I wait until the end of the day again.
I'm at a food cart pod, grab my food, and walk around the parking lot looking for someone to ask.
I go into the little bar area and there is one guy sitting at a table using his phone and drinking a beer.
"Hey. Sorry to interrupt you. I'm going to ask you to do something unusual. Will you make eye contact with me for 60 seconds?"
"60 seconds?" he asks.
"Seems like a long time. I know. It actually goes pretty fast."
"I have a timer. Once I start the timer we won't look away."
"Can we talk?" he asks.
"No talking. Still want to do it?"
He's down. He's curious why I'm doing this, and I tell him I'll tell him after. We begin.
Our eye contact is relaxed. I smile first, about halfway through, and then he smiles. Occasionally he blinks slowly and kind of nods his head back. I try to be as open as possible while gazing at him, creating a space for him to also be open.
When the timer blinks I give him a card. He mentions how it was interesting and the eye contact can simply be observation or... Something else. Something more. We talk about that. I talk about what motivates the project. I also tell him how I made a commitment to do this daily for 30 days and he's the last one. At least, the last of the original commitment. I'm going to keep going.
He tells me how he's interested in co-opting some parts of this for himself. He's into photography and takes lots of pictures of environments and scenery but there's a barrier making it difficult for him to take pictures of people. I tell him that I experience the same thing and that's another benefit of this project: I get to ask people if I may take their photograph.
Yet another benefit is that I'm better at remembering names. After all, I practice it, intentionally, every day.
His name is Andrew.
After getting an approved photo I invite him to follow up, thank him for participating, for the conversation, and wish him a good night.
This post completes 30 days of Let's Make Eye Contact.