what I thought of someone without talking to them

Stephanie Mott

I went to Safeway to get some grapes at 7:30 pm and the sun was setting. I went to the Safeway that has round table pizza on one side of it and CVS (used to be Longs) pharmacy in the same parking lot. When I walked out I noticed a guy leaning against a white car and then after a minute he stood up instead. He looked like he was six or seven feet, his skin color was in the middle between pale and tan, he was wearing baggy jeans (but not distastefully baggy, just baggy enough to be classified as jeans made for guys), white shoes and he was wearing a brown shirt. He had light brown hair that covered his ears and most of his forehead.
When I first saw him, he was standing with his right hand in his pocket, his knees were slightly bent and his left hand holding a plastic bag of groceries. He looked like he was waiting for something but had been waiting for a long time because he had one of his hands in his pocket (probably to keep it warmer because it definitely wasn’t warm because the sun was very close to setting) and his lips were pressed together in a way that made his cheeks look bigger than they actually are and his cheeks seemed a little bit red (probably from being outside for so long where it definitely wasn’t warm because the sun was very close to setting).
When I first saw him, it looked like he was tired and frustrated. His lips being pressed together made me think that he was a tiny bit frustrated because that’s one of the things that I tend to do when I am frustrated. In addition, I thought he was tired because his mouth was tightly closed and in my experience (unless I am sleeping or talking) takes more energy to hold your mouth open than to hold your mouth closed. Another reason I thought he looked tired was because he was in the parking lot of a shopping center where every store except one store sold food and he had bought some type of food that was in the plastic bag and therefore I thought that he hadn’t made or had dinner yet. I know the first thing that happens to me when I am hungry is getting tired or getting a headache (but the headache makes me tired because of the constant pain). There were certain behaviors that made him appear frustrated and tired to me. Two of these were the way that his head was slightly (about an ½ more protruded from his neck than I keep my neck) forward and his eyes seemed to be lifeless except for his eyes actively scanning for something.
When I first saw him, I automatically characterized him as a spontaneous person and not a detailed oriented person or a person that plans how they are going to do things. The fact that he had his groceries in a plastic bag made me think that he was using plastic bags because it is too much of a hassle to bring paper or canvas bags. In addition, the fact that he was standing there looking frustrated and tired without talking on a cell phone or having a cell phone out made me think that he doesn’t like to use cell phones and he didn’t plan this out at all so now he is tired from trying to find whatever he lost because it was a spontaneous event. The fact that he didn’t have a cell phone out made me think that he was not able to keep track of small things like cell phone because if he had his cell phone he would be using it to try to reconnect with the thing he is trying to find or would use it to relieve the boredom.
I think I would have felt comfortable talking one on one with him but I think I would have heard disappointment in his voice that he is in this situation. He didn’t give off a welcoming vibe but give off an unwelcome vibe either.