Guys and Dogs

This morning as I was riding my bike I had a couple of rubbernecking moments of which I am not overly proud. First there was the car in the process of parking, which had two adults in the front and and a large dog in the back. Or, make that a person . . . no, a dog . . . wait, is that a person? Yes, definitely human, but is it a man or a woman? Hm, long hair, can't see clothing too well . . . bingo, facial hair! Human male, for sure.

Hence, rubbernecking. Why did I care? There was nothing particularly interesting about this car or these people, but until I was certain about the figure in the back I couldn't let it rest. I think my brain (and maybe everyone's, or just some of us) has this built-in scientist who has to categorize, rate and sort everything it sees. I know mine does for fitness level (is that person fatter than me? Does my ass look like that in shorts like that?) because I have made a conscious effort to stop it. I really don't enjoy constant comparison and the self-criticism which can accompany it, and yet unless I am working on not doing it, there it is.

I have long thought that we have some innate tendencies towards making a quick analysis of everyone we see. Maybe it has something to do with mating, like we need to immediately determine if the person ahead of us in line is of the appropriate gender and build with which to spawn. Or maybe it's self-defense, a means of assessing whether the person doing step aerobics next to us could kick our ass if there were only one hunk of antelope left. Whatever the origins, it seems to me we are left with a need to form instant judgments about people we see in passing.

So when we take in something that we cannot process quickly, we look again, we stare, our minds race to place what we are seeing. When this happens for gender, my brother labels the mystery person "Chickerdude." I'll have to ask him what the label should be when the species is in question. Doggerdude doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Which brings me to my second rubbernecking moment this morning. Only a few blocks after the hairy backseat incident I saw a dog and its owner out for a walk. There was no question as to the gender of either (woman and male dog), but unfortunately, the dog was making its gender abundantly clear. As in, straining against its leash towards a tree that perhaps it mistook for a female dog in heat? As in, massive pulsing protuberance disproportionate to size of dog. Oh, to have not seen this in the first place, how that would have been so much easier. But having noticed, I could not tear my eyes from the sight until I was safely passed. Fortunately I was cruising by at a decent clip, but again, why? Why did I have to look?

The only solution I can see is to work towards observation without judgment. I doubt I can stop observing, and I would miss out on a lot of good observations if I did. But perhaps I can learn to let go of the next step a bit more, and look away instead of fixing my gaze. Or at least start carrying my camera a bit more regularly, so I can post pictures when I see something worth writing about!