As it happens, I own a lovely, durable pair of genuine leather boots. GR surprised me with these boots last year for Christmas, in what I can only assume was a blatant and successful attempt to win the "which one of us is better at giving gifts?" award within our relationship. They are, to this day and possibly forever, the nicest pair of shoes I own. They're sturdy yet stylish, with heels that make me look stealthily tall, in a tannish color that goes with literally everything.
I have only one complaint about my magic boots. The soles are made of a thick and mercilessly strong variety of rubber, and as a result, each boot makes a distinctive thu-thunk! noise when I take a step. It's a chunky, weighty sound (as if a gavel has been struck two to three feet below the surface of the earth), and it happens even when I'm walking on pavement. Because I live on the third floor of my new apartment building, this means that if I have the boots on at home, I find myself walking wincingly and on tiptoe, imagining how I might be disturbing the neighbors in the apartment below us. Outside, if I'm walking behind a woman on the sidewalk, I wonder if she hears my heavy footfalls and feels threatened, assuming that I'm a large man rather than a small, noodley-armed woman. I wind up self-consciously passing such women on the sidewalk to reassure them that I'm, seriously, so not a predator.
So basically, the only qualm that I have with my boots is not actually a qualm of mine -- it's a qualm that arises out of my desire to not draw notice to myself, to not irritate or annoy or disrupt the pleasantness of anyone else's day. It's a preference guided by a weird sort of Will to Unobtrusiveness.
Being unobtrusive/non-annoying is one of those things that can become habitual, and then almost addictive. I do my best to never keep people waiting. If I'm on public transit with several bags of groceries, I attempt to stack them all on top of my lap to ensure that I don't take up more than a single seat. I turn my headphones down in waiting rooms on the off chance the music overflows my earbuds and can be heard by the people around me. If a restaurant is busy, I do my best to not take up much of the server's time and not to linger after the meal. When paying in cash, I always hand coins to cashiers before the paper bills, and I never commit the cardinal sin of placing coins on the counter to be picked up. While I would like to take up playing the flute again, I always wind up leaving the instrument in its case because I assume that someone in my building would be disturbed by the noise. I cringe when I feel like I've done something that unnecessarily irritates someone (anyone!) in my immediate vicinity.
These little actions that facilitate unobtrusiveness are not arduous. They debatably fall under the category of basic politeness. We all have a flexible sense of what qualifies as standard, "I wasn't raised by wolves, guys" conscientiousness. Most of us agree, for example, that it's dickish to not hold the door for someone immediately behind us when entering a building. But sometimes I find myself wondering if I overstep "basic politeness" into the territory of, "Seriously? No one cares about that." What, for example, would happen if I didn't turn down the noise on my headphones, or if I stopped thinking about what my server or cashier thinks about me? If I let myself take up another half-seat on the subway? Are my neighbors even home during those hours when I'm so worried about bothering them with my clomping boots or out-of-tune flute?
Perhaps I would immediately wind up unconsciously engaging in assholish behavior. Or perhaps no one would notice. Either way, I'm not likely to know, since "basic politeness" dictates that the people I annoy can do no more than, at worst, shoot me a dirty look. So the question, for me and for everyone prone to the Will to Unobtrusiveness, is whether we can stand the possibility of someone briefly, silently finding us annoying. For myself, I'm not sure.
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