Stories We Tell About Strangers

Apparently, This Is Genetic

When I was growing up, we called my grandmother Nonnie. Somewhere along the way, she also got the nickname Nonnie Speculani because she could take three scraps of information and turn them into a whole story. I remember once, when I think she was taking me to school, we saw some kids crossing the street on a cold morning without jackets. Nonnie said, “I bet they forgot them and their mom is going to bring them to school.” Another time we passed a man walking down the road carrying a child’s car seat. She decided his car had broken down on the way to pick up his kid and someone was meeting him there. There was no way she could know any of this. That was the Nonnie of it.

Now I do the same thing, and somewhere along the way I turned Billy into a speculator too. We’ll see half of something happening and start working out the rest. Give us an unfinished scene and one of us is probably going to supply a plot.

Where in the Hell Is Everybody Going?

One morning Billy and I were walking around 6:40, watching cars move through the neighborhood, and I started wondering where everybody was headed. School drop-off? Work? An early appointment? Was one of those drivers just getting home after working all night? My brain likes to know what happened before I got there and what happens after I leave.

Humans are pretty good at this because we have to be. We read expressions, body language, surroundings and whatever little clues are available, then use our own experience to make sense of them. Most of the time it helps us navigate the world. The trouble starts when a guess quietly turns into something we treat like a fact.

Turns Out, There Was Actually a Name for This

I didn’t have a clean word for this feeling until I Googled the phenomenon I’d been experiencing for so many years and discovered that it was called sonder. It’s the realization that every stranger you pass is moving through a world as vivid and complicated as your own, and that hits me differently right now than simply wondering where everybody was going. Every one of those cars was carrying an entire life somewhere.

The person driving past me wasn’t just scenery in my morning. They had people they loved, things they worried about, plans, bills, memories and a whole history I knew nothing about. Their day kept moving long after they turned the corner and disappeared from mine. It made me think about the houses we pass too, and everything happening behind doors I barely notice.

Of course, I’ve watched enough crime television that my imagination can take this in a less wholesome direction. I once had a neighbor who almost never left the house. People would arrive occasionally, but I never saw them leave, which felt less like a social visit and more like the opening scene of a documentary, that I absolutely did not want to be interviewed for. Because I had seen Disturbia, I spent an unreasonable amount of time wondering what in the hell was going on over there. I didn’t actually think the guy was a serial killer, but I also wasn’t volunteering to borrow a cup of sugar.

Well, That Got Personal

This is where the idea got more interesting. When I fill in somebody else’s missing pieces, I’m using my own experiences, fears, hopes, insecurities and mood to do it, which means the version I invent may say more about me than it does about them.

I’ve noticed I can look at the same kind of person on two different days and invent completely different lives for her. One day, the woman sitting alone at Starbucks looks peaceful and independent, enjoying ten quiet minutes to herself. Another day, she looks lonely, like maybe she’s waiting for somebody who isn’t coming. Same woman. Same coffee. Different story. She didn’t change. I did.

Sometimes my brain takes it in a more empathetic direction. I’ll notice a stranger and wonder if they’re okay even though I have no real reason to think anything is wrong. Maybe I picked up on some tiny cue, or maybe something about them reminds me of myself. Either way, I’m becoming much more interested in why my brain chose that particular story than whether I guessed theirs correctly.

Comparing My Insides to Your Outside

This is also how speculation turns into comparison. A woman drives by in a beautiful car, and before long I’ve handed her a great marriage, a gorgeous house and a world that seems suspiciously problem-free. Meanwhile, I know my own experience from the inside—the bad decisions, insecurities, fights, regrets and all the parts that never make it onto Facebook. Then I compare everything I know about myself to a few seconds of somebody else’s exterior, which makes absolutely no sense.

I also don’t need to fix that by imagining that her reality secretly sucks. She may really be happy. She may have worked hard for what she has. Good for her. The person in the beat-up car might be perfectly content too. Appearances aren’t always hiding some terrible truth; they just don’t tell me enough to know.

Curiosity Isn’t Certainty

The more I thought about Nonnie, the more I realized she usually said, “I bet.” She left room to be wrong, and there’s a big difference between wondering about a person and deciding you understand what their behavior means.

I’ve done the second one plenty of times with people I actually know. A text goes unanswered, a friend acts differently, an invitation doesn’t come, and suddenly I’m supplying motives with information I never had. I’ve managed to get genuinely upset over situations that existed mostly in my own head. That’s when harmless speculation becomes something worth noticing.

What Does My Version Say About Me?

I’m not interested in turning this into Five Ways to Stop Making Assumptions. I’m probably always going to speculate, Nonnie Speculani left her mark, and Billy has been successfully recruited. What I do want is to catch the difference between a version I invented and an actual fact, and pay attention to what my reaction might be telling me.

If another person’s success bothers me, that may point to something I want or somewhere I feel behind. Judgment may have more to do with my own insecurity than with the person I’m judging, while compassion can tell me something too. Sometimes the things we imagine about other people become little mirrors, and I’m learning to notice what gets reflected back before deciding it belongs to them.

And Then I Realized I’m Somebody Else’s Stranger

By the time we finished our walk, the neighborhood looked exactly the same. Cars were still going by, and I still had no idea where anybody was headed. Most of them were probably having completely ordinary mornings—coffee in the cup holder, radio on, thinking about work, family, errands or what they were going to have for dinner.

Then the thought flipped around: a driver in one of those cars could have glanced over and seen me. They would have gotten a few seconds of a woman walking through the neighborhood before seven in the morning with three little dogs and a man, and from that tiny glimpse they could have invented anything. They wouldn’t know where I’ve been, what I’ve screwed up and repaired, what I’ve lost or learned, or what I’m still trying to figure out. All they would have is my outside, which is exactly what I have when I see them.

That may be what I like most about sonder. It doesn’t help me understand strangers; it reminds me how much I can’t possibly know. I’ll still wonder and speculate because that part of me isn’t going anywhere. I have a vivid imagination, and honestly, I kind of like that about myself. I just want to remember the difference between what’s happening in my head and what’s actually happening beyond my view.

Because everybody I pass is carrying something I can’t see. A history. A heartbreak. A stupid mistake they still cringe about. Somebody they miss. Something they’re proud of. A problem they haven’t told anyone about yet. Maybe they’re headed toward the best day they’ve had in years, or maybe they’re just trying to get through the day without losing their shit. I’ll probably never know.

And maybe I don’t need to.

Sometimes, when a random car passes me early in the morning, I can just watch it go and think:

There goes a whole life.