Human interactions, part one

Am a little later  coming from work today and so the usually packed train seems rather empty. Actually it is exactly a quarter full.  At least in my car. Why do I know that? Because there is precisely  one person sitting in each section of 4. “You’d have to really drag someone to sit next to another person when he or she does not have to”, I think  to myself.  No wonder humanity is going down hill if we cannot even share a train section.  As a matter of fact, I personally cannot wait until I can escape from a full or halfway full section to one just for myself. .

 

 

I think back at my childhood and how I hardly saw somebody sitting on a bench by themselves. Even if you didn’t know the person sitting there, you welcomed the opportunity of striking up a conversation with another human being. My grandmother would not be able to understand the seating order I find myself in this evening.

 

In an attempt to save humanity I think about getting up and moving to a section that already has somebody sitting in it. Now that would obviously be weird if I left it at that, so I would have to make up a reason for invading a section when there are obviously still empty sections available. And it couldn’t be for a simple reason of just saying hello, commenting on the weather, the sad fact that we should be longtime enjoying the weekend and that the working week took over too much of our precious time. No, I’d have to find something important to talk about, maybe even do a little white lie, to ensure they wouldn’t think me weird, or a stalker, or even worse a weird stalker. But I am not seriously considering moving even an inch, not even for late Friday evening train humanity.  I  don’t want to go and sit with someone else.

 

Are we really that inhumane, that selfish, cold, shy, afraid, pathetic and a whole bunch of other equally displeasing adjectives that come to my mind?  It seems too easy and illogical.

 

So, what is it? What is the difference between my grandmother and myself that makes me so “unpersonable”?

 

My grandmother worked at home.  My Grandfather passed away when I was a baby, which lead to her being the only one living in the house. Compared to myself, I live with my dear husband. By the time 9am rolls around, I have already spoken to the  train ticket lady, the coffee guy, the three people who bump into me while getting comfortable in their train seats around me, one more acquaintance that I bump into at the train station, and then an average of 10  people from my office building which pass on the way to my desk. In addition, I might have been on my cell phone with one of my friends, and have seen at least 400 hundred people for various amounts of seconds and from various distances  Through-out the business day, I will have talked to or seen another lets say 60 people from our office, if I go out for lunch, add another 5 or so with a topping of another 200 silent faces. On my way home a repeat of the morning, then dog walking add another average of 5 people, and if it’s an evening class night another 20. I have left phone conversations out until now but let’s keep it conservative, let’s say 20.

 

So that adds up to having talked to roughly a 100 people and have seen a 1’000 people.

Wow.

My Grandmother would have maybe talked to 20, and seen probably about 40. Now of course this is not only a question of the time that we both lived in but also the location. I cannot compare the town in which I grew up, which at that time still had very much of a villagey feeling to it, and the 2.4 million people city I live in.  But I can explain why I am tired of talking to more people and require time to myself, as far from other fellow train riders as I can possibly get on this train. After all, once I get home, I’ll be back with another person, granted a loved one, but for the purpose of this post another one to talk to.

 

As I look around at the other passengers sitting by themselves, they all seem as people exhausted as I am. And suddenly, the train doesn’t feel as impersonal anymore. On the contrary, I feel closer to my fellow riders than I would have, had I pushed myself  to go over and sit with one or a few of them. So please, enjoy your rest, so that you may have the energy to spend quality time for those special people in your life! And forgive me for even contemplating the idea of destroying your peace and quiet!

 

~ by spasmicallyperfect on November 27, 2006.