We are experts at experiencing things that haven't happened yet.

PalmI was about to cry, reading a beautiful piece, when a young man interrupted me to show me something on his phone screen. When I felt him touch my arm, demanding my attention, I sat up, trying to break free from the noise-canceling noise of my headphones. He was the voice I'd just heard in the seat next to me, but I hadn't even bothered to glance at him. Normally, I find it impossible to ignore the chasm of doubt that separates me from the person sitting next to me on the bus, like a giant question mark. Anonymity is unbearable for me. I think people need to know who they're spending time with, even if it's just to ignore each other for an entire journey. So I've ended up piecing together entire life stories from a simple furtive glance at someone else's chat, analyzing shopping bags, a thermos of coffee, or impromptu snipe hunts, at eight in the morning or eleven at night. Everything is a Clue game.

But last Saturday I had already done this exercise with the first person who had been by my side, without my speculations keeping me too entertained. When we got off, another guy took his place, and since we were already reaching the last stop, I didn't even do the thing where I breathe in the air he had created with his movement, an exercise I use to try and guess people's personalities and futures. Suddenly, there was a lot of information to process when, with an impassive gesture and without making a sound, that young man showed me something on his phone. My gaze sought his, and with a zoom outThe rest of his body, trying to answer two questions: Who are you? What do you want? He was well-dressed and had a fresh haircut. But now I could smell his perfume and alcohol from a sandwich. Zoom inHis phone. And my eyes, like two air hockey pucks, darted back and forth, unable to decipher anything, just an interface that wasn't a map (the only thing I expected to find).

At the top of the screen, some letters I didn't understand. And my brain, recalculating its route. Further down, other words I did understand: "You're very pretty." It was a simultaneous translator he was using to try to tell me something very different from what his expressionless face reflected. Dude, seriously, what a drag. Saying that to me was more a physiological need, an uncontrollable, lazy impulse—like scratching his ass or yawning—than a desire to communicate a message. It was pure inertia. In a whisper or a lascivious look, he could have understood: they cost nothing, they're automated. But this guy was giving himself away. The effort required to try and confront me wasn't worth it. And I, as if saving him from his own mediocrity, glanced at his face again, with a compassionate smile.

For what stupid reason should I be merciful? Why couldn't I do what I wanted, which was to grab my translator and offer him another opinion: "Are you an idiot?" Why did I have to act normal, as if that was what I expected to happen to me that day when I left the house? Why can't I be a tough girl, a Thelma or a Louise, and screw myself over?If I was man, I could get away with murder. But I am girl, so I have mental disorder"("If I were a man, I could get away with it. But I'm a girl, so I have a mental disorder"), rapper Princess Nokia says in the song Blue velvetI suppose that's precisely why. Because women are experts at experiencing things that haven't happened to us, because we've found a protective system in our delusions.

I never thought I'd say this, but being confronted through a simultaneous translator app can be more intimidating than being confronted in person. That coldness, that total one-sidedness, devoid of any interest in the other person, without even expecting a reaction, hides a disturbing unpredictability. So, after my grimace, I went back to my phone, trying to exist as little as possible, breathing very shallowly, reducing all body movement to my thumb, as if doing anything other than... scroll On the screen, she could be interpreted as an invited guest. All this to prevent what was already happening in my head: her insisting on chatting with me, her blocking my exit when I tried to pass, her following me through the station, her getting in the elevator with me. Things that happen in your head, but are stored in your body's memory as tremors, tension in every muscle, and a racing heart. Things that never happened, yet feel as if they've already happened.