“Did you fall off a bike or something?” I asked. It seemed I had a choice: engage this human being, pay attention, extend myself, empathize, or stick to reading about and intellectualizing empathy. My seatmate cringed each time the bus swerved or bounced over potholes.
“Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us-a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain-it’s also a choice we make to pay attention, to extend ourselves.” I mumbled, “No worries,” and opened the book I brought for the evening commute, Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams: Essays.
He sat stiff, uncomfortable, trying not to touch me or the seat. He said, “Watch out” and pointed to his elbow, where the skin was scraped to expose red road rash. One thin thigh spilled over two seats, and I squeezed myself onto the last bit of real estate, cursing him.
The only seat left on the bus was half-occupied by a guy who was man-spreading.
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