The Lonely Glove Phenomenon: What is a Lonely Glove?
November 19, 2019. 2:03 pm.
I was walking through the crowded halls towards Building 10, hurriedly keeping up with the flow of foot traffic. I nearly caused a pile up when I stopped dead to examine a single black leather glove, delicately perched atop an exposed fire extinguisher.
Someone had clearly dropped their glove in the hallway. Another kind stranger had placed it on the nearest elevated surface in hopes that the owner would find it. I found the sight so amusing, I snapped a quick pic for a future laugh. As I left the scene, I chortled to myself, “Haha, so random! I bet I will never see anything as absurd for the rest of my life!”
Not even close.
Two days later, I saw a pair of abandoned gloves strewn on the sidewalk outside of my dorm, Maseeh Hall. Weird, I thought. And within thirty minutes, I saw yet another pair of stray mittens in a restroom on campus!
Once is an incident. Twice, a coincidence. Third time is a phenomenon.
I suddenly couldn’t stop noticing these so-called lonely gloves. Anywhere I went, there was always a forgotten glove laying there, limp. Lifeless. Lonely. Waiting for its owner’s fingers to literally fill it with purpose. It was as if some divine being had granted me the useless power of spotting lost articles of clothing that could only be worn on the hands.
I encountered lonely gloves literally everywhere, occasionally multiple times a day. I caught a glimpse of them on my long runs along the Esplanade. I saw them frequently on my short walks to class. They even dared to invade my lectures.
This ubiquity of lonely gloves confounded me. It haunted me. Without my consent, lonely gloves had inserted themselves into my life with no warning, no explanation. They don’t only afflict densely populated areas such as Boston or New York City (two extremely high lonely-glove-per-block cities). While at home in the New Jersey suburbs, lonely gloves continued to pervade my life, albeit less so since I only saw them outside. But just last week, in early July, I still spotted two pairs of lonely gloves in 80 degree weather (27 C for my non-Imperial Unit readers).
I used to believe that lonely glove season was synonymous with winter. Now I realize that the number of glove sightings is merely proportional to how cold it is outside. There is no fixed start and end date for when lonely gloves appear. Lonely glove season is now. It is tomorrow. Lonely gloves are forever.
My tone may sound disdainful, but it’s really the opposite. I regard lonely gloves with sincere child-like fascination. I must sound fanatical, to be so fixated on all these gloves others have clearly forgotten about. But they fill me with wonder and so many questions.
I mean, seriously, I couldn’t be the only one seeing them. All the people that pass by, weren’t they seeing these gloves, too? And if so, why weren’t they heeding the warnings? They couldn’t be any clearer. Lonely gloves are essentially bright neon road signs that scream, “SOS! Do not commit the same fatal mistake as my owner! Cherish and protect your gloves!” Everyone should be gripping their gloves and cradling them closely, afraid to abandon their own hand protection.
And yet I continued to see lonely gloves, day after day after day. It was especially crushing when I passed by the same ones nobody had claimed. I tried my best to document each lonely glove I came across. I felt it my duty to pay respect and honor their memory, but I just couldn’t capture them all. I must have seen over a hundred lonely gloves, but I couldn’t stop for every single one. I mean, I probably could have, but I didn’t. There were just too many. And that is a fact that I will burden until my final breath.
Throughout this four part series, I will explore various facets of the Lonely Glove Phenomenon: creative places people put lonely gloves, socialization surrounding lonely gloves, and how ultimately, lonely gloves are the perfect manifestation of human nature.