33 Minutes in the Morning, 33 Minutes in the Afternoon

If I see you one morning on the train, and I don’t think I know you, I will probably ignore you. I may even ignore you if I kind of sort of think that maybe I do know you. Even if you are sitting next to me and our thighs are touching. I will pretend our thighs aren’t touching, and you will do the same. Because that is the unspoken Commuter’s Rule.

If we are seated facing each other, the only reason I will ever make eye-contact with you is because I accidentally glanced up from my book and you were looking in my direction. It is early and I haven’t had my coffee yet. I just want to sit quietly and absorb myself in another world for a while. Please don’t mistake eye contact for friendliness. It’s too early for making friends with strangers. If our knees are bumping awkwardly, I will do the best that I can to hold my knees uncomfortably to my left. You will position your knees in the opposite direction. We will hope they don’t bump again, but if they do, we will pretend our knees aren’t touching. That is aforementioned unspoken Commuter’s Rule.

If I am looking out the window, do not take that mean that I am bored and feel like chatting. I probably finished my book yesterday and haven’t gone to the library for a replacement yet. Or my book is boring. Or I slept poorly last night and the words in my book are blurred, as if I’m staring at one of those Magic Eye 3-D image books (I never could see the sailboat, or anything else for that matter, just squiggly lines). Or I just feel like staring out the window. Please do not try to start a conversation. If you try to talk to me I will acknowledge you vaguely with a polite but forced tight-lipped grimace that could pass in some cultures as a smile, and then I will reach for my iPod, even though the battery is probably dead.

If I get on the train in the afternoon, when most other commuters are bubbling with energy and bursting in anticipation of the ride home, please know that now is also not the time to engage. Because afternoon train time is ME time. It is the time when I unwind and sort through the mind clutter of my busy work day and try to leave all that behind me. And I read. Yes my book is good, no I haven’t read the book you are reading (which I am now mentally criticizing you for reading because, pft, Dan Brown?), thank you for the recommendation, now please back off. I sit in the Quiet Ride Car because it is the Quiet Ride Car. You can move to the back of the train where all the cell-phone talking, chit-chattering commuters ride. You stay on your side of the train, I’ll stay on mine. Then you will not have to endure my awkward silences.

Don’t get me wrong. I will probably notice you. I will probably acknowledge in my mind that you have cute shoes, or shiny hair, are very, very tall, or are reading a particularly wonderful or trashy novel. I will likely put together a mental dossier about you, that you use an iPhone, that you wear sneakers and socks with your business suit meaning that you have a bit of a walk from the office to the train station. If I am particularly bored, I may fill in the gaps, making assumptions about what you do or where you work or what you were thinking when you bought that denim suit. I may judge you. I may admire you. I may really want to know where you got those shoes. But unless I’m feeling particularly intrigued by something about you, I probably won’t say more to you than “excuse me” when I need to get off at the next stop and “thank you” when you move.

It is not that I don’t like you, it’s just that I’m antisocial during train time.