Specific people in your city or town that you see a lot and have done so over an extended period of time.

It happens to us all. There are maybe six or seven people in total throughout your life-time in a specific place that you all ways see. Or do you just always notice them but see them as frequently as some other people you have not noticed? You have probably seen them for years, many years. I think particularly so if you live in the place you were born in. You have never spoken to them but there's a glance of acknowledgment, maybe. A nod. Or maybe there's no nod because you see them so often that it has become awkward to broach it even in a glance.

You may have, by some circumstance, spoken to them after many years. They may think it's funny or awkward or they may have legitimately never noticed. They may have noticed you but pretend not to when you speak to them.

Tell me about your experiences with this.

What are specific examples in art that have this as their core subject?

I walk the same way to work every day, have done for the last 4.5 yrs. 9/10 times I see this same dude smoking outside the barbershop he works at. After about 2 yrs we started saying “hey how’s it going”.

The other day he commented on my tattoos. Maybe in another few years we’ll have an actual conversation.

The Paul Auster/Wayne Wang film Smoke has this idea as its core idea. Of course there are many examples and many many more that have it as a motif rather than a key.

I've been living in my current neighborhood for about ten years, I walk everywhere because I can't drive and there are so many locals I recognize/vaguely worry may recognize me that it's horrifying. tbh the thought that one of these people may try and talk to me at some point makes me want to never leave the house again

I used to see a good looking blond man around town doing construction and sometimes in the deli but I haven't seen him in awhile. Maybe I should have introduced myself?

I also see a few people that I know who they are but I am not sure they know who I am.

do you know?

:D

my home subway stop has two entrances. at the south one, which i usually use, a trans woman has been soliciting spare change at least two evenings a week for the last ten years. we will nod at each other sometimes, but i have never given her money because she's always dressed way better than i am

at the other end there's usually an older dude, who seems to have very limited vision, holding an empty coffee can and feverishly writing in a notebook while sitting on the steps. i always give him a buck and he says thanks but i have no idea what he's writing

I feel like Lydia Davis writes about this but the only example I can think of is that story "a friend of mine" which, it turns out (i've just looked at it), isn't really about this but is illuminating about it in a kind of tangential way - it ends:

All this being true of my friend, it occurs to me that I must not know altogether what I am, either, and that others know certain things about me better than I do, though I think I ought to know all there is to know and I proceed as if I do. Even once I see this, however, I have no choice but to continue to proceed as if I know altogether what I am, though I may also try to guess, from time to time, just what it is that others know that I do not know.

Jem Cohen's Museum Hours (with Mary Margaret O'Hara) is a film that I can recommend if you are interested in this idea.

I find this depressing to think about because it may well be that there are more strangers who know me by sight than there are people who "know" me in the sense of having had conversations with me, knowing details about my life etc, which would make me feel that the opinion of me held by the former group trumps the opinion of me held by the latter and is who I really am in some way (not that I think people who only know me by sight have spent a lot of time thinking about me or consciously formulating an opinion of me, but I definitely form an impression of familiar strangers even if I'm not always consciously aware of it at first, and it's frequently not a positive impression)

Assorted bus cuties

that's interesting, soref, and why i thought that lydia davis quote was apposite (although off-topic) because this phenomenon is partly about building an identity for someone else based on quite soft foundations.

also, of course, lydia's quote makes it explicit that you are seeing yourself through someone else's eyes ("who do they think i am?") as much as the other way around.

I feel like strangers you become aware of are disproportionately likely to be weirdos and freaks, I guess combination of 1) more likely to be eccentric in appearance or behavior in a way that makes them stand out, 2) more likely to be disquieting enough that they obtain your attention on the basis that you're aware they may present some kind of threat, even if you're not necessarily fully conscious of this, 3) more likely to spend a lot of time wandering aimlessly around shopping centres, hanging around the bus station, sitting in the public library etc

People I see the most:

nice dude at cannabis club who always gives me free stuff

a homeless couple who i chill with and give food/smoke up with

these are people that aren't really "friends" per se' but acquaintances I run into a lot

but if it's just randos, then there's this cool goth chick i've seen for 7 years just walking around...better to not really know people sometimes, keeps the allure alive.

bucket drummer, melbourne cod. but anyone here could give that answer!
when i was a teenager this old russian man used to get around in the center of canberra, old eccentric. had a walking cane festooned with plastic flowers and babies dummies. saw him all the time then one day years later realized he was gone and likely dead.

melbourne cbd that should read god i hate iphones

i've started numerous conversations in pubs with "i can't remember if we've met or if i just see you out all the time"

also once many years ago i intentionally got to know this woman i used to see around my neighbourhood because she looked intersting and it was the only time in my life i've kinda tactically approached a crush

the wife

You mispelled 'w1fe'.

old fella who looks like a cross between Mad Frankie Fraser and Henry Rollins always brightens my day when I see him near my place

This was my life with practically everyone I saw when I lived back in Herts.

