I met a lady on the tube. 'Met' might be stretching it a bit, but I definitely knew all about her and the people sitting in her 2m vicinity by the time I reached Gloucester. She was loud, and to say she was gregarious would be an understatement.
The Picadilly Line is pretty quiet in the evenings, so there were quite a few empty seats. A couple got on at Tottenham Court Road, sat down opposite her and were forcibly dragged out of their privately sweet contemplation of each other and into a loud, brusque, getting-to-know-you session. Not only were they sucked into a malestorm of personal questions and shrieking laughter, but they were made to introduce themselves to the man sitting next to her. What could they do but comply? It would've been a huge social faux pas to ignore the man but to say "nice to meet you" would have been pure hipocrisy - both parties had the same horribly embarrassed squint on their faces. Either way, the unfortunate guy was not so good at hiding his irritation, which just drew even more chatter in his direction.
Sociable and outgoing? Or drunk and bored? Should we praise her effort to get to know everyone in London or see it as an invasion of our privacy? I mean it's bad enough that we have to use public transport, but must we really converse with our fellow commuters? Most people don't even like making eye contact, much less notes about how many children someone else has and how stifled they are in their current jobs or even in their lives.
Or did she represent the last shred of community in this huge city? Of showing concern or interest in someone else's life other than her own? Was she just not a self-involved person? Sometimes I wish I could do that, too not care what everyone else thinks of me, to stay truer to myself, free of the shackles of social judgment...But only for a day I think, because, inevitably, I'm really just a sheep.
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