CAUTIOUS BOUNDARIES

As I was leaving the gas station today, one of my favorite shy little nebbishy guys came in. I went around to his truck and kibitzed with him about the big honking industrial-strength riding mower on his trailer – he mows lawns for part of his income. I joked about climbing in the trailer and getting a ride. After he pumped his gas and got ready to leave the station, he said, “Climb on in” and I was caught unready when I realized he meant it. I kind of lamely said, “Oh, I’m just going down the street”, but I realized even as I said it that I didn’t know where in me this declining of his offer was coming from.

As I walked down the street to the bus stop, I realized that I actually had no good reason for turning down his friendly offer. He obviously enjoys all our little interactions, so I think he would have been tickled to give me a ride. And I’m limping a little today from a bruised foot, so a ride really could have been helpful to me.

So why did I turn it down? Some of it felt like my old psychologist “professional boundaries” – like it would have been somehow crossing some line that would be improper to cross. But it’s been 20 years since I did that kind of work, and my intervening management consulting work had way looser boundaries. There was every good reason to be more of a friend with these clients.

But this is a gas station, for god’s sake. Why the hell am I talking about professional boundaries?! Partly for the same reason that drove also some of my psychologist boundaries – to keep myself safe. I have since had a therapist who, after she has known a client (like me) for a good long while, has – in certain instances, like with me – developed very good friendships with them. Part of me still kind of wonders how she does it, but she does - and it works, for her and for me and for at least one other now mutual friend.

So what am I trying to keep safe? Mostly the same stuff that drives excessive caution and control wherever these pop up in my life. I feel like I have stuff to hide, that I need to keep my persona (the self I present to the world) pretty solid, unshaken by too much spontaneity. Standing behind the gas station window, I have a role that makes it safe to be relatively spontaneous. Out on the same side of the window as my customer, I don’t quite know how to behave. I don’t trust that just “real” and “human” will be enough.

I don’t want to make too big a deal of this little interaction. No real harm was done. David may have felt just a little rebuffed and disappointed, but I doubt very much so – and there will be lots more opportunities to express that I like and value him. And, as I waited at the bus stop, another of my favorite customers came along and I got to have a nice little visit with him – which totally indicated to me that there was no mistake, that everything was just as it was meant to be.

But I like the little bit of reflecting I have done here about “cautious boundaries”. I think that next time I might like to observe my inclination toward caution and control, and perhaps have a little more freedom to act from a more truly conscious, more flexible place.

FRIENDLINESS EXTENDED

I have written elsewhere about customers who, even though they may be regulars, never leave an opening (as I experience it) to go beyond a pretty purely business interaction. I have written also about those times when, for a variety of reasons, I don’t reach for anything more than a “matter-of-fact”, kind of minimal encounter.

There is a whole separate category of encounter, with people who never come to the window. I more and more find myself extending friendliness – even if only a “Hey” or “Have a nice day” - to these folks. They sometimes initiate a verbal exchange (they say “Hey” or something). Or they meet my eyes in a way that opens a space for engagement. Or if they don’t really make eye contact, it is still relatively easy to reach out to people who are looking in my general direction. But even people to whom I extend as their back is to me, as they are getting back in their car, generally seem to appreciate it.

I’ve always been a big extrovert. When my son, who is an introvert, was a teenager, he had big problems with my tendency to greet strangers out on the street – even in Chicago, where there is lots less of this random greeting than in his Louisville, KY – and way lots less than in my current Asheville (where we say “Hey”, not “Hi”).

His protests were mostly variations on “Why, why did you have to talk to that person?” One time, prepared for his challenge, I playfully said, “He started it – he looked at me first.” But the response that most drove him around the bend went:

“Because he’s my brother.”

“What?!!”

“Yeah, all other people are my brothers and sisters.”

A disbelieving look, like I had finally, totally lost it.

But some of these gas station greetings have been a stretch even for this extrovert, especially when they are not true encounters. If we are not passing by each other, if our eyes do not even come close to making contact, what is the basis of extending friendliness in their direction?

One explanation I give myself is that they are our guests at our store and I am just being a good host. We don’t refer to our customers as “guests” in this gas station, as we did at a restaurant where I used to work as a server, but the concept does work for me in this environment.

But the rationale that works even better for me is that they are fellow human beings - that same brother/sister riff. I really do buy this.

A few years ago, I went to two silent meditation retreats in the same summer. Each of these retreats broke up the sitting meditation with walking meditation, in beautiful natural surroundings.

At the first retreat, we were encouraged, when we encountered each other on the walking paths, to make deep eye contact, fold our hands and make a slow, deep bow to each other, then more sweet eye contact before we disengaged and moved on. We weren’t told to think the word “Namaste” – “I greet the divine being in you” – but it was like that.

At the second retreat, we were instructed to keep our focus totally inward and to completely tune out our fellow meditators whom we passed by. That approach, especially after the previous retreat, really didn’t work for me. So, while on the outside I was following the protocol, inside I greeted each person I passed: “Hi, brother”, etc.

So, it’s something like this when I go out of my way to greet or wish a nice day to our customers who have not come to the window. I really, mostly do believe that these are both brothers/sisters and essentially divine beings crossing my path – and it feels right to greet them.

And the proof is in the pudding. Pudding proof #1 is that this “extended friendliness” just feels more and more natural to me every day. Second, it seems to work with my customers. Even those who seem taken just a little off balance by an unexpected greeting, mostly smile and seem pleased to be acknowledged. (I obviously can’t know exactly what makes them smile. They could actually be chuckling over this goofy cashier and thinking, “Why, why did he have to talk to me?” But I don’t think so.)

I doubt that anyone would have described me as an unfriendly person, really ever in my life. (I do definitely have my moments, both at and away from the gas station.) But my work at the gas station is teaching me how to extend friendliness, comfortably, in mini not-real-encounters that were out of my comfort zone even a few months ago.

Working at the gas station is making me a friendlier person.

LATINO CUSTOMERS

These days, when there is so much anti-Latino backlash, I try to give special props to my Latino customers. My Spanish is feeling just too rusty to use (I do want to brush up on it). But, for now, I just put a lot of juice into greeting them – to really, really welcome them. I want them to go away feeling recognized, valued – like, “Hey, he really likes Latino people.”