Now the key one I know is the guy who runs a food van near my work but also happens to go to my gym and we cross paths occasionally and nod. The only conversation we ever had was when he asked me about my gym trainers because apparently he'd been looking for the same ones.

the weirdest opposite of this is the people that you've seen at work for years and years who still won't eye contact you or give an acknowledging nod when you pass them in a corridor

that Lydia Davis bit that jed quoted is great

I have lived here for thirty years so I am probably one of these people

the weirdest opposite of this is the people that you've seen at work for years and years who still won't eye contact you or give an acknowledging nod when you pass them in a corridor

― the vomming of the snark (Noodle Vague), Thursday, April 26, 2018 9:33 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM. There's a few of them here. I wonder occasionally if only I can see them.

I've seen a slowly-changing variation on the same cast of characters on my commute to and from work for the past several years. Aside from the one friendly dude on my train platform who gives everyone a wave and a 'good morning' and the assortment of store clerks and food service personnel that I briefly gab with, there's basically no acknowledgment or interaction. Actually, I guess I have progressed to brief smiles of recognition with that one older lady who often winds up riding the same train as me in the morning and evening, but we're taking it slow.

there's a homeless guy who sits up near the train station (right behind the High Museum of Art) and he usual has a crown on and lots of colorful layers, he looks like an exiled king or something. he has this chair he sits in that is planted on the lawn and it never fails, he is always there.

There are two people who were frequent customers of the bookstore I worked at in 2001-2002 that I still see all the time. I run into one of them at used book sales all the time which I guess makes sense, but the other one I just always see walking around. In multiple cities.

They were both a bit eccentric; my first interaction with the latter of the two was when he approached the counter and asked me if we had The Call of the Wild. This was a shitty bookstore in the mall so of course we didn't but I told him we could special order it for him. I placed the order, he left, and my co-worker shook her head and explained to me that she has had that exact same interaction with him multiple times.

Wonder what he did with his 437 copies of Call of the Wild.

When I commuted on public transport I had several of these. I miss them.

Oh!

Years ago I would see the same gentleman on the bus all the time. He wore a man fur and a tall Russian looking hat, had several small earrings in one ear, and sometimes carried a guitar. He was very intriguing and a co-worker who used to take the same bus and I would always talk about him and tell one another when we'd spotted him. One day I was walking in a shopping arcade along the bus route and noticed him cutting hair in a salon there. Within five minutes I'd made two calls, one to book a cut with Dennis and another to tell my co-worker. He wasn't very good at hair but he was a great conversationalist with an interesting history and I ended up going to him for about a year.

I very occasionally see this older businessman(?) who apparently locked in his look sometime during the Nixon administration and has bravely stuck to his guns ever since. Mint green suit, hair Brylcreem-ed to the nines. He's a very impressive walking time capsule.

He sounds amazing.

Wonder what he did with his 437 copies of Call of the Wild.

Never came to pick them up iirc.

The young people who have been living across the street and two houses down from me for at least three years. I see them almost every day, especially in warm weather, because they're always on their porch smoking or hanging out and I'm walking the dog. At first I would always try to give them the nod, make eye contact, smile etc., because I like to know my neighbors. But they studiously ignore me on all levels, presumably they just think I'm old and not worth acknowledging, or maybe that's just not something you do in your early 20s? I can't remember.

Anyway it still kinda bothers me, but I've stopped trying.

I'd gotten in the habit, from years of urban apartment dwelling, of always studiously ignoring my neighbors, but now I live in a building that's practically like 227 or something, where everybody seems to know everybody and everybody's business and there's like potlucks and movies in the courtyard and Jackée is always stopping by to borrow a cup of sugar from Mary, etc. It's been a few years and I still haven't quite adjusted.

There’s an elderly lady who walks around begging in front of our apartment most days. She’s North African and wears flowing robes and headscarf.

