Do We Shut Ourselves Off From The Rest Of The World?

Okay so, I was playing online scrabble in a lecture the other day (I know, sue me) and I got to thinking, how much do we really cut off our senses without realising it? And in doing so, make the rest of the world not want to approach us (with the exception of those guys that sell the big issue).

If you're like me (for your sake, I hope not) then there's some times that you can't help but listen to your iPod at full blast - to the extent that I don't realise I have it at sound distortion levels until it's too late. I've actually had someone complain to me on the bus before that they could hear the music coming from my iPod. My bad. But it's not just that, the sight of someone with headphones in their ears doesn't exactly encourage someone to approach them. Which leads me on to...

... sunglasses. I don't have as much to say about this one but like with other things (which I'll get to in a minute), sunglasss obscure your face and it means that other people can't make eye contact with you. Now, I know a lot of people find it awkward to make direct eye contact during a conversation, I'm one of them, but they also find it just as awkward to not be able to see the eyes of their conversation partner at all. Basically what I'm trying to say about sunglasses is: you can see them, but they can't really see you.

Now for another stylistic criticism. I don't know how much you guys out there in internet land know about motorbikes but there's a specialist scarf that's sold alongside specially adapted motorbike jackets and jeans called buffs. I'm just guessing here but they're probably used to keep the wind off biker's faces when they have their visor up. Like I said, just a guess. But last year, a variant of them came out called hoodie buffs, basically the same thing but with a hood attached. Now the thing that differentiates buffs from your workaday scarf is that you can pull them up over your nose and mouth. Like I said, keeps the breeze off. Now, picture someone with their hair, nose and mouth covered. Definitely not approachable. I own one of these things and even my friends say it makes me look like some kind of mugger-ninja hybrid.

I was going to say about how gloves cut off your ability to touch stuff to an extent but this entry is getting to be a bit too long so for now, I'm out.