Good Looks
I wasn’t looking at you
I wasn’t looking at anyone
no one is looking at anyone
<>
we don’t even look at ourselves
expect through a lens
of memory
of perception
of cultural filters
of digital accuracy
<>
I don’t want to see anyone
not directly
so as not to give rise
to inaccurate expectations
to misinterpretation of the glance
<>
we all just want
to find our place
without bumping into anyone
without having to look
where we are sitting
<>
look up
is to make unwanted contact
visual acknowledgements
are not to be allowed
they lead to
well
no one knows what they lead to
it is better not to take that chance
<>
I’m not looking at anyone
at anything
no one looks at me
life is serene
Many years ago a discredited televangelist was accused of giving another man a ‘homosexual’ look in a spa locker room. Decades ago a man in Australia was found not-guilty of murderer because he experienced a ‘homosexual panic’ because of the way another man looked at him. The eyes have been weaponized.
Sexual harassments suits have cited the way other employees looked at the accuser – focused too long on legs, buttocks, chest. I’m not sure how long ‘too long’ is – the punch line ‘my eyes are up here’ underlines the need to direct our gaze anywhere but at the anatomy. Yet not looking someone in the eyes is seen as hiding something, of being shifty – looking them in the eye is being accusatory or invasive of their privacy.
Hence the power of hand held devices to avoid those treacherous waters. Soon, like modern cars, they’ll have a proximity alert to let you know how close you are to bumping into someone, or something, because they are in our blindspot. Maybe they’ll develop a way to give people who are too close a slight shock to alert them to ‘get back.’
As a kid I remember wishing I had Superman’s x-ray vision that allows him to look through things – though unlike x-rays he saw them as objects not outlines or ghosts. I always wanted to send away for x-ray glasses I saw in the back of comics that supposedly did the same thing so I could use them to see through clothing, or through walls to watch people undressing. Google tells me some were merely plastic glasses filled with cardboard that had a depiction of the things you could see if you had x-Ray vision 😦 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_specs)
I’m sure if I was wearing them in public my eyes would be covered so no one would accuse of giving them a homosexual look. I’ll stick to my wrap around sunglasses.
TOpoet 