The Invisible Man
I have ridden along Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue long enough to know that when I'm in Yuppie country, I'm invisible. The streets may be crowded, but these people are not going to acknowledge me for several reasons. For one thing, they are already distracted by their cell phones, Blackberrys, and those weird things that guys wear in their ears so that they don't need to be bothered holding a handset to their cheeks. With all of this technology and networking going on, they can't spare any concentration on something so bizarre as a unicylist.
The other factor is that they need to appear cool. These are not the people to give me a thumbs up (or even a thumbs down). They walk right by me as if they see unicycles on a daily basis, perhaps at the office. This behavior is true of yuppie men regardless of location: In their natural habitat (the financial center) or out (like if they're on their way to work), young men in suits will never, ever make eye contact with me for more than a fraction of a second and will never smile in my direction. And they will certainly not crane their heads to prolong their view of me.
The behavior of yuppie females is a bit different. They will rarely smile (less than 5% of the time, I'd guess) and will never say anything, but they often stare. In addition, they will frequently open their eyes wider while not moving their lips or even their eyebrows, creating a somewhat distutbing picture, compounded by the fact that, like their male counterparts, they keep their head posture unchanged. The effect is as tho they have just had an important thought.
No one appears to see me while I glide, faster than normal, thru their world. The overall effect is quite like the scenes in The Matrix when the hero is practicing different reality-bending techniques. He moves, unnoticed, thru the irreal world of the people plugged into the computer. I am Neo.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Unicycles and Wheelchairs
There is a suprising connection between unicycles and wheelchairs. In both cases, you wheel yourself around the city sidewalks at a different height than most adults. You have to learn to navigate around certain obstacles, especially other people. You travel at a different speed than most walkers, usually faster. Wheelchair-riders, however, are almost never jeered. This is one way that unicycling is different. Imagine if everywhere you went, people pointed to you, made comments to you (or about you), or started singing a song associated with what you were doing (is there one about wheelchairs? I hope not!). Even worse, what if most people pretended you weren't there. Well, that's one way in which unicycling and wheelchairing are the same.
In many ways, riding a unicycle is the flip-side to riding a wheelchair. It's the healthy version, the one that is made by choice rather than by unfortunate circumstances -- only a weirdo would want to ride all around in a wheelchair, even for a day; presumably, only a weirdo would choose to ride a unicycle everyday. Every time I ride thru city Manhattan, I am the recipient of pointing, commenting, laughing, singing, invisibility.
Like wheelchairs, unicycles represent a different method of locomotion. On city streets and sidewalks, wheelchairs are fairly uncommon; unicycles are downright rare. In large part due to this rarity, people often act like I'm the setup man to a joke that no one's ever thought up before: "Where's your other wheel?" I have been riding for more than 25 of the past 27 years, and I'd have to guess that I've heard that question about once a day. If so, then that's over 9,000 times. Even if I've only heard it twice a week, that's still over two thousand times. People try so hard to be original. It kind of reminds me of the statistic that in 2004, over 200 kids were given the name Unique. What's funny to me about the people who make the "other wheel" comment is that their friends always pat them on the back and laugh, suggesting that they are even less creative than their witty pals.
In many ways, riding a unicycle is the flip-side to riding a wheelchair. It's the healthy version, the one that is made by choice rather than by unfortunate circumstances -- only a weirdo would want to ride all around in a wheelchair, even for a day; presumably, only a weirdo would choose to ride a unicycle everyday. Every time I ride thru city Manhattan, I am the recipient of pointing, commenting, laughing, singing, invisibility.
Like wheelchairs, unicycles represent a different method of locomotion. On city streets and sidewalks, wheelchairs are fairly uncommon; unicycles are downright rare. In large part due to this rarity, people often act like I'm the setup man to a joke that no one's ever thought up before: "Where's your other wheel?" I have been riding for more than 25 of the past 27 years, and I'd have to guess that I've heard that question about once a day. If so, then that's over 9,000 times. Even if I've only heard it twice a week, that's still over two thousand times. People try so hard to be original. It kind of reminds me of the statistic that in 2004, over 200 kids were given the name Unique. What's funny to me about the people who make the "other wheel" comment is that their friends always pat them on the back and laugh, suggesting that they are even less creative than their witty pals.
A Brief Introduction
This blog is an attempt to describe the different ways that pedestrians behave when they see me riding my unicycle on the sidewalk. For years I've noticed that their behavior has a lot to do with certain main factors: age, sex, socioeconomics. Other important factors include our location and whether they are alone or in a small group.
My impetus for writing this is really two-fold. I heard an interview on NPR with a social scientist who had become paralyzed due to an illness. He spoke with the host about how being in a wheelchair changed the way people treated him [for example, women didn't shy from making conversation with him because they no longer perceived him as someone who might make unwanted sexual advances]. A few days later, the forced laughter of some teenagers reminded me that people treat unicyclists very differently than they treat most strangers on the sidewalk.
In this blog, I'm going to examine the different behaviors I've noticed over the years and I'll try to figure out why certain people behave the way they do when they see me on a unicycle.
My impetus for writing this is really two-fold. I heard an interview on NPR with a social scientist who had become paralyzed due to an illness. He spoke with the host about how being in a wheelchair changed the way people treated him [for example, women didn't shy from making conversation with him because they no longer perceived him as someone who might make unwanted sexual advances]. A few days later, the forced laughter of some teenagers reminded me that people treat unicyclists very differently than they treat most strangers on the sidewalk.
In this blog, I'm going to examine the different behaviors I've noticed over the years and I'll try to figure out why certain people behave the way they do when they see me on a unicycle.
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