Most people I pass on my walk to work are pretty friendly. Two young guys with buzz cuts at the tyre shop always wave and call a cheery good morning. The old trio of golfers (always male) who play early morning on the Royal Park golf course, who always say g’day. My local mechanic, Arthur, opens before seven and so is always around, setting up for the day when I go past. Rob, a Pom with a head of long, curly hair, runs an audio-visual shop in Lygon St and makes a point of commenting if he hasn’t seen me for a while. And a young couple, Kent and Claudie, who I see in Russell St, as I get close to work, and who always smile. We ran into each other at the Nova one time, even swapped email addresses, talked vaguely about meeting for coffee one day, but of course we never did. One of the nice things about meeting the same people on the way somewhere is that you get all the feel-good factor of a good human interaction without any of the obligations.
And it does make me feel good; it’s a nice start to the day. (The first few years I walked into town I was propositioned several times, but that’s another story, and, come to think of it, it hasn’t happened for a while.)
But then there are the grumpy ones who fail to respond, no matter how inanely I grin and say good morning. A young, clean cut guy who walks with purpose in a northerly direction up Russell St, very focused, always looking intently into the middle distance, never letting his glance dart for a moment to a middle aged woman trying to be friendly. There’s a thin young woman with very short hair – gamin-like and elegant, who doesn’t avoid my gaze, simply looks at me with cool disdain.
After persevering for a while with the friendliness, I leave them alone. I’m an introvert; I of all people should allow others their impenetrable little shell of personal space.
But every now and again, one of the unsmiling ones surprises me. There’s a middle-aged guy who I pass in College Crescent who has always barrels past me gravely, studiously avoiding my eye. Last week, however, I noticed him talking to the dog man, and the dog man’s dog. The dog man (I think it’s a man, but it could be a woman) looks as though he hasn’t had a haircut or indeed a wash in a very long time. He rides a pushbike, which is attached to a little platform on wheels on which sits a large, raggedy brown dog, pulled along like royalty.
Last week I saw unsmiling man chatting to dog man and playing with dog – scratching behind his ears, doing all the things that dogs like. I was startled, because both these men had seemed so sealed in their own little worlds. And maybe this gave me a more open vibe the following day when I passed unsmiling man, because he stopped and spoke to me.
His manner was sweet and shy, positively caring as he said, ‘I haven’t seen you for a while, are you okay?’
Well, blow me down. I explained that I’d been resting my gamey knee under doctor’s orders for a few weeks but was hoping to get back into the walking now (alas, I was a bit premature about that as it turned out.) We talked about how brilliant it was to be walking on a spring morning in Melbourne and how lucky we were to be able to do so and then we parted company.
It’s foolish to judge people, I’ve lived long enough to know that, but I need reminding, over and over. It never ceases to amaze me how, in a new group, the people I think look most unpromising often turn out to be solid gold.
My younger daughter is a barista in a city café, and talks about trying to ‘crack’ people who never smile or pass the time of day. She will work at people for weeks, trying to get a laugh out of them, a comment, a relationship. I know what she means. I also know that not everybody wants to have to interact during their morning walk or buying their three o’clock coffee and that they have every right. And then, just when I’ve given up trying, sometimes, they surprise me.