Old Faces

Old Faces
I believe that I can tell a lot about people from their faces. No, not young people, but sometimes children wear their personalities on their faces – the quizzical look, the look of anger or sadness, the look of fear and gloom. But for a personality to really burn it’s way into the flesh takes years, no decades. Then there is no escaping it, the face is always with you. So, be careful.
The old people wandered into the room singly and in small groups. They were wealthy, but not rich. The rich are in different places than this, but they are well off. The faces show so many different things, lives that experienced a lot of hard physical work, faces that show grief and anguish, faces that show arrogance and haughtiness, faces that express mistrust and suspicion coming from countless disappointments. Faces with a fear of being taken advantage of even though their lives have been largely free of criminal attacks.
There sits a man with no chin. His face is a straight line from his bottom lip to his neck. I exaggerate, there is a little bump, and his dewlap has filled in the space that might have once helped shape a chin. But the rest of his face has overcompensated for his lacking chin. It has become assertive, a little aggressive, he “projects” more than seems to fit the situation. Hi sits up, leans forward, and is successful in overcoming this unfortunate part of his countenance. I wonder how much he has paid for this minor facial feature, rather lack of a facial feature. “Chinless”jokes must have racked him from a distance, he must have spent hours looking into mirrors with a side view, trying to find ways to push the little chin that he has forward.
There is another man, in this world of retirees, the men have subjugated their wives to replace the staffs they once had, who is glaring –daring anyone to speak to him. Many are reaching out to form some kind of short term relationship; someone to tell about the wondrous things they have done. The wives huddle to the side and speak of grandchildren, clubs, and shopping. But the men are “oneupping” each other with the exploits of modern life. Companies they have worked for, projects they have done, bumptious in their forcefulness of their tales, many covering a strong recollection of inadequacy, fear and luck, luck who should be given most of the credit for their successes. I don’t see any that I want to get to know. My friend is a seriously addicted, extravert. He starts conversations with people at the drop of a spoon. He may specialize in servers, service workers, and other low level staff, perhaps because they are easy targets, and always responsive. He is nearly as likely to begin a conversation with the president of a company – which he does later in the day. He says things that I could not get away with. “Are you an American?” He can say such things, and get away with them because he is genuinely interested in people, and how they respond to being put on the spot – that and the humor that he interjects into the conversation. (One of his frequent comments to wait staff is “You have a great future in the profession”)
I watch as small groups form and disassemble, as pairings or quartets emerge and dissolve, as people turn away from previous connections to try again with someone else. There are tacit agreements – religion, politics and sex are off limits. Although since it is late October, politics may be permitted as a casual, testing topic. Those who really care have loud flags they hoist at the drop of a key word or name. So it becomes quickly a comparison of where you have been, what you did there, and especially, where you have been that no one else has been. (Antarctica used to be a winner, game stopper, but it is too easy to get to now!) So, since these people travel in the same circles, sometimes in different directions, they share a lot of experiences. But it isn’t wasn’t that a great opportunity! A wonderful site, an opportunity to re-experience a great trip. It becomes, “Ah, but did you get to have lunch with the Pope, or work in the kitchen of the Michelin rated restaurant, or ride an unfixed camel. But it is the way we are, and we wouldn’t be here if we were different.
Sometimes I try to listen, reflect, “active listen” but usually that is a weak opening. Countless times I have left conversations thinking ”I know some rather intimate things about that person, much more than I want to, and they would not be able to identify me in a ‘line-up’” The need, the strong unfilled need to be important, or significant makes it easy to feed people a few lines, a nod and an encouragement to talk, and they forget that you probably don’t care a dot about their small, boring, insignificant lives – their grandchildren, their pets, their trips to nowhere. That’s the power of seeming to be interested. Sometimes I think that I could draw them out, nurture the confidence that is building, they scam them – but that’s not me, fortunately for them!