In the City

He held the grocery store door open for Megan and Lucy. Megan thanked him. Lucy said nothing.

 “People just don’t know how to say thanks, sometimes,” John grumbled to his roommate. “Rude people, those kind.”

His roommate said thanks to John the day John let him in.

“I’ll let you stay at place s’long as you work and you study hard,” said John.

Since then, they became roommates. He was a teenager from the destitute side of the city. For that, no one gave him a chance. His friends were the children of drug dealers and prostitutes. Bad influences. He didn’t study for school. Despite this, he was a good kid. He just didn’t have the time to study when babysitting his younger siblings while his Mom worked three jobs.

He saw Lucy, the object of John’s affections and complaints, at the store where he worked. John didn’t talk much; he was a man of action, not words.

“Your total is $10.45,” he said, as Lucy passed him the groceries.

“$10.45? Oh, right, groceries,” Lucy said, absorbed in her own world. Not noticing John wasn’t anything abnormal for her because she didn’t notice much beyond the task at hand. All else was a blur.

 Lucy went to the school that night with the cookies she made from the ingredients she brought at the grocery store earlier that day. She greeted everybody there, except the Italian man, Tony. She didn’t like Italians.

Tony didn’t like blonds. Lucy’s family frowned on Tony because he grew up in the projects. “Don’t date Italians,” they said.

Years ago, the blond Lucy and the Italian Tony dated to their parents’ disapproval.  Years ago, they both broke up. Years later, both occupied grudges against characteristics their first love held. All else was a blur.

Lucy’s daughter was present at the school that night. She was with Marco – Tony’s nephew – the object of her affections.

“Don’t date Italians,” Lucy warned her daughter.

“I won’t,” her daughter replied before Marco came along.

Lucy's daughter never told her kids not to date Italians. She married one herself. Marco's cousins (Tony's children), however, had grudges against blonds/blondes.

Years later, Marco was best friends the roommate of John, Travis. He was from the same side of the city as Travis.

Before John, Travis was somewhat of a gangster. He did a lot of drugs. Before Travis, Marco was the same way. John gave Travis a chance to grow by handing him a job and a place to stay. Travis gave the same to Marco – a chance in the form of a job and boarding.

Megan, a mutual acquaintance of John’s and Lucy’s, threw a party one night.

“I’d love to go!” said Lucy, as she was accustomed to parties. She thrived off of social gatherings. "I just won't go if you're watching the Sopranos, eating spaghetti or pizza, and if your kids like Mario and Luigi, I can't attend. Religious reasons. All of it's a blur."

Her Mom was an accountant. Her Dad was involved with the politics of city. They were among the group of people that defined the community. Lucy was their only child and the object of their attention. She developed the same traits as her parents. She saw no reason in saying thanks; she was entitled to her goods.

“I can’t make it,” said John, who was introverted. He didn’t like parties. Growing up with as many siblings as Travis and Marco, he didn’t stand out. Instead of developing a voice and attempting to stand out, he quieted his. John didn’t talk much; he was a man of action, not words. He always said thanks; he wasn't entitled to much when all was divided among nine siblings.

This is why he didn’t just flatly out approach Lucy. He was too shy. This is why he complained more about her than anyone. Her not noticing him was reminiscence of his parents. He wasn’t really bitter about her personality; he was bitter at himself for not standing out.

John, incidentally, had a daughter, Rachel. His wife divorcing him didn’t help with the social inhibition.

Rachel was friends with Lucy’s daughter because both attended public speech together. Rachel was born like John, but John and his wife strived to make her the opposite of him by shoving her into acting, public speaking, and asking her to throw parties.

Rachel’s outgoing and naive nature had a negative impact upon her the third night she came home intoxicated.

John forbid her from going out to parties. He didn’t attend Megan’s that night.

John’s wife, however, never kept her eyes off Rachel from that moment on, “This will never happen again.”

“This will never happen again,” Rachel’s mother said as she stared bitterly at Rachel’s grandmother. It was the second night Rachel’s grandmother came home drunk. Rachel’s mother was a teenager at the time. She hid the bottles whenever Rachel’s grandmother brought them home.

“This will never happen again,” Rachel’s mother told herself the week she lost her job from too much drinking at the bar.  The bottles she hid then were the bottles she drank. This was before her pregnancy.

A man held the door open for her at the bar that night. She passed him without saying thanks. She saw no reason in saying thanks; she was entitled to her goods.

“People just don’t say thanks sometimes,” a younger John mumbled to himself before he knew who Rachel or Rachel’s mother or John’s wife was.

