Well, I’m home and pretty dry now. Didn’t take too long either. How did I manage that in this weather, you ask? Well maybe you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway.
I didn’t have an umbrella, if that’s what you’re thinking. At least not my own. Nope, I umbrella hopped.
On the way home, thinking about the task to “experiment and put myself in a space that’s out of my comfort zone,” I had a brilliant idea. It was raining pretty hard and I only had a soft hat as a barrier. So I started asking people going in the same direction as me to share an umbrella with them til the end of the block. I wasn’t going very fast, so it was pretty easy to wait until someone passed me and ask them real quick. I tried to use the same words every time.
“Hi, would you mind if I shared your umbrella til the end of this block?” I had 10 blocks and 4 avenues to walk and it was pretty late, so not many people were about. I asked about 12 people and got 8 affirmative responses. I avoided 1 couple sharing a small umbrellas because that’s just ridiculous. Two of the people who said yes had big family umbrellas. All concerned seemed more or less amused, even those who said no. Or maybe especially those who said no. Male or female didn’t seem to matter. 3 of those who said no were male. Some people made small talk. Most were carried out in silence. At the end, I said “thanks” and walked in a direction that they didn’t.
This put me out of my comfort zone as I dislike disturbing people. I have no real problems with strangers though. If there’s any specific insight I wanted to gain… perhaps it was ‘are new yorkers as friendly as i think them to be?’ Being a New Yorker myself, I assumed yes. And was correct.
Good stuff though. I made it home w/o being too wet.