Community

[walkitout]

A variety of activist types out there rail against people in their sealed up cars and how that damages community, and how sitting on the porch, walking, etc. is good for community because people interact. This is not wholly true, because there are people who drive slowly with their windows open and are willing to stop and idle to chat (and in the subdivision roads around here, that seems to happen a lot, altho that may be because of what T. and I are doing).

But it is mostly true.

However, there are other cyclists, who you would think would be like the walkers, gardeners, porch-sitters, etc. The kids on bikes are a little leery of talking to stranger adults, so I don't try -- I just wave and if they want to start a conversation, I'll respond, but I don't push it. The adults on bikes with kids (on a trail-a-bike, or accompanying a trike or whatever) are also fine -- if you pace them, you can chat as long as you want to. The adults on bikes in spandex, however, do not so much as respond to a hello and a wave clearly directed at them. They do slow down (because T. is not totally predictable, this is the correct thing to do), and I do thank them. They give me a blank or angry look and continue on. R. thinks this is just because on a bicycle, you can easily get into a identify threat deal with threat identify threat deal with threat etc. mode.

I would just like to note, however, that that's kinda bad from a community perspective. In fact, the only thing less bad about this than the people in the sealed up cars is that the cars weigh a lot more and can, basic physics, do more damage to us without taking damage in return (unfair hunting, in other words).

Comments

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

In my experience runners do that kind of blowing-you-off look, too. I think they're just concentrating, and don't intend to look either blank or angry.