There's a man who more often then not takes the train at the same time as I do. He's the kind of man your mother would tell you not to stare at when you were litte.
"Stop that. It's not polite to stare."
The man is short, between 4' 5" and five feet. On his face are lots of different sized bumps.
The problem is that everytime I see him, I look away as if to say "I'm not staring at you. Seriously, look at me, my gaze didn't even hesitate, nevermind linger. Hell, I don't even know you're there. In that seat. Right across from me."
To me, this seems almost worse than staring. In my attempt to make him feel ok, like he's just like everyone else, I alienate him. It would be easy to interpret my actions in the wrong way; it would be very easy to think that I thought he was so "ugly" and such a "freak" that I couldn't even look at him for a second.
What's the point of all this? Life is always more complicated than it seems. You may think you've found the answer, but if you look a little closer, you kight find that things aren't quite what they seemed, and your answer isn't as good as you thought it was. Man. I hate when that happens.
I have the same problem with a regular customer who has a glass eye. I feel like if I look him in the eye I'm being rude, but I'm pretty sure it's much more rude to stare at the ground.
But what I really want to know is, is it polite to run and wash your hands after you've handed something to the old dude with the yellow fungus-covered fingernails? 'Cause I encounter that problem sometimes.