I commute to university in the UK and before then to college, so I've done my fair bit. A lot of people moan about their commute but I honestly have no real problems with it. Something about it worries me, though, specifically about the lack of interaction between passengers.
Trains on the Southern networks are split down the middle as you'd expect, and are generally formed of two types of seat arrangements: two pairs of seats around a table, and a pair of seats alongside eachother, usually in some cramped space. Why am I telling you this? Well, I've noticed a pattern, and it seems strange to me. The first people to board the train generally go for seperate pairs of the seats in the cramped spaces, but one pair of seats each; once these are all half occupied, the groups of four are used; but again with only one passenger per pair. Only when there are no seats free that aren't adjacent to another passenger do people sit on the other seats. It's a super-efficient algorithm to ensure minimum adjacency, but... why?
And once you do sit down, you have to watch your gaze; eye contact is a complete no-no, as is any other form of contact. So you have to constantly shift between once boring mid-point in space to the other.
It seems strangers are determined to remain that way with eachother.
I got increasingly tired of this, so during my first year of Uni, I started breaking the rules. I'd always sit opposite someone, and, given that they'd likely be students too, talk to them about their studies or whatnot. Once you got them talking; it was ok. So these people aren't socially inept. It's just like they're programmed to avoid eachother.
There's a few other things about it that mystify me, but, first, do you identify with this? This is something that really perplexes me. I used to see a stranger as a conversation waiting to happen, but I'm increasingly regressing into the conventional commuting etiquette, and I get so annoyed with myself.
There are so many friendships waiting to happen...
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