Empathy (when it's their fault)

I got rear-ended at a red light last week. I'm fine, thank you. A little sore (saw a doctor already, just in case), and frustrated from the lost time dealing with it right before I get on the first 3-week leg of my fall tour, but otherwise fine. The light was red. I was sitting at it, and she was stopped behind me. It turned green, I started to put my foot on the gas, and she smashed into me like a bumper car. It happened so quickly that my cursing (rare for me) was delayed by a full ten seconds. What just happened, and how?! Thoughts raced through my mind. Am I injured? How damaged is my new car? How much time am I going to lose dealing with this? Are they going to take responsibility, or will it affect my insurance? How is this going to affect the tour that starts in week? In the midst of that stream-of-consciousness I was about to get out of the car. And then I stopped myself. Take a breath, Brian. You don't seem badly hurt.

Shifting focus

I thought about the other person for the first time. Are they okay? What are they going to be thinking when I get out of the car? Well, if I were in their shoes, I'd be worried that a rage monster was going to step out of my car and start aggressively yelling or cursing at me. So, I put a smile on my face before I opened the door. I stepped out and looked up to see a young adult girl coming towards me, tentatively. "Hi, I'm Brian," extending my hand as the sky dumped sheets of rain on us. "Are you okay?" I could see instant-relief on her face. Her body relaxed and she asked if I was okay. Then she took full responsibility, and it was clear she was going to be honest when the police showed up. "Okay, let me call for a police officer, and we'll get this sorted out," I offered. We pulled in to an adjacent parking lot and huddled under a short overhang. "So, this is exciting," I cracked with a smile. She laughed, genuinely and hard. Connection.

We don't need to be friends

We went on to have a lovely conversation for the better part of an hour during all of the waiting that ensued. Are we going to be best friends? No, probably not. She owes me for the damage, and she's got plenty of other things to deal with. But connection isn't always about making new friends. In fact, it rarely leads to friendship. Most of us only have room in our lives for a few close friends. No, connection is about something deeper. It's saying, I see you. I understand what you're going through, or I'm trying to. We're all in this together. It's about trust. Instead of becoming instant enemies (and no one would have blamed us for that), we bonded over our shared experience. We were both reassured that neither was going to try to screw over the other. And really, wouldn't it be great if we felt like that about everyone?

My buddy later said, "Well, that's one way to meet a new person." Later that same day, telling the story while picking up dry cleaning, I met two more. So, in spite of it all, I still managed to meet three new people.