Who Are You a Story For?

A quick, revealing thought experiment.

Someone suggested that it would be interesting if I hosted a reading and invited the 60+ strangers I’d written about in my book, No One You Know, which collects charged and poetic interactions with mostly random people. I do think that would be fascinating, moving, awkward, and surreal, though also impossible since I couldn’t track down most of them if I tried — many of the interactions were spontaneous street encounters and many others happened in marginal contexts. And yet.

I’d wager that many of my strangers wouldn’t even remember the interactions I describe since the moments of intersection were usually fleeting, and what carries weight to one person, doesn’t always carry weight to another. (However, as one example of an exception, I bet the man who tried to sell me cocaine on a train platform would remember me. He was enchanted by the bag of 4-leaf clovers I happened to be carrying and seemed to believe I was a leprechaun.) Many of the stories are about miscommunications, so even if they did remember, their version might well be divergent from mine in some way. Maybe they’d litigate little details, view them differently. Maybe they’d be delighted. Offended. But one thing I’m confident about is that most of them would be surprised, if not shocked, to hear they made enough of an impression to enter the hall…