jethrien | Interesting commute

Interesting commute

Last night, on the way home, I had not one but two weird encounters on public transit.

- On the subway, my car got Occupied by a very earnest young man who proceeded to read from The Grapes of Wrath, specifically the part in the beginning when the banks force the owners to force the farmers off their land. It was actually really quite appropriate. And because I like Steinbeck's prose and the guy did a good job reading, pleasant in a thought-provoking way. Like having a subway preacher who you actually kinda agreed with and with really good word choice. (And he just read aloud, didn't do anything that seriously inconvenienced anyone.) Well done, OWS protester.

- When I got on board the PATH, I took out my Nook. The guy who was sitting in the seat I was standing in front of was an older man with a thick accent I couldn't identify.

"Excuse me, young lady," he said.
"Yes?" I answered, wondering if he was going to hit on me or offer me his seat.
"I would like to ask you, wouldn't you rather talk to someone than read a book?" This was said slowly and very earnestly.
I paused for a second, taken aback, and then said quite frankly, "No."
He looked surprised. "Why not?"
"Because I like my book, thank you." Then I buried my nose in the Nook and he was silent for the rest of the ride.

Now, it's not that I dislike talking to people, but strangers on public transit are not generally my first choice. There's a Code. And I spent the better part of the day playing salesperson, which meant I was witty and charming and sincere and delightful to perfect strangers whom I did not personally care about in the slightest. (Although they were also quite nice and it was a perfectly pleasant lunch.) So no, I didn't want to be charming to strangers again, I wanted to read my book during the one time I don't feel guilty about reading my book. I really like reading. I don't have much time for it except in the subway. If you want me to talk to you instead of read, you should probably pay me.

Only, I ended up spending half the time pretending to read and puzzling over what the heck brought that on. He didn't try to talk to anyone else. Was it just that he wanted to talk to someone and the first person shot him down so he stopped? Did he want to talk to me because I'm young-ish and pretty? Does he have something against books? Or Nooks? Is he new to the subway and doesn't understand the Code? What on earth brought that on? Curse you, strange man! Despite not wanting to talk to you, I've now devoted far too much time thinking about you!

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I hate this on so many levels. There are certain signs that people are not willing to, for whatever reason, engage. Anything you do to interrupt their pursuit of non-engagement is kind of rude, which is why interrupter usually say "Excuse me." To interrupt someone for purposes of pointing out that you don't think they should have that right to not engage is not only rude, it's presumptuous. Like, his need to needle you about your engagement with things other than what he finds worthy is more important. That's just horrible.

And, yes, this is absolutely a Code. If he hasn't worked it out by now, he cannot be very observant.

It did make me think about Schrodinger's Rapist. Not that I felt threatened by this man, although I might have if he'd gotten off at my stop. But there's just this assumption that pretty women exist to talk to men--why would they not want to talk to perfect strangers for the strangers' entertainment? Nevermind she has something she actually wants to do.

I can't decide whether the fact he was at least 55 made him seem more harmless or more creepy. A little of each.

That's the thing--it doesn't have to be about his being a threat (though, as women, we don't really get to not consider that), it's just about him being rude. But I bet he wouldn't have done it to a man.

I read this and was laughing out loud. I flashed back to the chapter in Methods of Rationality on the fundamental attribution error :)

Wow, that really makes me wonder. I mean...he wasn't talking to you before you took your Nook out. Was he simply offended somehow that you didn't make an effort to speak to him? Normally you DON'T just strike up random conversations with other commuters, at least not in my experience. So this is just..odd.

Well, there was basically no time when I wasn't fussing with the Nook. I walked into the car, put my bag at my feet, and opened it in pretty much one continuous motion. (I'd already had it in my hand from the previous connection.)

But I was standing in front of him, with my head not at his level. He did not appear to try to talk to the guy sitting directly next to him or the guy standing next to me. Which is why I think this was gender/attractiveness based.

