Can Your Greatest Gift Become Your Biggest Downfall?
Untitled, But Not in a Pretentious Way is a Soulpancake exclusive by Elizabeth Alinikoff
I am a people watcher w***e. Or if I’m speaking with your grandmother, we can say I am the ‘intense observer’. My addiction with your details is borderline Instagram-level addiction. I should create a billing code for hours spent memorizing the knit and pattern of your Christmas sweater collection. All time is completely wasted on such moments of intrigue. My life has become one everlasting music video, where close ups of table manners and mascara application fade in and out, while the sexy sax solo brings it home. I’ve always enjoyed human peculiarity, and as a child the details fed my curiosity. Why did a fantastic perm make your hair curl up like a poodle? What older person allowed you to have four different flavors of Fruit by the Foot? Who is this person and may I speak with them?
As an adult, not much has changed. My unaware people participants are vast and many. Bus stops, work culture, and coffee shops always prove to be most rewarding. At first sight I not only begin hunting for clues but drawing my own conclusions. I scope out to see how tired you are, the stride of your gate, or evidence to support my prediction of what you ate for breakfast. Don’t worry. It’s not like I have an actual creepy wall shrine of you in my apartment—just one in my head. It’s all stored up in my mind…far less creepy that way.
If caged in a packed room I become one of those Wikileak people sans the foreboding agenda. Left uninterrupted I could commit encyclopedias of random information to memory: unnatural hair parts, control freaks, cold food blowers, one way gossipers, Twitter addicts, disingenuous laughers, secret audio geeks who build their own head phones, serious eaters.
The physical idiosyncrasies don’t go unnoticed either. It’s fascinating when your right hand tells most of the story, or you blink more when underlining a disagreement, or how you have executed that mysterious ability to throw your head back in laughter perfection. I will try to memorize all of these, and take them home to practice with later. There I sit on my bathroom sink, cracking the codes of each, committing your shtick to memory. So far the laugh has proven to be the most difficult. Giggles full of tousled hair and teeth seem pretty straightforward. But I have found such displays are constructed from a teepee of ranging factors. One must convey jubilation, yet not appear possessed - exude the desire for a fun time, but without the aftertaste of desperation. Coming across to others as approachable, yet with a splash of intrigue, can be very time consuming.
Though I have always considered my love for the subtleties to be one of my greatest qualities, lately I’ve encountered a problem. Somewhere between bus girl who wears too much blush and the kid parading around 8th with an albatross-sized stethoscope around his neck - my critical nature has executed a take over. Judgment is increasing, while my respectful appreciation dwindles. The details are translated into characters – all created for my personal selfish miniseries. I lose connection with the real life human element of this equation, which is unfortunate, since it’s originally what fueled the purpose of the exercise.
The lighthearted superficial assessments have taken on serious implications, and frankly it’s ruining the fun. Not to mention, I’m faced with the vision of myself as the full-blown judgmental as*hole, sitting alone with my social phobia, a crutch disguised as a hobby – sad saxophone in the background.
