After I wrote yesterday’s post, about the guy from the swimming pool not acknowledging me out in the real world, several people made some really insightful comments, and I’m still thinking about the whole thing. And I want to repeat a comment I made in response to frabjouslinz’s very astute observation that the fellow might have face blindness, trouble recognizing people.
I said: It’s funny: there’s been this whole discussion going on elsewebs (that I touched on here a few days ago) about Privilege and Making Assumptions and Bias and all that. Yet it never occurred to me that my own experience–noticing and recognizing and remembering other swimmers in the pool where I go nearly every day–might not be the universal experience.
I mean, here I go getting all engaged and interested (and angry) about all the public discourse that is dominated by men, where they define and restrict and silence anyone who is not a Straight White Male; and They control the narrative, and don’t listen to Us, because they think their experience is The Only Way; and etc etc. And yet there I go, blithely not even thinking to look outside my own head.
It’s a pretty small turtle, as far as issues go, I get that. In fact I wouldn’t even call it an issue; I wrote about it yesterday more as a bemused social observation, and wondering about the mores of this new subculture (swimmers) I’ve joined. But as a real-life demonstration of the Power of Blind Assumption, it’s quite instructive.
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Anyway–good, productive day today. Finally got going on my latest freelance project, as the materials I needed arrived; made a Costco run; edited a chapter and a half; fiddled in the yard; and (yes) went for a swim. Where I kept my head in the water and observed nobody. 🙂
As a SWM, I do actually recall faces; I might not remember their name, and often times have to search for why I know the face, but I add that other occasionally socially-awkward level: I will recognize you and then start talking to you, whether you were paying attention to the world or not. This scares people, I have found. Eh, we all have our ways…
When you get as old as I am, you might begin to find that *everyone* kinda-sorta looks familiar…and you have no idea from where. :/ I rely on the rest of the world to remind me and give me context… 🙂 But with the swimming guy, it seemed so obvious–we’d just been in the pool together 15 minutes earlier! Maybe I was unduly excited to have recognized him.