Word Sharing

Why do you hate it when I read over your shoulder? It's not as if my eyes are stealing words off your page. Words, once read, do not lose their power; they do not get used up. Is reading is such a selfish experience that you cannot bear to share it?

Come to think of it, how do you always know when I start reading what you're reading? We can be sitting on the couch, me with my book and you with yours, and I'll sneak a peek over at yours and just as my eyes latch onto your book's words you strike me with that look and I glance away, chastened.

I might apologize, I might promise not to do it again, but I will. I've been reading alongside other people, sharing their words, for as long as I can remember.

I used to ride the subway to work, reading other people's newspapers while they read them. I was equipped with the necessary tools: eagle eyes, a facility for speedily reading sideways or upside down text, a stable internal gyroscope that immunized me from motion sickness and a poverty so crushing purchasing my own newspaper was out of the question. I was particularly adept at dealing with untimely page flips; when someone flipped a page before I finished an article, I'd quickly scan the new page to determine whether it had anything more interesting and, if it didn't, I'd scan the subway car for someone whose reading still exposed the page that had just been flipped. Not being one to sit on the subway, I'd weave my way back and forth through the car constantly searching for exposed unread blocks of text. By the time I arrived at my stop I'd usually made it through the front page content of the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and, despite my best efforts, I'd often absorb the sports pages of the Daily News and the Post and much of Page Six. And my fingers would be free of newsprint.

A former girlfiend and I were both inveterate readers, prone to sit next to but far from each other, our noses buried in our respective books. When we surfaced from our literary worlds, usually in pursuit of sustenance, we had nothing to talk about, each of us filled with thoughts of our book. To bridge this gap in our budding relationship, I proposed that we read and discuss the same book at the same time, she reading it the right way and me reading it upside down with her. She initially resisted, distracted by someone else's eyes traversing the page alongside hers, but she soon got used to it. Unfortunately our relationship suffered from other problems, problems that could not be solved by upside down reading, and it ended after only a few shared reads.

This all began early in my childhood, sitting opposite my father at the breakfast table while he read his Wall Street Journal. My eyes would wander from the back of the cereal box to the upside down gray type of his newspaper. Like you, he would immediately sense me reading his paper, and like you he'd complain about it, but he, unlike you, eventually gave up complaining and actually used our shared reading as a springboard to discuss business issues, one of the few times in our lives we actually shared anything worth discussing.

So, you see, I'll never understand why you hate it when I read over your shoulder.

Comments

[Karen M.]

My word-sharing skills are not as well-developed as yours, but I recognized my innate abilities while reading your post... (some people don't like sharing the food on their plates, either... like me). Reading cereal boxes saved me at breakfast; neither my father nor mother were there with a paper, which would have been a welcome relief.

Thankfully, I use public transportation now, so I no longer have the temptation to read another sentence while I'm at a stoplight AND behind the wheel. Reading over others' shoulders on the regional rail, though, does not work well enough now that I'm a little older and need reading glasses. The temptation is there, though, if I've forgotten to carry something to read with me. Not having a book to read while waiting? Torture!

Recently, while riding a bus that was so crowded that I could neither get a seat nor read standing up, I got into a conversation with another passenger about a void just waiting to be filled: seated passengers who are bit short on funds holding up books and turning the pages for those passengers who could not do so for themselves while holding onto both a strap and their packages. [His comment was something like "You really know how to get a lot out of an idea!" I already knew that about myself, but it was startling to hear it put so precisely by a perfect stranger.]

[mokie]

This is a personal space problem for me, and I admit that it's irrational. I get the same feeling of discomfort when someone stands behind me as I make a phone call, or when a stranger picks me to stare at across a room. It's as if my little imaginary bubble of personal space has been popped by their attention and I'm suddenly too exposed to concentrate on what I'm reading anymore.

It's a bit like a breech of public restroom etiquette. I know there's someone in the next stall, logically, but they keep to their side and I keep to mine and both of us keep our mouths shut to preserve the illusion that we're really alone at this very sensitive and private moment. Then suddenly someone sticks their head under the door and says, "Oh, don't mind me, I just want to grab a bit of toilet paper."