Sounds like it to me. Or possibly a "kids these days" thing, although, dude, you just don't talk on the train. Ever. Not these days, and not in the cane-shakin' days, either. Hmph.

Thinking more positively, maybe (especially with the accent) he was looking for someone to practice his English with. And then you said "no", and then he got discouraged and found that he broke some Code and felt bad and just decided to shut up and not make any more mistakes that day.

I'd be more sympathetic if I hadn't been doing anything. But I think it's rude to interrupt someone who is clearly engaged in another activity, especially with a challenge to the legitimacy of that activity. If he wanted to talk, he should have asked one of the other people in the car who weren't actively doing something that precluded talking. I'd be a little annoyed if Chuckro came in while I was reading and demanded I entertain him--I'm not going to indulge some random stranger. It felt like being told I didn't have the right to decide to do with my own time.

Maybe he was a Microsoft employee?

Some people like striking up random conversations. Some don't. Those who do must of course respect the wishes of those who don't. If we wish to deconstruct the rationale behind this tenet of politeness, the tenet exists because failure to respect such wishes would be an intrusion on someone's privacy, an imposition on their time, and to some people even a low-level threat implying that the person won't leave you alone even if you ask.

I would argue that, on the other side, those who don't like random conversations should tolerate the "Can I interest you in a random conversation?" question from those who do. The rationale behind this is that if that question is forbidden, then those who do like random conversations have no way to find each other, and their mode of interacting with their fellow humans is effectively banned. All this assumes that if Person A expresses interest in conversation, and Person B says something like "No, thank you", then Person A says "Sorry to bother you" and moves on. Adding the "Why not?" question is pushing things a bit.

I disagree with this concept of The Code, though. There are *many* Codes. Can we agree that The Code in, say, Saudi Arabia is different than The Code here? If so, can we agree that The Code in a nightclub is different from The Code on Wall Street? Or that The Code in the South might be different from The Code in NYC? Or that there are differences in The Code across generations? Or between subcultures?

Let me be clear that I totally support your right to say "No thank you, not interested in random conversation" and to have the guy leave you alone. I'm just talking about socialization and social expectations.

Here's the thing, though. There were half a dozen people within speaking range. Most were already there when I got there, so his first opportunity was with them. The rest were all staring blankly at the wall or their hands or something. He chose to specifically interrupt the one person who was actively doing something (who also happened to be the one person who was female). And he opened the conversation with an implicit challenge that what I was choosing to do was inferior to talking to him. He didn't talk to the guy who had been sitting next to him for at least a few seconds before I got on the train. He didn't try to open the conversation with an actual conversation starter--perhaps asking what I was reading. (Not that I would have wanted to talk about it in any detail, but if I'd been willing to talk, that would have given us something to talk about.) The vibe was very much incredulity that a pretty girl would want to spend her time doing something other than entertaining him.

I agree that if he were truly looking for random conversations, and not just trying to hit on someone, that he's lost credibility after that sequence of events. I agree that if his question were sincerely "Hey, we insulate and isolate ourselves these days with our iPods and our cell phones and even with our noses in books, and especially in crowded cities there's often an attitude of 'Don't talk to or even make eye contact with anyone', but are you up for defying that and actually having a conversation and connecting with another human being? No? Okay, I respect your choice, but as a parting gesture would you be willing to help me understand why you prefer this isolation to connection?" -- which is something I wonder about, though I don't think I'd use it as a conversation starter with a random stranger -- then he's sullying his purity of intention by not having asked one of the people he was next to. So you'll get no argument from me that given what you've said, it was probably your second X chromosome rather than some subtle vibe of sociological inquiry that made him target you.

I was raising an objection to the concept that there is a universally-recognized Code of antisocial-ness that governs subway interactions, and that everyone knows and follows this Code, and that failing to do so means you're necessarily some crazy person to be avoided. I won't deny that many times when a random person strikes up a conversation with you in the subway, they're not entirely there. But sometimes they're just people who don't subscribe to the "shut everyone out" Code that you and

firzyne are describing.