There’s a younger man, South Asian, who sells phone covers, earbuds, and alarm clocks on a towel also outside our apartment most days. Though he carries his wares in a bag, we’ve watched suppliers bring him extras on busy days, so he’s part of a network. It’s illegal to sell like this so when cops come by he grabs his goods on the towel and flees.

Both of these two have been out there more or less daily for a couple of years now.

There's a woman who used to ride my bus, I still bump into her in the grocery on occasion. She's obviously a bit mentally unwell, speaksamileaminute and endlessly, so it's hard to break away. And she's a real life Rain (Wo)man, so she remembers dates and minute details of everything I've ever told her. I feel bad for avoiding her, but...

kind of a weird concept to me, there are tons of people i see every day during the week but we always talk, even if it's small talk. but i live in a mid-sized city. when i lived in nyc this was more common

There's a guy who works on the same floor as me, but for a different company, who also has a daughter that goes to the same school as my son, so I end up seeing him fairly often. We started saying hello after a couple of months of this.

actually there is one guy that lives in between my office and the coffeeshop i always go to that sits on his porch and plays pan flute when it's warm out. i always smile and tip my head and wave, and he does the same. i guess this counts. i love that guy

There's also somebody who seemingly just seems to walk around my part of the city a lot, who has an intellectual disability. The first time I saw him, he approached me at a bus stop and we ended up having a several minute conversation about heavy metal and video games, but then he ended going into a racist rant. I've been trying to avoid conversations with him since, which I feel bad about, because of the intellectual disability, but I just don't know how to handle the racism in this case.

there's a woman who i always see, she's lived in the neighborhood for about twelve years. she's homeless. when i first saw her she asked if i'd ever played at the Whisky a-go-go, she said used to work there and thought she recognized me. I told her no. We had the same conversation within the past few months, she was at the library and we confirmed that I looked like someone who used to play there but was not that person. She's pretty regular but definitely a bit off somehow. What I remembered about her was that she was an extremely good artist, based on sketches she used to do at the coffee shop I'd see her in. Ugh it was a tough conversation though, she's lost all her teeth since i first talked to her and seems to be not doing well. No idea how old she even is. I suspect not nearly as old as she appears.

she's one of the people from the neighborhood all the subhumans on NextDoor speak derisively about.

I immediately wondered if the thread was inspired by the Limmy sketch on this idea.

There were tons of people I'd see around regularly and never interacted with, lots from the hippie food co-op and the farmer's market in the town lived in for ten years. The memorable ones were a dude who looked like Iggy Pop but was 6'5", another guy who looked exactly like a friend's husband, and a guy who my wife and I joked was a semi-retired outdoor sports pro, like a surfer or skier, because he was always super chilled out and in flip flops. Stopped seeing Iggy and the surfer and always wonder what happened to them.

I just moved away after ten years and was thinking about this a lot, if I was someone's random person they saw every week for a decade and then suddenly didn't.

When I commuted on public transport I had several of these

haha yes the perfect place. My favourite was a guy I always referred to as a nerdy version of David Caruso

I immediately wondered if the thread was inspired by the Limmy sketch on this idea.

― brain (krakow), Thursday, 26 April 2018 18:44 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Krakow, It wasn't! I don't think I know this sketch. Can you remember what series it was in?

My drive to work is around 12 miles. Every morning on the way to work I see a guy in his mid-50s walking the other way into town wearing a high vis jacket, then see him walking back the other way at the end of the day. On occasion when I'm in town I'll see him sitting on a bench reading a bible. Quite why he feels the need to walk 20 miles each day just to read a bible baffles me. As far as I can see he doesn't try to convert people or engage with them.

I don't know which series/episode the sketch was from but I'll keep trying to find it - had no luck last night with a working link. I can't recall exactly how it finishes up, but it relates to Limmy being perturbed by seeing this one guy everywhere he goes.

A few weeks ago I found a new w33d delivery person and she stepped into my apartment and we were both like, "oh, we have been nodding to each other in passing for several months lol."

I've only lived here for a year and a bit but I almost always see an old couple coming back from Morrisons in the morning when I'm on my way to catch the train to work. They must go shopping at 7:30am every day. They live off the steps that cut through the road winding down the hillside.

we had a guy who rode a really tall unicycle around town. and usually big uncle sam hat. he ended up killing his dad.

O_O

thread delivers