I am of a particular subset group of people who have a lovely little quirk known as hypervigilance.
"What is it?" you ask?
"It sounds fabulous!" you say?
Let me break it down for you.
Hypervigilance makes it very hard to focus on the immediate here and now, because your eyes, ears, and brain are simultaneously attempting to focus on the task at hand, while assessing ABSO-
fuckin'-LUTELY everything else that is happening within earshot/eyeshot around you.
How does it work? I shall provide you with an example. Think of it like paranoia, with a little less 'crazy'.
The setting: A lovely, overpriced restaurant for breakfast somewhat in the middle of the room.
The company: An attentive and talkative
Feyoncé™.
The low down: Hypervigilance allowed me to learn the following, even though I wasn't consciously, actively TRYING to hear what people were saying, or watch what they were doing. (My back was to the general mass of people in the room):
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| It's like having waaaaaay too many ears. |
- The man beside me had accidentally flung his business cards out of his bag when I approached my own table. I picked them up for him and he thanked me. Then, through the course of our breakfast, I learned he was:
A) a lawyer looking to get the gentleman at the table with him out of insider trading charges
B) he found it humourous recalling stories of when his sister hit two separate men on two separate occasions in her car due to seizures, laughing as he said "I thought it was hilarious! I think the guy was a war vet and I've never seen a man cry like that!" accompanied by boisterous laughter.
C) I regretted picking up his cards and, instead, wish I had stomped on them.
- The server with the long ponytail does not like her job, as is evident with every forceful kick she throws into the swinging doors into the kitchen. This was sometimes punctuated with a long, loud, sigh.
- The daughter was clearly pissed at her mother, sitting about 3 tables away from us, as was indicated by the dour look on her face, her crossed arms, and her lack of ordering food or eating along with her mother. Teen daughter then proceeded to ignore her mother with her cell phone while mom fruitlessly tried to engage her in conversation.
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| "Uuuuuh, mo-om, I so hate you right now. Like. Whatever. Let me text in peace." |
- The two ladies to my left, I'm quite certain, believe that there poo has no aroma, if you catch my drift. They were horribly rude with the waitstaff, and lady #2 went on to tell a tale about a woman she worked with (she described her solely using expletives) saying how this woman was clearly wrong because lady #2 has
NEVER been wrong her entire life.
- The gentleman server listened patiently as the female server with short hair complained about the scheduling change and how she did not want to work the weekend again.
- Two younger guys at a table snapped their fingers to garner the attention of their server, more than once.
I forget the rest, but you get the idea. I figured this stuff out in about 10 minutes.
All the while, I was carrying on a conversation with
Feyoncé™, thinking about a family health issue, making sure I was grabbing the soy milk and not the regular milk for my coffee, trying to remember to use my fork
AND knife, because even though a fork can be a multi-use tool and can slice through eggs and hashbrowns, that's not how the 'fancy folk' do it...
It's like I am plagued by a persistent, ever-present Whisper2000. You remember that shit. Infomercial made of pure gold.
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| The Whisper 2000: Your greatest enemy or your best friend? |
Anyway, that's your Freebie Friday: A lesson on hypervigilance.
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