Unfortunately, the easiest distinguishing feature to note between the two groups are that if you clearly indicate that you're not interested, the good ones will then leave you alone, and the bad ones won't. Which is kinda the opposite of what one presumably wants. :)

Edited 2011-11-19 08:32 (UTC)

I think it's a sanity-protection thing. I don't think we're necessarily equipped psychologically to deal with having a social interaction with the number of people you see every day while living in a city. Being social takes a certain amount of energy, even if it's pleasurable, and there's no guarentee it will be pleasurable with all the people you have to interact with. When you add the fact that public transportation frequently requires you to break personal space norms, the only way it's bearable is to change the social rules. You would never stand with your nose in your friend's armpit at a party. You would never sit somewhere with your thigh pressed up against someone else's without making sure they were ok with physical contact. Normal social rules would require greeting dozens of people and saying goodbye to dozens more at each stop. It's completely hellish to try to apply normal social rules to public transportation. So we've substituted alternative rules in which there is a polite fiction that other people do not exist. You are quiet, you take up as little space as possible with your posture and your belongings, and you do not force social interactions. Because oherwise I will rapidly have to acknowledge that your face is at the level of and four inches from my crotch.

In addition, as I mentioned before, I only have a limited amount of quality social energy. I have to expend a lot of it at work, Some of it is spent on colleagues. A bunch of it is spent on carefully, strategically making clients like me enough to trust me enough to buy my product. I have to be polite and charming. And when I get home, I want to have enough social energy to actually still be polite and charming to my friends and my family and my husband. I do not want to have to spend that energy chatting up random strangers with whom I have nothing in common but the need to travel packed jowl-to-jowl in a metal tube that rumbles and shakes. I want to read my book and decompress, not search for common ground and try not to offend and fend off unwanted attention.

I totally agree that if you don't want to interact with a stranger -- for the reasons you gave, or for any reason whatsoever -- then there should be no social obligation to do so. I also think you have a good point about population density. (It reminds me of "too many rats in the cage" psychological experiments.)

And I also think that choosing to apply a different set of rules to city life than you apply to smaller groups is a perfectly reasonably way for some people to deal with it. If it keeps you sane, rock on. I'd go so far as to say that that's a reasonably common way of dealing with it, and even people who have other defense mechanisms (or a higher tolerance for population density) should be aware that many people employ this defense mechanism, and therefore many people won't appreciate being recruited into an extended dialogue against their will.

So far, we agree completely!

I would just add that there are some people who don't feel the need to employ that mechanism to endure city life, and while they are required to respect the rights of anyone who doesn't want to have a random conversation with them, they also have the right to exist themselves: "The Code" may be universal among a certain subset of people, but it's not universal across all people. And implying the universality of The Code is equivalent to saying that these other people have no right to seek conversations with strangers, and they should be ostracized for doing so.

And clearly exceptions are recognized even by people who subscribe to "The Code" -- I don't think they'd be offended if someone asked them which subway stop this was, or for the time, or any of several other relatively brief questions that don't impose unduly. I propose that, in order for fans and non-fans of random conversations to get along together in the world, we should view "Are you interested in a random conversation?" as a question in that category -- with "No, thank you" being a perfectly acceptable answer that must be respected.

Personally, I don't try to engage strangers in conversation, but if someone wants to start one with me, and they don't appear to be mentally ill (which unfortunately eliminates a lot of them), then I'm totally up for it. I admit to self-interest in this discussion, in that I want to maintain my supply of conversation partners. :)

The Code in SF is definitely not as strict. I've struck up many random conversations with random people on transit vehicles / at transit stops in SF. Nobody seems to find this odd. In fact there's a general understanding that this is one of the things that makes SF different from NYC: you're allowed to strike up a conversation with a random stranger.

Also, lower population density. I think the more people there are, the more people tend towards such codes.

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Interesting commute

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