Just One Look... Sometimes More

By Romeo Montague

It is amazing how much there is to eye contact.

This thought came to me while riding the bus home tonight. I'd say it was an ordinary bus full of students with no crazy people stories or overheard one-liners to report.

I say that but that's not what I felt during the bus ride. If you'd stopped me while I was getting off the bus ask questioned me on my ride I'd probably've said something like this:

"Um... It was weird. In a good way. I think. Just not really a bad way, you know?"

Why? Eye contact. And a good deal more of it what I was used to.

It's not uncommon to make eye contact with others on the bus in sort of a looking-at-the-stuff-around-me kind of way. This evening was different. Three people matched eyes with me multiple times with either no facial expression or one that was vaguely a smile.

Usually I look away as soon as contact is made because, I mean, what would someone think if I didn't?

Tonight was different in that I felt like I was having silent exchanges with these people I didn't know. I don't remember any nods or full-on smiles or frowns or any other signals that people give to strangers.

How much can one say through a look at a stranger who has no way of knowing the context or habits of your looks? This made me consider why we have so many different conventions with eye contact in society at all. Why is staring rude (or flattering)?

I think it's because a look is that person's attention. To have someone look at you is to momentarily have their attention. And to have someone look at you while you look at them is to make known to each other you are giving them your attention, if only for an instant.

Maybe that is why tonight left me pondering. I shared my attention, a moment of my own personal existence, with another who did the same to me. For no reason.

It felt like a mutual recognition of one another's existence.

And,

I think,

that is good.

The Dog Who Wasn't There

Posted by Malachi Constant.

I was walking to school one day, pretty relaxed pace. I had a quiz that day, but felt prepared for it. While walking along, appreciating the architecture of the neighborhood houses, a dog came along. It was a gray westie, with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. He couldn't be happier to be wandering the street alone.

He had a collar on, so I assumed he was safe to pet. I took a knee, and gave his belly a good patting. I looked around for an owner or an indication of somewhere this dog should belong, to no avail. There was a phone number on the collar, so I thought I would give it a call and see what happened.

"Hello, we are not at home right now. Please leave a message and we will return your call when we can?"

No name, nothing personal, just "we're not here." For some reason, I thought back to The Bourne Identity, where Bourne's voicemail message is just his phone number, and a please-leave-a-message, because he was working a couple fake identities at the time.

That made me think this was a little suspicious; I decided not to leave a message. At this point I faced a dilemma. What do I do? I can't leave him here, but I can't hang around and deal with him, I have a quiz to take.

I weighed my options, and decided to knock on the nearest door. I thought I would ask anyone there if they owned this dog, or knew who the owners were. I even considered asking them for some rope or some twine that I might fashion a leash from and take the dog to class with me until I could contact the owner. It had a tag from a company that specializes in retrieving lost pets, so I thought it would be relatively easy to report the dog as lost while keeping it safe.

Whatever I would decide to do, the first step would be to knock on the door of the house in front of me. I was rehearsing in my head what I would say to whomever answered the door, as well as what I might do if no one answered.

Just as I stood up, the dog bolted. He ran off just as fast as he could, and seemed just as happy as he ever was to be on his way again. I faced a new dilemma. Do I chase it? Do I knock on the door anyway and tell them that what may be their dog just ran that way? It was seeming less and less likely that the dog came from this house as he was wandering further and further away.

Given my upcoming quiz, the fact that I had no responsibility over this dog, and that I didn't want to be seen chasing a dog which I did not own, I decided it would be best if I didn't chase this dog.

I assume he was adorable and friendly enough to warrant someone else's compassion, someone without my exact time constraints, but I don't really know what happened to him. I wonder if I did the right thing.