Rachel’s mother passed out. A doctor came. He was Travis’s older and unknown paternal half brother.

He grew up from the same neighborhood and witnessed a gang fight. He didn’t have good grades, but he had the hardest fist of anyone in the school. He went to the military to prove himself. He saw people die in that gang fight, even more died at war, and Travis’s bloodthirsty brother died internally with them. Changed, he used his military training to pay for medical school.

“Thank you,” John said, as the doctor saved Rachel’s mother’s life.

Thank you for offering Travis a place to stay because he offered Marco a place to stay because of it, for deciding to save lives instead of destroying them, for Marco falling in love with Lucy’s daughter and Lucy’s daughter falling out of love with prejudiced, for Rachel’s mother preventing Rachel’s grandmother from drinking, for John taking a step to ensure his child has a better life than him and enrolling her in classes to help ease the shyness, and for John being a man of action instead of words and calling a doctor for Rachel’s mother.

Like it or not, it’s all relevant. Our words are guided with the experiences we had from the impact that the actions and words of others had on us. Like it or not, you’re relevant. Their words will be guided with the experiences they had from the impact that your words and actions had on them.

You Have 60 Seconds to Write...

Are social networking sites false means of communication?

I got a Facebook for a week because I wanted to see the hype surrounding it. Immediately after creating a profile and adding a few friends, I got in touch with people I had not spoken to since middle school.

This is supposed to be a decade where communication and connectivity to others is better than what it was in recent decades, but I disagree with this. I think that social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter give us the false impression that we're enhancing our relationships through these websites.

By adding someone on Facebook, we gain easy access to their political views, their religion, their hometown,  their relationship status, their sexual orientation, and whatever else we might not know had we taken the opportunity to get to know them. It's a simple cookie cutter route to getting to know someone. Why take the time to develop a relationship with someone to the point you're comfortable asking about these things when you can just look it up on Facebook instead? It saves a lot of personal interaction. Everything is there for display.

Instead of taking the initiative to ask how someone's doing, we can simply view their status updates. Twitter saves considerable time by showing what somebody's up too. We can see how Wayne's doing through his Facebook status. Harold just broke up with Maude. Why call him up and ask him how he's doing and mention getting together when I can offer consolation by sending him a funny link? It's more convenient to write a message on his wall. Through status updates, we get the idea that we know how someone's doing by what they post. We don't have the time to converse with them to learn how they are and what's new in their life when we can just look at their status updates.

It's not uncommon for mere acquaintances to add you on Facebook, either. The people that barely talked to you throughout high school suddenly are friend requesting you on Facebook. Few of them really correspond with you, though. You might add them in hopes of bettering your relationship with them, but if they didn't talk to you then, it's unlikely they'll talk to you now. However, just because they added you, they suddenly know everything about you because of your photos and what you posted on your profile. You know all about them because of their status updates. If you ever wanted your relationship to transcend above that, you always can rely on them accessing their Facebook to view your messages, so why take the initiative to do it now, as opposed to later? Why offer to meet them for coffee when you can send them a few messages or comments to catch up?

In any case, you can text them. It’s easier to relay messages in a few hundred characters. You can even abbreviate certain words through chat speak. While doing this, you can easily talk to others, too. It’s great for multitasking. You’re not forced to sit and actually carry a thorough conversation with Wayne. You can talk to him, Harold, and Maude at the same time. Sure, Wayne’s message might get buried beneath the hundreds of incoming texts that Harold and Maude sent you, but you’ll respond at some point. However, in the multitude of incoming texts, how many do those you actually send actually contain thought? When people have a million people that text them, it's easier to get away with "lol" and "haha" instead of taking the time to come up with a thoughtful response. Dead end conversations arise. It might be faster to talk to Wayne on the phone, but phone conversations are awkward. Not only that, who seriously calls people still?

Now, Facebook and Myspace have some good qualities. Everybody has them, and if you want to get in contact with some old friends, alls you have to do is add them. From that point on, you can exchange phone numbers and ask to meet them up for coffee. For those kind of things, Facebook and Myspace prove advantageous. The applications on Facebook are a great cure for boredom. However, as most people resort to using Facebook and Myspace profiles for finding out about the wellbeing of someone as opposed to directly asking, it can be argued that Facebook and Myspace diminish conversation and give us the false impression that we’re improving our social lives by using them.

What have your experiences with social networking sites been like thus far? Would you say they improved your connections to others, or have they done the opposite?

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