Which One?
This morning while I was walking to a bus stop, I saw a filthy, homeless man standing at it, peeing into the street. As I waited for the traffic light to change, the guy finished and then stood there, and his entire body was shaking. He could not control himself. I doubt it was a reaction to weather, because it wasn't that cold. I doubt it was drugs, because ... well, I just do. Something was very off. I looked at the man's eyes, and they were ... wild. This homeless guy was very clearly not well in the head. (I can't go so far as to say this is rare, because I think being homeless would make me crazy, since I'm so close to the edge as it is, but I would say that in San Francisco easily more than half of the homeless people I encounter are mentally healthy enough to say hello to. This man was not.)
I felt like my mind ran a computer search using the keywords "man" and "bus" but all that I came up with was the phrase "Boys are like buses. Another one will come along eventually." Clearly that phrase would not help my decision-making regarding walking towards the homeless guy and sharing the bus stop with him. The two of us being in an enclosed space did not appeal to me. And yet...I used to be the person nobody wanted to stand next to.
As I crossed the street, I saw the bus coming towards us, so the issue became moot. The homeless man did not get onto the bus with me. I think he wanted to use the bus stop for shelter from the rain.
As I sat on the bus, a sign came to mind that I'd read at my chiropractor's office over a decade ago. "Every person you come in contact with is wearing an invisible sign that says 'Please notice me; make me feel special.'"
Was I supposed to notice the homeless man and make him feel special by treating him like someone who didn't have layers of filth all over his body? Was I supposed to do whatever I had to in order to make myself feel safe and comfortable, anyone else be damned? Which phrase was I supposed to listen to?
*Initially I was looking for a picture of a homeless man at a bus stop in San Francisco. I posted the picture of the woman because of her eyes. Now you're waiting for me to shut up so you can go scroll up and look at her eyes, aren't you? :)
posted by Green at 12/10/2006 06:43:00 AM
3 Comments:
I wonder about this too, but the kind of homeless man you are describing may have been schizphrenic (the moving a side effect of the drugs he has probably taken in the past for the scizophrenia) and people like that are often scared or inept at social interaction. There is probably nothing to feel too bad about, except that he isnt getting proper medical care, lives on the street, and is probably hungry. But at the moment there was little you could do to change those things
We have a pretty substantial homeless population in Chicago, too, (though our mayor does a nice job of sweeping them away to places where the tourists aren't as likely to see them and be made uncomfortable,) and the rate of mental illness among them is startling. Being homeless doesn't necessarily make people crazy, but in this country being crazy can definitely leave you homeless.
"And yet...I used to be the person nobody wanted to stand next to."
Why?
In this case I think you did the right thing!
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