way, how to cope with family relationships, how to go about surviving intimate love relationships, and there is plenty out there on how to deal with yourself. But what about these one-time encounters?

For the most part, you want to keep out of one another’s way. This is not as easy as it seems. I am a country kid now living in a city and my temperament does not cope well with the distractions. I cannot simply go hermit in a shed with my peace pipe and avoid everyone. Therefore, I have consciously re-arranged my perspective and come up with three maybes I consider when trying to get through my day unscathed.

1—Maybe that other person is capable of breaking me in two.

This seems simple enough considering the number of half-trained cage fighters walking around and looking to use their new skills. You might get that atavistic urge, as I do, to climb on top of some jack-ass and throttle the life out of their eyes. You cannot take that risk. Adult fights can end in lost work through injury, placement in the system through criminal charges, death in any number of ways, and ruined lives for people who had nothing to do with it. I simply assume I will not win and avoid confrontation.

2—Maybe that other person knows something I do not.

Some actions seem unreasonable. Still, there is no telling an individual’s experience or education. In other words, that person who seems bigoted, unstable, stubborn, persistent, impossible, and even dumb, may have good reason to be that way. And if not so what? You are trying to get around that person and get on with your life. Let it go.

3—That other person might be experiencing a tragedy.

Maybe the driver of that car that just cut you off is on the way to a hospital or a morgue. Maybe the guy behind you at the gasoline station just put his dog to sleep. Maybe that crap comment about your post on the internet came from a person with a month to live. It is hard to say, but of any of the three maybes, this is the one that sends enough empathy through my nervous system to get away.

And all we want, in spite of pride or ego, is to get away from strangers you will never likely again encounter. Someday I would like to be a hermit in a shed with my peace pipe and I have sense enough to grasp that it may not happen if I escalate conflict with strangers for no good reason. And for you, my readers, keep these three maybes in mind and it might get easier out there for all of us. Thank you for reading.

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