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Thursday, 22 March 2018

Not just a face in the crowd.


People in cafes and bakeries are recognising me.  Today, I walked into my favourite of all the cafes in town, one that serves my favourite of all the coffees, and as I got to the counter I was greeted with, “Hi, flat white, is it?”  It was good, I think.  I’m fighting a battle, you see.  By becoming this I am becoming part of being here, if you see what I mean?  I feel oxymoronish.  It’s quite crippling.

Obviously, if since the end of December you have been repeatedly visiting an establishment, they are going to start recognising you and remembering what it is you like to order.  I appreciate that, but it is quite the odd sensation to go from ‘punter’ to ‘punter whose face we know and who we now speak with beyond cursory greeting and thanking’.  And I am completely torn between appreciating it and wanting it to not happen.

I can feel the street wearing beneath my feet.  The pattern I tread from flat to library to café to library to flat is becoming overly familiar.  Faces are now familiar and mine must be to some of them too.  I’m revelling in the anonymity, of being the man who speaks a few words here and there, and to whom they speak in return.  That’s enough.  I’m rubbish at small talk and don’t particularly want this to turn to conversation.

It’s scary.  I came back here not really wanting conversations with anyone other than the family I knew I was coming back for.  It is a peculiar mental position to find yourself in, one that is self-imposed and speaks about me and who I am.  Or, more accurately perhaps, it speaks to who I am at the moment, who I am now.  There is the want to speak with people but there is also the fear of speaking with people.  It’s not something I am comfortable with…and yet…and yet… all those smoke and mirrors, you see.  Perception is a curious thing.  There are many who would be amazed by the admission that now, when I get home and I close the door, and I am on my own, I can breathe.

I am comfortable on my own.  I meander through a world that is not real and enjoy sending out comments and interacting with people that only exist in zeroes and ones – a Jesus Jones reference for you there.  Even when being harangued and screamed at for owning an opinion that is different to some others, it is a situation much more preferable to being in the street and speaking with people.  There is an edit facility.  There is a chance to rehearse and delete and parse and then press send.  There is a familiarity with what you present, how you present and you know it is all a mask.  Just as are all the masks you wear in day-to-day life, but this is a concrete mask.  One that doesn’t have eyes to reveal or tells to suggest otherness.

The contradiction is, of course, that the person side of you likes the idea that people recognise you.  It’s a trope of moving into an area, isn’t it?  How long will it be before you’re one of the community, one of the locals?  It would be wrong to deny that there isn’t some sort of happiness from seeing the familiarity in the faces of the people of the town now.  It’s inbuilt to want to be a part of something, of a community or a group, I suppose.  As I say, the oxymoronish feeling of comfort of being on my own and the liking someone knowing my order.  It’s something of an affirmation of self – that or I am ubiquitous in their days now and they have no option but to remember the face of the man who walks in, greets, orders the same thing every day and then sits on his own and reads.  Who’s to say?

By the way – Black Book Café is pretty wonderful.  The coffee is terrific, the cake is gorgeous, and the atmosphere just simply suitable.  If ever you are in town, go there and drink coffee.  I’ll be the one sitting reading.

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