Spoiler: I never learn his name, so we'll call him "James."
Today was a rainy day. I was walking around downtown, not exactly with the intention of making eye contact. I was in an emotional mood and wanted to walk around outside to be out of the office, to kind of reset myself. But I knew that if I didn't do eye contact now, I didn't know when I'd do it.
I turned a corner and saw a man halfway down the block sitting at a table outside of a cafe. His back was towards me, but I could tell that he was alone, and older (not sure how old), with wavy grey hair. I knew this was the guy to ask. I also had a feeling that he was going to reject me.
I walked to the end of the block to scope out the situation. He was alone, sitting with his iPad, coffee, and a cookie. I turned back and approached him, starting with "excuse me." He looks up from his iPad at me, making eye contact. His eyes are light grey/blue. I notice that he has a large, defined chin.
I am pretty sure his response, his greeting, was "no."
"I'm not selling anything," I tell him.
I think he said "good."
This is the conversation we had:
Me: "I have an unusual request. I'm doing an experiment in which, every day, I make eye contact with a stranger for 60 seconds. Is this something you'd be willing to do with me?"
Guy: "No."
Me: "Would it make you uncomfortable?"
Guy: "I'm busy... I'm emailing," he says, kind of waving his hand at his iPad.
He isn't exactly rude, but he says this as if I should know that he's busy and why the hell am I messing with him when he's so obviously doing such important work.
Me: "OK. Do you mind if I ask you your name?"
Guy: "No."
Me: "You don't want to tell me your name?"
Guy: "No."
Me: "OK, thank you."
And I walk away.
Total rejection. And I didn't care. It didn't feel personal at all. Actually, I kind of felt bad for him. I really don't know what was going on with him, in his life, in his head, but he seemed so protective, so suspicious. He really did not want to interact with me.
This satisfies the "one approach per day" for the experiment, but now I want to make eye contact with someone after this.