懂色帝

The burly, bald-headed hotel security guard felt obligated to ask me the same question he has likely asked hundreds of guests.

鈥淎re you enjoying your stay here?鈥� he asked as we entered the empty elevator.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 usually stay at such swanky hotels,鈥� I replied.

The Delamar Traverse City in Michigan is located on the water鈥檚 edge of Grand Traverse Bay, a scenic arm of Lake Michigan. My wife and I recently stayed there two nights.

As I pushed the button for the third floor, my question to the guard caught him off guard.

鈥淎re you enjoying your life?鈥� I asked, looking him in the eye.

He paused for a second to ponder his answer to a curious stranger.

鈥淵eah, it鈥檚 wonderful, I guess,鈥� he said.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 great,鈥� I replied. 鈥淣ot everyone lives a wonderful life.鈥�

He quietly looked at me while assessing my observation. A few seconds later, we parted ways. We will never see each other again. Our paths will never cross outside of that hotel. He will continue his life and someday die. I will, too.

This is part of the beauty, and the mystery, of elevator encounters.

The human dynamics of these vertical conversations have fascinated me since childhood, when I would stand in the corner of an elevator, staring at the ground, not saying a word. I would silently beg the elevator doors to open and allow me to escape such a social hellscape.

Most adults feel the same way, I've learned.

For a few seconds or minutes, we spend a sometimes-awkward time with strangers in a small, cramped, public box that moves too slowly for our comfort. Most of us take great pains to pretend everything is normal, though some of those 30-second elevator rides feel like 30 hours.

This is when we unknowingly push our internal buttons for civil inattention, the social norm where people acknowledge the presence of others in public spaces without crossing the invisible line of intrusion.

In that hotel elevator, I may have crossed that line more than a dozen times as I intentionally initiated conversations with strangers for this column. I was more curious about their reactions than about their lives.

鈥淭his hotel is amazing, huh?鈥� I asked a well-dressed, middle-aged man who likely made more money this year alone than I鈥檝e earned in my career.

He glanced toward me for a second before returning his gaze to his phone.

鈥淵eah, we stay here a couple times a year,鈥� he replied curtly.

His body language screamed at me: Don鈥檛 ask another question. So I didn鈥檛.

I got a warmer response from a young couple with a baby in a stroller.

鈥淗ow old is your baby?鈥� I asked cheerily. 鈥淪he鈥檚 adorable.鈥�

The mother beamed a proud smile as her daughter stared at me the entire time from the third floor to the ground level.

鈥淪he鈥檚 just 5 months old,鈥� the father told me. 鈥淏ut she acts much older.鈥�

The mother gushed about her baby as we exited the elevator together.

鈥淓njoy this age,鈥� I told the couple. 鈥淏efore you know it, she鈥檒l be in her 40s like my kids.鈥�

The mother replied, 鈥淚 was just saying that she will be pushing these elevator buttons before we know it.鈥�

During a later elevator ride, I asked an obvious question to an incoming guest: 鈥淲hat floor?鈥�

鈥淔our, please,鈥� the woman replied.

鈥淥h, the top-floor penthouse,鈥� I joked.

She didn鈥檛 appreciate my lame attempt at elevator humor. We rose three floors together without saying another word. Part of me was relieved. Most people prefer to remain quiet in elevators rather than initiate an uncomfortable or forced conversation that will last less than a minute.

Why talk at all, right?

Elevator silence is easier for me than elevator speeches, those brief messages or commercials about our jobs, careers or a business pitch. I鈥檝e had to use these well-rehearsed mini speeches to market my books, and I still haven鈥檛 mastered one in 30 seconds, the average time it takes to ride an elevator to the top floor.

Inside these tiny public laboratories, strangers come and go just as they do in our lives. We spend a few forgettable moments with them and then we go our separate ways. For those brief moments together, we can either talk about the weather, or about each other, or random chit-chat, or absolutely nothing.

But as I learned again at that Michigan hotel, these inescapable exchanges don鈥檛 have to be meaningless. I left the hotel with a few takeaways:

• Our mutual objective is to create a neutral interaction until those elevator doors reopen.
• A subtle acknowledgment of each other's presence is all most of us want.
• Non-verbal conversations take place every second inside these little cubicles.
• Don鈥檛 ask any heavy or probing questions to strangers unless you want to prompt odd second looks afterward.

I realized this while walking past that hotel security guard later in the day. He looked thankful that we crossed paths in the lobby, not in an elevator.