Enormous Mistakes In Small Talk
There’s a certain freedom that comes with living in an enormous city, far away from most everyone I know. I can walk around just about anywhere I please and know that, unless I want to, I have no reason to stop and talk to anyone. No reason to be constantly looking around, ready to throw a smile onto my resting face at a moment’s notice.
In Columbus, Georgia, the city where I was born and have lived until I went to college, there are old acquaintances and family friends that, though I like them well enough, I often don’t have much to say beyond the courteous “Hi!” and “How are you,” before I make up an excuse to end the conversation and move on. I get that this may sound much too curmudgeonly for someone not even 25 years old, but let me be clear: it isn’t that I don’t like seeing people I know. Of course I like that, and of course I miss it now that I moved away. What I don’t like is how bad I am at making friendly conversation when I wasn’t expecting it. Now in Chicago, the person I see with arguably the most regularity (an old, pepper-haired man from my building whose face has hardened into a permanent scowl as he stands outside to smoke his cigarettes) will usually only toss out a knowing wave in my direction, which I always reciprocate. No words to exchange— just silent, mutual respect and general ambivalence.
In Chicago, I can usually pop in my headphones and go for a nice walk, disappearing into the crowds of tourists and locals that tread the city’s sidewalks as I let my mind wander.
My most common path is the winding route from my Gold Coast apartment to my gym in Streeterville, just a few blocks away from both the river and the lake. I like to take my time on the way there. I stroll past Washington Square Park, where couples picnic on the ground as others sit on the inward-facing benches or watch as their dogs run around one of the rare islands of grass in the city. Then I cross Dearborn Street by the way of West Chestnut Street, which takes me to the busier State Street underneath the shade of short, historic apartment buildings and the trees that extend out over the road. I walk past an underground shoe repair shop, which has persisted even as other, more frequented establishments (such as the bakery right above the shop) went out of business during the pandemic. Next I reach Mister J’s Dawg & Burger, whose alternating red and yellow neon lights always snatch my attention from wherever it may have been, if only for a few seconds. I used to carry a debit card with me to the gym, but I quit that practice after a few instances of stopping in Stan’s Donuts for a little pre-workout dessert. Eventually I reach Michigan Avenue, where I turn south and disappear into the moving masses of tourists and commuters. I’m completely tuned into my music or podcast at this point in my walk, as I know I’m nothing more than a face in a crowd as we shuffle into the heart of downtown Chicago.
I’ve made this walk at least 100 times now, most occurring without my saying a single word. Those are the good ones. Those are the ones worth forgetting, in the best possible sense.
Those are, of course, not the one this story is about.
On the evening of May 18, 2021, I left my apartment in the same way I just described. The late-spring heat in Chicago isn’t quite as offensive as in Georgia, but it‘s not nothing — especially for someone like me, who is so warm-natured they’ll sweat at seemingly anything above room temperature. The walk to the gym usually isn’t so bad, but the walk back to my apartment after working out (paired with the fact that Chicago had an indoor mask mandate at the time, meaning I was working out with a thick cloth draped over my nose and mouth) often saw me drenched in sweat and utterly disgusting. That’s the beauty of living in a big city though: I genuinely didn’t care. I just stayed a few extra feet away from people and didn’t think twice when strangers walking by visibly noticed my tomato-red face and wet hair.
As usual, I listened to my music nearly as loud as it would go as I walked north on Michigan Avenue, hoping to drown out any car horns or sirens that might be blaring through downtown. I walked until I stood almost underneath the Warwick Allerton Hotel, with its florescent red “Tip Top Tap” sign acting as my marker to cross the street and start meandering back to my building.
I was about three-fourths of my way across Michigan Avenue when I heard the muffled sound of a voice directed towards me. What? I thought. Who could be talking to me right now? Completely thrown, I fumbled with my phone as I turned the volume down and raised my eyebrows.
“Sorry?” I said. I looked up at the source of the voice: a guy who looked to be only a bit older than me, standing on the corner and facing the direction from which I was walking.
“I said this guy got a pretty good workout in today” he said, smiling.
“Oh, yeah,” I replied, suddenly embarrassed at the fact that I looked as though I’d just run three marathons despite only working out for about 45 minutes. “I guess I might have overdone it a little bit.”
Thinking this was the end of the weird, brief interaction, I started to turn the volume back up on my music as I passed him on the sidewalk. Am I that much sweatier than other people coming from the gym? I wondered. Is having a stranger calling me out on the street a kind of rock-bottom for being as out of shape as I am?
I was wrong, though. This was not the end of that weird, brief interaction, although I think we would both eventually wish that it had been. Instead, the stranger kindly responded:
“Nah, there’s no such thing, man. You did good. You’re gonna sleep so well tonight.”
I don’t know if it was the general surprise of having a conversation at a time when I was so sure I wouldn’t, or if my brain is just wired to make my mouth say the very first thing that it can, but I quickly responded. I couldn’t just say something like “Thanks” or “I sure hope so,” though. No, that would have been too normal. For some reason, I had to try to be self-deprecating. I had to leave this stranger with some sort of joke before I continued on my way.
Without turning my music down, I kept walking but turned back to the stranger.
“Maybe so,” I said. “But I’m probably just going to go back to my apartment and eat my weight in food anyways, so it may not have been worth it.”
I really emphasized just how much food I was going to eat. I might have even patted my stomach, as if I possess some kind of natural instinct for accidentally making this interaction as awkward as it could be. Working out intensely — only to immediately undo it with junk food! What a funny concept!
He looked back at me, confused. Then I looked down and realized why.
Sitting at his feet, facing me only now as I turned back from farther up the sidewalk, was a cardboard sign with “Homeless and Hungry — Please Help” written out in Sharpie. My heart sank. My eyes rose again to meet his, knowing that I had no money or cards in my pockets.
“I’m going back to my HOME,” I might as well have said. I heard it again, now with the proper context. “Gotta go back to my NICE SHOWER and then I’m going to eat a GIANT, DELICIOUS MEAL — maybe enough for two (wink)— and not even think TWICE about it. See ya!”
I was frozen there for what felt like a bit too long, immobilized by my success at saying perhaps the exact wrong thing in that moment. Then, before I could do or say anything else, I escaped again into the comfort of the summertime Chicago crowd.
