circle, square, dot, dot...

Today on the airplane, on the way to Boston, I sat next to a schoolteacher from Maine and then a retired military-man-turned-juvenile-rehabilitation-officer from Boston.

And as I sat in the seat next to both of them in turn, I was struck by how honest we are on planes.

How many of us will tell our life stories to a perfect stranger, just because we have to spend an hour or two next to them on a 747 (or, in today's case, a 747 minus about 700)?

Now, granted, maybe my Orphan t-shirt did give an open door for conversation (and nicknames from the stewardess), but, my hunch is, that's not quite it...

From one man, I learned about his passion for Carolina basketball.
I learned that he loved Tyler Hansbrough, and thought he could do no wrong...

I also learned that his father had just died two days earlier.
I learned about how he was emotionally processing that.
I also heard about his worries about fatherhood, his 12 year-old son, and his infant daughter on the way

I think perhaps we are more comfortable telling our deepest feelings to a perfect stranger on a plane, precisely because we don't ever have to see them again.

We don't have to deal with the awkwardness of accountability.
We don't have to deal with the awkward questions from friends who don't quite know how to respond.
We don't have to deal with being called out, because, really, how many perfect strangers have you ever called out for something that they said?

We don't have to deal with the awkwardness of someone knowing and trying to care too.

Bottom line, we are comfortable telling our secrets to strangers because we can get a shot of pseudo-vulnerability without having to deal with community, and call ourselves immunized.

We are more comfortable with the vaccinating ourselves against community than we are with actually letting ourselves be known.

Or maybe we just get bored sitting on planes... :-)