You Have Nothing To Fear, It’s Only Me

Have y’all ever noticed how oddly people act when they step into an elevator with strangers? People seem to shut up completely and stare at the floor, or the ceiling, or the door. They don’t look each other in the eye. People don’t say hello; they don’t say a word to each other. Folks just listen to the Muzak, fervently hoping that no one passes gas in an enclosed space, and they wait impatiently for the door to open and release them from the discomfort.

You’ve probably never been on an elevator with me. If you ride to the 12th floor on an elevator with me, I’ll look you right in the eye and say, “Howdy.” I’ll get you talking and by the time that door opens, I’ll know the names of all your grandchildren in Minnesota and their birthdates. I might even know your shoe size!

I’m that way, not just in elevators, but everywhere I go. Standing in line at the grocery store, waiting for my oil to be changed over at Kwik Kar, or just on the street I talk to people. I can’t seem to help myself! I like people; and, I enjoy talking to them and hearing their stories. Remember the Chatty Cathy Doll? Back in the 1960s, Mattel came out with this talking doll. You could pull her string and she said all kinds of things. She just talked and talked. Chatty Cathy had nothing on me! You don’t even have to pull my string!

When I was a child, there wasn’t so much talk about “Stranger Danger.” First of all, I lived in a small town, and everybody knew everyone else. Second, it was a much simpler world. These days, the media causes so much frenzy about crime that parents are afraid for their children. Rightly so, because there seems to be a lot of evil people in the world. But, not everyone is evil.

While I think it’s very important to teach children caution, I think there is a fine line between caution and fear. How do you find a balance? What do you teach your children? I don’t know the statistics, but I’d venture to guess that most crimes against children are perpetrated by people they know well. Strangers are not always dangerous. In fact, everyone is a stranger—-until you make them a friend.

Now I wasn’t always outgoing, in fact I was considered shy as a child. But, I think people were comparing me to the rest of my family. None of us has ever met a stranger. While I was indeed quieter when I was younger, twenty years of working as a storyteller in front of audiences has changed me quite a bit. “The Storyteller” was a persona that I put on when I went to work. People seemed to expect the entertainer to be outgoing, and folks, I aim to please.

In the early years of my career, I could comfortably become “The Storyteller” while I was at work, because it felt like “acting.” I was being “someone else,” and when I left the audience, I thought I could go back to being “me.” Natural shyness is a trait that I think can be overcome by practicing not being shy; by acting as if you are not. Possibly after years of practicing my “role,” I just don’t change persona anymore. But, more likely I have just become more myself as I have aged.

At a storytelling conference many years ago, I came down to the hotel restaurant to have breakfast. I joined a group of friends at a table and we all began laughing and cutting up together. I noticed a woman having breakfast alone at another table. I probably don’t have to tell you that I jumped up from my seat and walked over to her. I asked her if she was there for the conference. When she said she was, I invited her to join us. She did, and she sat with us during the rest of the conference. Years later, that woman told me that she had been feeling very out of place at the conference that morning, since she didn’t know anyone. She had been considering packing up to leave when I approached her. People, if she had gone home that morning, our storytelling community would have missed out on one of the funniest storytellers I know, and I would have missed out on having a dear friend.

This outgoing trait of mine was disconcerting for my husband at first. He is a reserved man. My spousal unit will avoid talking to strangers, and is quiet in conversation even with people he knows well. On one of our early dates, we were waiting in line for movie tickets. Near us was a group of very sullen looking “Goth” teenagers. They were dressed all in black, with unnaturally dark black hair, white makeup and purple lips. Most of them had so many piercings they looked like they had fallen face first into a fisherman’s open tackle box. The kids seemed to have an attitude, possibly caused by the reaction of the adults near them. The other grownups seemed threatened by these children.

Everyone around us was edging away from those teenagers, whispering about them, and pointing. This was, after all, small town Texas, and no one is supposed to be different here. They all seemed uncomfortable with those teenagers near. I just walked right up and started talking to the kids. I joked with them and got them laughing. By the time we got our tickets, you would have thought we were old friends. One of the kids smiled as we parted and said, “Enjoy the movie.” This action very much surprised my future spousal unit.

After five years, he isn’t surprised by anything I do. He takes it in stride when I jump up from a restaurant table to run to the door and open it for an elderly couple on walkers and help them to their seats. In check out lines at the grocery store, he knows we will be on a first name basis with the people behind us before I am done. In fact, he has gotten a little more chatty himself, just by association with me.

Friday night, I think we finally realized the benefits of my friendliness towards strangers. We had decked ourselves out in our finery and driven to Dallas to enjoy “The Bard’s Birthday Bash,” an event put on by Shakespeare Dallas. When we got near the theater, we saw that parking was going to be a problem. After several minutes of driving around, we parked in the lot of a nearby shopping center.

We got out of our car, clutching our invitation to the event, and strutted across the parking lot past Carraba’s Restaurant. A stern looking policeman was standing at the corner of the restaurant, obviously trying to keep the Shakespeare event attendees from parking in the restaurant area. He watched us without smiling or saying a word. As we walked toward him, I smiled and said, “Hi. How are you this evening?”

Without changing expression at all, he said, “Just fine, thank you.” He hesitated for several moments, obviously pondering saying more. Then he said, “If you park your car over there it will get towed.”

Well we were surprised and, of course, we went back to move the car. As we drove looking for another parking place, I realized something. That policeman would not have said a word to us, if I hadn’t spoken first. If I had not said hello to him, he would have let us walk on and discover later that evening that we would have to pay a huge fine to get our car back.

I didn’t really need these incidents to convince me to say hello to people. I’ll still do that, because it’s a compulsion of mine. I just want to let you know that if you are in an elevator and a middle-aged woman with red hair starts chatting with you, you have nothing to fear. It’s only me. There is no “stranger danger.”

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Fear of Crayons

Tagged as: humor, manners, Memories, Storytelling