musing for fun – caeblogs

A few weeks ago, I was a guest at a wedding and was surprised to see a familiar face amongst the security guards at the reception venue. At first my brain couldn’t place where I knew the man from, then it clicked. I walk past him almost every day on my commute to work. Actually, that’s putting it lightly. I do more than walk past him; I have become an unwitting observer of his life. I know what his wife and kids look like because I’ve seen him pushing his daughter in her pram with the rest of his family walking alongside. My mastery of European languages is poor but I think he’s Polish because I’ve heard him speaking to his wife a couple of times. This might not be a lot of information but it’s plenty to know about someone I’ve never spoken to.

This is probably why my brain couldn’t reconcile seeing him in a completely different context on that Saturday afternoon. Family man, yes. Security guard telling people to move away from the entrance, no. The question that came to mind after the shock of seeing him was “what’s the etiquette in that kind of scenario?” If I’ve noticed him over the last year or so, there is a chance he’s noticed me too. Did he recognise me? Continue reading →