Crazy People and Me

Rather than thinking about how much I still have left to write on my paper, I'm going to raise a question that I've had for several years; recent events have encouraged me to think further:

Why are crazy people attracted to me?

I am entirely serious.  Everywhere I go in the world, whether it's Paris, Tours, Florence, Tzfat, London, or even Ithaca, people who are drunk, or mentally disturbed are attracted to me, like iron filings are attracted to a magnet.  I don't know whether it's because I'm particularly gullible-looking, or that I look non-threatening, but people who are not in normal states of mind seem to find me an excellent person to approach, and begin pouring out what they have to say.  I have heard an embarrassing number of people pour out their life stories, or significant portions thereof, to me.  I've had a drunk man from the D.R. living in France start interrogating me about Bob Marley; I've had an unbalanced U.S. veteran start telling me about the last 20 years of his life; I've had a (homeless?) man in Ithaca tell me about why he thinks Cornell erected all of the fences on the campus bridges last year; I've had a homeless American living in Israel tell me what he thinks is wrong with the Chabad movement.  Please note that all of these people (and the others like them) are is in addition to various European con-artists and beggars, who also tend to target me.  Discussing all such encounters is too broad of a topic; for the moment, I'm only discussing who want my sympathy, not my money.

What prompted me to write this entry was my series of encounters with one of my hostel roommates.  He is Parisian, but his girlfriend threw him out of his apartment, so he had no choice but to crash in a hostel.  He is a radical left-wing exponent of conspiracy theories, and is editor of a magazine of which he is the only contributing writer; I don't know if it has ever been published.  He has also written a book.  He told me that he had the idea for the book when, after reading the Bible ten times, he had a dream in which Queen Esther showed him his manuscript of a book about India on the monitor of a computer with an all-red keyboard.  He proceeded to show me the electronic version of his book, magazine, etc., and to begin to describe to me all of his other ideas, including conspiracy theories.  On two occasions, I've needed to politely excuse myself from his company, because I was going to be late (both times I was entirely truthful).  His English is quite good, and we communicated back and forth, alternating language.  He is one of the reasons I did not feel comfortable staying in the d’Artagnan.

I'm not saying this in complaint, or in denunciation: I know the man's name, but I'd rather not write it, for fear that this will somehow come back to haunt him.  I’m bringing it up to ask: why me?

There are three possible answers:

1) Either the way I look, or the way I hold myself, or the pheremonic signals I exude indicate that I am someone who will not protest to listening to otherwise unusual stories and narratives.

2) I look and appear the same as everyone else, but unlike everyone else, I actually stop to listen when crazy people start speaking, whereas everyone else pretends that they don’t hear, and walk very, very quickly away from the offending presence.

3) Actually, everyone has these encounters.  I just haven’t noticed it.

I can only think of one occasion in which I have seen a drunk person (on Saint Patrick’s Day) walk over to one of my friends, rather than me, and start talking to him.  My friend (no, I won’t say who it is, but he sometimes reads this blog) responded very warmly and politely, as is normal for him.  In other words, this happens at least sometimes to other people; I don’t know whether this is reassuring or worrisome, because it means that other people sometimes also experience these uncomfortable moments.

OK, everyone have a good weekend (and a Shabbat Shalom, for those to whom it applies), enjoy the remaining weeks of summer vacation, etc.  There is someone on the other side of the world thinking of you right… NOW!

~JD