I play poker, and there's a term that players use when someone is emotionally compromised and making bad decisions. We call it "going on tilt."
When you are there, you might suspect you are, but your perceptions aren't level, and you fail Absent a great deal of statistically unlikely events, you are about to hand your chips over to someone else.
Recently, I've had personal experience with a loved one encountering a mental health episode. It's better now, and we are all grateful.
But the sense of helplessness that one has when in the presence is palpable. For this person, the issue manifested as paranoid delusions, which were, of course, impossible to refute with words or logic. You just had to be patient, wait them out, and have faith that it was not the new (ab)normal. It was one of the worst periods of my life, and like any of these cycles, I responded the same. A general numbness and trudging but persistent work to distract myself.
So, that's the prologue. Now, the ride story.
The ping comes in late in the evening on a day where I haven't made my target. Uber has dangled a surge price to keep me on the road, which has now faded. So I either take the next ride, regardless of condition or terms, or I lose the surge. I'm taking the next one unless it's completely outlandish. The ping comes in, and it's local. OK.
The pick up is supposed to be at a local 7-11. I get to the store and there is only one car in the parking lot, which I am presuming is the employee's. I wait for five minutes, no one shows or replies to my text, and I can cancel for a small fee. I do and head for home.
Two minutes later, the same name appears, but at an address. Oh... kay? Still have the surge price to chase, after all.
I roll up to the address, about five minutes from the 7-11. After a couple of minutes, the passenger makes his way to the car, and there's something... off... about him. He's a white guy probably in his 30s, tall, thin, dark clothing, and vibrating. Oh boy. He gets in the car, does not acknowledge my patter or the address confirmation (it's the 7-11), and off we go.
It is my standing practice to not make a lot of eye contact with passengers. There's no real reason for it, and if you are looking at your passenger, you aren't looking at the road. Over nine years, 39K+ rides, and relative safety and high tipping tells me this is a reasonable position to take.
So I can't and won't see if he's on the phone or not when he says what he says, which is... conspiratorial. Paranoid. Profane. Political. And all said at a pace that reminds me of listening to podcasts at accelerated speed, and at a volume that I can't quite ignore.
This is what real crazy looks like. Not theatric, not captivating, not a star turn from an actor with a meaty part, not well written or with memorable phrases. It's repetitive and upsetting and it makes you uneasy, because somewhere in the back of your primate brain you realize that everything about this person is wrong, and wrong might be contaigous. Or lead to unexpected outcomes.
Five minutes later, we're at the 7-11. He gets out and goes in and now I can't really trot out my excuse to not make eye contact, because there he is in the store. Through the glass I can see him vibrate, see his mouth move, but I can't see if there's anyone near him. This goes on for three minutes. I can't end the ride until five. I have no idea what he's doing, or why it's taking so long, or what is going to happen next. He leaves with a pack of cigarettes, gets into my car, and it's quieter for the five minutes back, but not quite quiet. At the drop, he leaves without incident. Still ranting.
Three stars or less means I never see him again, of course, and that seems like a no-brainer of a decision. The first rule of rideshare is get home safe, and this didn't feel that way at all.
On the other hand... he paid surge price (and a cancel fee), he didn't make me wait longer than most fares, and on some level, I don't want people like him to never get fares, because that hardly seems like it will help his situation. There could be any number of good and understandable reasons for the way he is, and, well? I didn't 3-star my loved one when they had their rough stretch.
I think about it for too long, and it sticks in me and sparks this post. I eventually did give him three, if for no other reason than it stuck in my head long enough to curtail my earnings, and that's not a practice to support.
A college professor back in the day in my political science course once attributed the quote of "human rights are for countries that can afford them" to a dictator. I haven't been able to track which one (Fidel Castro?), and since dictators tend to come outside of English as a first language (that's what we in poker would call a tell, folks), I'm not sure it was ever really said that way.
But the point applies. Compassion may also be for people who can afford it. Which doesn't really get my fare out of my head...
