When I taught Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie to ninth graders, they could not understand how a character like Laura could be so terrified of social encounters and so completely unable to bring herself to act. But I could understand perfectly, because I felt frozen in place myself. What I never understood were the descriptions of human interactions, in books, that didn’t reference the disquieting otherness of other people, their constantly shifting focus and changeability, and how intrusive and alarming it feels. Other people are like the patches of light that flicker on the ceiling when the sunlight filters through the trees outside: constantly in motion and impossible to grasp. The difference is that unlike the patches of light, other people can see you, and you must not be caught staring. It took me years to realize that this is not a universal experience, that not everyone dreads having to speak to another person or be part of a conversation. But I feel on the spot, caught with nowhere to run. I have nothing to say, nothing waiting to roll off my tongue, except maybe to express annoyance, or anger. But that is the last thing I should allow to slip out. I’m stuck trying to be pleasant, and, since I have nothing to say, trying to arrange my expression into a faint, benign smile. If I speak, I might trip up the flow of conversation by saying something that falls flat, or worse, I might unknowingly utter an unintended insult that goes splat on the floor, where everyone looks at it, aghast.

When I willed myself to walk out of suburban New Jersey to join the teeming life on the streets of Manhattan and the scruffy scene that surrounded [the community center that will not be named], I had also willed myself to make the conscious decision that I would set aside the feeling of uneasiness I had about being around other people, and I would act from a perspective of curiosity and acceptance of whomever I came across. I spoke to strangers in the park, people at train stations, homeless men who came out to Food Not Bombs. I didn’t initiate conversations, but if someone talked to me, I would listen and respond, rather than looking for an excuse to get away.

I was in the park eating my lunch when a man in coveralls and a grizzled beard stopped and asked me where I was from. I am from Italy, and he was from Croatia. He asked me if I watched soccer, and then if I watched the matches with my boyfriend. I said no, with my father. We spoke briefly about soccer, he told me about Croatia, and then I finished my falafel sandwich and got up to leave. He became agitated, urged me to stay, and, as I was walking away, he called out, “I love you!” I didn’t find this encounter creepy, as one might expect. It was, to me, only a reminder of how many are alone and yearning. I wondered whether I attracted the lonely and desperate because my own aloneness was written all over my face.

The park was a different place when I was there with Food Not Bombs, with a purpose. The people who made the park their home were used to us, but many of them thought we were a bit kooky. Why are you doing this? Are you religious? Is it for school credit? Actually, we’re against organized religion, and no, we get no school credit. Saying “We want to help people,” sounded self-important and condescending, so we would say it was a social occasion, a chance to get together with our friends. Or we explained that Food Not Bombs has a political message, that food is a right and should not be wasted but reclaimed when it has been needlessly discarded. We all sat there together: the punks, the homeless, and the hapless, with our paper cups of soup. When a fight started to break out between two men, and one man simply said to the other, “You stay here and fight, and I’ll just walk away.”

A man came up to us and asked if we wanted “works.” I had no idea what that meant. Caroline, who was 16, said, “We don’t have jobs, but we’re not looking for work.” The man just stared, uncomprehending. Then William stepped in and said, “Needles. He’s asking if we want needles.” To shoot up heroin. “Ohhh. No thanks,” we said, smiling politely, “we’re good.”

William was one of the Food Not Bombs volunteers, and he was himself homeless. We met him in the park. He was a very smart and articulate man, and an artist, but he heard voices that told him terrible things. He believed aliens were real and that he had seen them, and that they had warned him. About what I’m not sure. It pained him that I was indifferent to the warning. Most nights he took the bus to the shelter on Ward Island, and every morning he walked over 100 blocks back down to the Lower East Side. He had cultivated a friendly, unthreatening manner, with kind of a sing-song delivery to his voice, but whenever I ran into him on the street, and I saw him before he had seen me, the painful, angry scowl he wore on his face was frightening.

The last I heard of him, someone from the anarchist scene had bought him a bus ticket to Florida.

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