Judging by appearance: 1 (London)

I arrived in the Wood Green library last Friday and spotted a lighter sitting under the chair of a man in his 30s.  Normally, I’d draw attention to it, “Is this your lighter?” (or whatever the item is).  This time, however, I wasn’t sure I particularly liked the look* of this man, so I left it.  (*He looked a bit too streetwise for my liking.)

A few minutes later, he fell asleep, so the doorman came over to wake him up.  A few more minutes later, I saw him chatting amicably to the doorman, so obviously he didn’t hold it against the doorman (for not allowing him to doze off).  My opinion of him went up a bit.

As I was trying to plug in my computer, he immediately offered to do it, as it is a bit awkward with the socket under the table — one has to go on one’s knees and stick one’s head under the table to do it.  I felt ashamed of my initial unfair judgement of him.

This episode reminds me of something a student, Julia, once told me.  She’d seen a young woman in a tight dress, and probably garish make-up, and didn’t like the look of her, thinking, “What a tart!”  A few minutes later, an old lady nearby was struggling with her bags.  The “tart” immediately went to help her.  Julia felt so bad about pre-judging her.

I told these two stories during a lesson with Alex last Friday — I often use my own experiences as teaching material, which is what one would do in real life: talking about what one has come across.

Alex had his story to add.  He once went to the John Lewis sportswear department, wanting to buy some specialist squash sportswear.  Along came a female sales assistant, asking if she could help.  Alex took one look at her — female, in Muslim gear (nearly fully covered) — and thought, “Oh yeah, what would she know about specialist squash sportswear?”  When he said he was looking for specialist squash sportswear, she then launched into a whole series of options: Option A is this and that, Option B is this and that, Option C is this and that.  Alex said he, too, had learned a lesson from that.

This puts me in mind of another story.  One of my students told me in the 80s she was in the Russell Square area late one evening (around 1030pm) when she saw two lost German tourists trying to get help from an old man who looked a bit like a tramp.  My student heard the old man speak English in a posh accent.  When the tourists struggled a bit with their English, the “tramp” switched to fluent German!

(London, 1980s—2017)

Read also blog entry The smell, which is another Judging by appearance.