I didn’t think so at first, but I see him hoofing it around town so frequently that I imagine him as homeless. No-one walks that much for transportation; you can only be going to or fro so frequently. He must walk partly to kill time; maybe sometimes it is aimless.

When I first noticed him I supposed he was just another coffeehouse regular. Now and again I’d catch him in conversation with an employee, and there was nothing in his behavior or appearance that stood out to me.

But he spent the vast majority of time sitting alone and listening to music, headphones plugged into a portable CD player. At some point I formed the impression that his gaze flitted about avoidantly, that his face was blank too consistently . He seemed to be doing nothing other than filling up the hours.

I’ve noticed how little variation there is in his attire: the same few T-shirts, same slightly baggy jeans, same couple of baseball caps (though lately he’s been hatless). I’ve noticed that while he never appears grimy, neither does he ever seem recently showered (no surprise, considering all that walking).

He doesn’t remind me of The Captain, a coffeehouse character who stuck out unintentionally by way of appearance and eccentricity, and because of how for years it was almost literally impossible to walk into Portfolio without seeing him. I might never have noticed this fellow, but I see him all over, sitting alone or walking, the CD player, the headphones.

Unless he suffers from prosopagnosia, by this point he must recognize me, although you could not tell from the eye contact we’ve made: no noticeable feeling, no exchange of information. There is no smile or nod; there is nothing along the lines of: I know you, if only in passing.

I might look much the same to him. In general I do little in the way of attempting to communicate visually even with my friends, let alone strangers (which is not to say I am devoid of expression). I will always return a greeting, and on occasion I may extend one; but I may just as easily impart nothing, my gaze intended (on a conscious level, at least) solely for the gathering of information.

So our eyes meet, and I feel ungenerous. I don’t actually know whether my conjecture about his lifestyle (rootless, enduring empty minutes as they drag along), but I do know about my own: I drive around town on my motorscooter; I sit in the coffeehouse with my laptop and books; I converse with friends. It feels ungenerous not to extend myself, because I imagine I have more that is satisfying in my days, my weeks.

A question arises: What are your criteria for extending yourself to another, even in the smallest ways? My personal answer is not as simple as I’d like it to be. It involves a neurosis concerning not wanting to impose upon people. It involves a lack of confidence in my ability to read others. It involves an intense dislike of being misunderstood. It involves ingrained reactions to affect and physical appearance. And much more besides. To be sure, my desire and willingness to extend myself is not unconditional.

I went to Burning Man in 2010–’11 and may go again later this summer, and if there’s anything with which I have difficulty out there on the playa, it’s the expectation of connection, of receiving and being received. Nothing is foisted upon you in Black Rock City, but extending yourself to strangers is far more the norm there than in the so-called default world of Long Beach and Everywhere, U.S.A., and it can make me slightly ill at ease. It’s also one of the truly wonderful things about the Burning Man experience; the problem for someone like me is that such unsolicited self-extension is unnatural, even somewhat disingenuous. I am far more spectator at Burning Man than participant — an alignment toward the experience that is tolerated but slightly frowned upon by some, considering that the ethos includes creating for each other that unique world.

But off the playa it’s easy, perhaps too easy, not to interact. In how many apartment complexes did I live two years, three years, even longer when I didn’t really converse with a single soul? How many around me were in that boat while I sailed along socially? Sometimes it goes that way out here.

I don’t know that my impressions of the peregrinator about town are accurate. I don’t presume that a smile or word from me would be of any value. I don’t get a sense that we’re brothers or soulmates or even two people who would have any use for each other. But I see him without showing it, and something here feels amiss.