PEOPLE the activity of talking and doing things with other people, or the way you do this
So I suppose this means that you have to actively take part in the other person's life. This definition seems contrary to a passive or tacit version of interaction. I should now explain myself properly. I feel like you can have meaningful relationships with people you don't even know. You don't know thier name, you have never spoken to them, you may have never encountered them before in your life, and you may never see them again; but you can interact positively.
The most recent and prominent example I have is at the gym. After being at university for five years I finally decided to go to the gym. I don't know why I never did before and I've been running on and off for a year now, and exercizing longer, but I had never been. I went to this gym for the first time in the last two weeks and I've been back a few times. It is so much easier running distance on the treadmill but I have to be careful not to get too used to it as the GSR is on road.
You may be at the gym alone, you may not know anyone else there, but when you are all the there, all doing the same thing, all (or mostly) trying to hit some sort of goal, there is a definiate community vibe. I don't mean like GO TEAM or anything, I mean just the most subtle of understandings. Within this community there are different relationships.
There is the healthy competition. The second time I went there there was one man running opposite me. He had been going before I started and I ran 6 kilometres, 5 at a pace and the 6th going slow to fast alternating minutes. When I first started to slow down on the 6th kilometre he was looking over, glancing at my treadmill, assuming I was stopping, then I ran again and he continued. The timer ran out on the treadmill and I wanted to walk to cool off so I was stopped momentarily before starting again. All through this he was looking over, preparing to stop. Then I started again and he kept going. Once he realised I was on cool down he then stopped too. He wanted to outlast me. I had a sort of respect for him, using me as a barometre for his own performance.
There is also unhealthy competition, most often between the same sexes. I haven't taken part in this interaction but I can see it happen. If a slim woman is in the gym, any other woman of similar body shape is a threat. It may be a few glances or just the tension that gives it away but when you are running it seems that you go into some sort of half awake beta mode and your human traits are lessened and you natural ones heightened. The same goes for two men. This isn't based on a visual so much as on performance. Weight becomes heavier, repititions quicker, pace increased. Last night one man was pounding so hard on the treadmill beside me I thought he would break the whole thing. He was running at 10.5km/hr and kept on jumping off the machine instead of slowing it down.
There are positive forms of interaction too like the silent companionship the title is about. Someone who is doing a similar pace to you or a similar style of running can become a disposable ally. This starts as an inkling that they are running for similar goals to you. As you keep going it becomes clear who isn't on the same wavelength as some people stop, some people walk and some people out perform you. Sometimes someone is so similar its like you are watching yourself. These people tend to be beside you, not opposite. Healthy competition breeds this.
I guess from this description the second definition in the dictionary of interaction is more applicable:
THINGS when two or more things combine and have an effect on each other
Though people, not things, the definition is accurate. You can see for yourself by going to the gym when no one else is there. Or try to drive your car on empty roads without the people who are driving in a similar way to you. The drivers you respect for actually indiciating or returning to the left become close friends for however many miles you are going to the same place. The drivers who try to race you, who cut you off, who are irratic are your enemies and even in that there is a relationship of enmity, borne out of your difference, that you cling to. When the friends take the exit before you off the motorway you wave goodbye inside. When the enemies do it you are scornful yet dissapointed you couldn't keep the fight up and battle to your home.
Such situations are relationships. They do form companions. These companions will not last, they are non-permanent and once one is gone a new relationship will form as another car merges to the motorway or a new passenger gets on the train. The communities you enter as you go to these places where all are strangers are like delicate ecosystems destined to be destroyed within a matter of hours, minutes or seconds, and such an environment shall never exist quite the same again. This is the fun of it though. And your companions will merge to one eventually.
You can be lonely sitting at home. You can be lonely without conversation and without touch. But I defy anyone who doesn't beleive there to be interaction in such places. Conversation, touch and to some extent body language don't exist, but in these unobtrusive entities lives real companionship - the kind that won't dissapoint.
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