Challenging the norm

Over intersession, I took a bus out of the Port Authority in Manhattan. It's not the nicest place in the world, and one inevitably finds a representative population of the city's homeless wandering around inside, trying to keep warm or get some cash.

One of these homeless men stood next to the Krispy Kreme counter where I was trying to buy some goodies for the six hour bus ride ahead of me. He stood next to the counter, getting in the way of the line. He muttered to himself incoherently and never quite stood up straight. His winter coat was in relatively good condition, and he looked to be in good enough health.

I won't lie; I usually write off people like him. I'm a New Yorker, so I've grown up with such sights and am completely desensitized. I come from a long line of people belonging to the he-should-just-go-get-a-job school of thought. Yet even I couldn't ignore the irony here. I was standing in line waiting to purchase ridiculously delicious donuts, not even because I was hungry but just to have something to eat on the bus when I got bored. I had no way of knowing whether he had eaten that day, whether he was going to, and if he had some place to go that night, and I had been taught to care little about such details.

It never occurred to me to give him any money ("won't use it for any good purpose!"), but I had the almost irrepressible urge to buy a donut for him. I had the fantasy in my mind of bringing a huge smile to his face as I handed him a chocolate glazed donut with sprinkles on top. I thought that even though he was crazy, he probably was rational enough to be standing by the Krispy Kreme counter because he wanted a Krispy Kreme donut. I bought half a dozen and decided to give him two. But then I didn't.

I lost my nerve. I looked around and saw all the other, "normal," people around me, and started wondering whether they would think I was weird. I looked at the homeless man and wondered if he too would think I was weird and refuse to accept the donuts. I didn't want to look strange; I was afraid to attract any attention to myself. Thus, as soon as my donuts were boxed and paid for I hurried away with my shoulders hunched and eyes averted.

I got about 50 feet away, and I stopped. I realized how stupid my inhibitions were. Was I really going to let some stupid social norms control my life and let this man possibly go hungry? Even if he wasn't hungry, he would probably have been happier with a donut; I could have brightened someone else's day a bit, quite easily, but I was simply too embarrassed to do so. I decided not to make the mistake, whirled around and went back to the Krispy Kreme donut shop. The man was gone, probably to try his luck somewhere else.

I'm not really interested in tackling any big issues here. I don't want to go into welfare vs. workfare, the blame game, the limits of charity or any of that. All I know is that that was the umpteenth-and-a-half time I let a stupid social norm get in my way of doing something I really wanted to do. How many things do you regret doing or not doing for no particular reason except that you were too shy or embarrassed to do something that, social custom aside, was personally reasonable and perhaps even laudable?

The times you wanted to express sympathy but didn't feel comfortable doing so. The times you wanted to let a friend know you could help them with a problem but didn't want to mention the problem. The times something needed to be said but there was no one to say it because you were all too shy. I've probably done it a hundred times and will probably do it another hundred. But I'm going to try not to. I'm going to try to be normal rather than "normal." No more stupid regrets. Aileen Ann Nielsen is from Upper Black Eddy, Penn. She can be reached at anielsen@princeton.edu.