On not being here

   Although looking too long into a stranger's eyes has always felt to me like a bit of a potential altercation, I did grow up in a crowded city with an active street life, so people seemed to be looking at and negotiating the surroundings we shared. It may not have been a great space, or perhaps it was one that felt contested, but still it acted as a common denominator for us.
   Although I didn't think about it much back then, many of the same things that impacted me also affected those around me. Even people who were extremely intoxicated or publicly under the influence of drugs seemed to be existing in this shared space more than so many of the people I see contemporarily; smartphones have taken many away.
   The insistent downward attention to technology creates a new public space, but one that seems filled with a kind of ghostly presence. The people that I see appear present physically, but often no more than that. They pass me on the street, though rarely look my way. They seem to be neither completely here nor wholly somewhere else.
   As a person that has often found it hard to see others in a three dimensional way (finding it difficult to take into account other's histories, fears and insecurities), the predominance of smartphone technology in the world we share has made this even harder for me as it relates to strangers; they almost literally strike me as two dimensional in the places that we share.
   I long for the days, though probably remembered ideally, when strangers and I would meet in a shared environment, and although sometimes contested or even antagonisitc, neither could say that we were not completely there.
   Of course, we really are still together, but I do now often feel alone.