What would normal people do?

Ever had an hour to lose? I like playing a game I call 'WWNPD' at those moments. What Would Normal People Do. Normal people mostly end up having coffee. Or reading, or shopping, if they're in the city.

I like playing WWNPD at the train station. Plenty of people who have time there. Most of them who have time to lose before their train listen to music, or phone people, or sleep on the bench. I like playing WWNPD there because it feels like I'm normal. I'm waiting, I check my watch, I listen to music, I text and look around, just like everyone.

The Worst Place Ever to play what would normal people do (for me) is a marriage. You know at a marriage everyone is always talking to everyone? Small talk, business talk, oh-my-god-they-look-gorgeous-together talk.

Well, I don't.

I am extremely shy. I don't talk, I never initiate a conversation and if you try to have one with me when I'm stressed you might as well stop before you even start because you'll get nothing out of me.

When you sit alone, dressed to the nines at a wedding, lookin' around like you're lost or reading a book, coming over as the family's autist, you look pathetic. And if you start playing WWNPD, you feel pathetic and are pathetic.

I like to tell myself I'm a proud person who doesn't give a fuck about fitting in, but truth is I do. Well, I don't want to fit in, I want to disappear in the crowd. I want to be that kid you see everywhere, on the street, on the Tube, at the train station or in a store, the kid you remember vaguely from somewhere but every time you see her you forget her after your next blink.

I once wrote a whole text text about becoming just that. It's in French, and I actually had the nerve to recite it in front of 50 strangers. The audio was recorded, and those who understand are welcome to listen.

Notice the speed at which I say that text? I tend to do that when nervous. I forget to coordinate my breathing and my speech and end up speaking way too fast to get to the end of the sentence to breathe. A bit like when I write too long sentences, except there is no backspace in speech. You can only lose your face. (Perdre la face like the French say -- I love literal translations)





But in the end none of that matters, because humans tend to forget strangers when they are ordinary. Well, most humans. The kind that doesn't look around and doesn't play What Would Normal People Do. The Normal kind.

In the end, the only thing that matters is that "Time you enjoy wasting isn't wasted time." --  Betrand Russell.