Who Are You?

Taking a train to work has produced a new type of person in my life, the bystander.  I regularly see about three or four hundred different on the train and I see them just enough that I recognize their faces but not often enough to place them.  When I see one of these people, my brain tries to figure out who they are and how I know them.  Only recently has “train person” been added to my brain’s list of types.  This has made my rides home calmer as I no longer ask “who is that person” quite so much.

I also use an elevator bank at work and interact with another 40 each day that way.  There’s a part of my brain that feels like I should know these people’s lives or at least their names. That seemed aggressive, so since the new year, when someone hits an elevator button, I ask what happens on that floor.  This has worked for the last two weeks and breaks the silence of the elevator.  Today, I had a step back:

Me: So what’s on floor 25?
Him: Benefits consulting.  Just like it was yesterday, and just like it was when you asked me last week.
Me: Oh.

Maybe I need to write this down.