Today I will not wait until the end of the day to make eye contact with someone.
I'm in a brunch place and I notice an Asian girl come in and get a table by herself in the corner. She's having a meal alone and seems to be keeping to herself. Sometimes she has her headphones on. "Will she consider my interruption an rude intrusion into her personal space and time?" I wonder as I consider approaching her. In my mind, the probability that she will reject me is higher because of the circumstances (headphones) and because she's Asian.
(I am not quite sure why I think this will be the case, but there it is. I hope that through this experiment I can drop my assumptions about people based on how they look, where I believe them to be from, and what perspectives, cultural or otherwise, I expect them to have. I hope I can teach myself to think differently, more openly, with fewer prejudices and assumptions.)
So I really don't know how she'll react. And I'm nervous. Which means this is a perfect opportunity. I know I have to do it. I know that after I approach her, regardless of how it goes, I'll feel totally differently, and I'm ready for that.
I use the washroom, prepare a leave-behind for her, pack my backpack, and walk over to her table. I notice that she is not wearing her headphones now.
"Hello," I say.
She responds with a friendly "hello" of her own.
After a brief pause I pitch the experiment to her. I do not lead in with the "unusual request" bit.
"Okay" she says.
I sit in the chair across from her, explain the parameters, and ask again if she's willing to do this with me. This time my explanation of the parameters is a bit different, because I mention that after the eye contact I'll give her a leave-behind with the URL of the blog where she can see what I write about our experience.
"Okay," she says again.
I start the timer and we make eye contact. Her eyes are a soft brown. She seems relaxed. I am, too. First her arms down by her sides, then resting on the table, then in front of her body. Periodically she blinks slowly, intentionally. (She is first person I have noticed doing this.) Once, she quickly glances away to her left. At one point during the second half of the session I smile. Mostly, our faces are relaxed, and the experience (for me) is pleasant. The timer beeps.
"What did you think about the experiment?" I ask her.
"It's fun!" she says.
I introduce myself and learn that her name is Cindy. We shake hands.
She says her English is not very good. She is here studying English. I asked her where she's from. She says Korea. We talk a little about Korea. I tell her I was living there earlier this year and we talk about that. We talk about my job. She is from a city near Busan. She likes Victoria very much and doesn't want to return to Korea, but she will because she's in university there.
Interestingly, she doesn't ask me why I am doing this project.
I ask her if I may use her name and photograph on the blog, and she says, "Sure, why not?" Awesome!
I get my journal, which has the scrap of paper with the blog URL in it, and my camera out of my backpack, and she makes little fixes to her appearance for the photograph.
After she approves the photo I give her the scrap of paper. I wish her an enjoyable time in Victoria and success in her English studies.
The last thing I tell her, which is not what I usually tell participants, is that she can find my email address on this blog and she's welcome to email me if she has any thoughts or feelings she'd like to share about the experience later, or if she'd like an English pen pal.
I wish her nice day and leave the restaurant feeling high, confident, attractive, awake, alive, and relaxed. Yes!