A silent bus journey leads me
to wonder about the current and future state of our 'personal-bubble' society. (If that doesn't capture your interest, I don't know what will...)
To escape the extraneous fees of inner city parking today, I
parked and rode, forsaking control of the remainder of my journey for the cost of
£1.80. On my return journey out of town, there were just three people in our
big, blue bus, including myself and the bus driver. So I put on my (mental)
anthropologically-tinted glasses, and saw the situation thus:
1.
The bus driver was (thankfully) seated behind
the wheel at the front of the bus, I half-a-bus-length back from him and an
older woman was further back still.
2.
Being in England, the bus driver was seated on
the right-hand side of the bus. I was on the left, and the other woman, on the
right.
3.
I was equidistant from the two other people on
the bus and had no way of making eye contact with either of them, short of
turning in my seat to look behind me.
And this was fine. Good, actually, because it gave each of
us the perfect reasoning not to talk to the others; it would be physically
awkward to twist in our seats or to shout. However, as we ambled on in our three
silences, I started to find the quiet unnerving. Maybe it was just me.
But it occurred to me to think that perhaps the physical awkwardness of communication between us was actually just a cover-up for the very real social awkwardness we would feel if one of us were to break our silence (there are occasions on buses when stranger-talk is acceptable, of course, but they follow strict rules and will be discussed elsewhere…). I began to wonder just what would happen if I were to turn in my seat and start discussing the weather, a reasonably safe topic for stranger-talk, with the woman behind me, or, more drastically, get up from my seat and actually be audacious enough to sit next to her, to more easily facilitate such a discussion.
But it occurred to me to think that perhaps the physical awkwardness of communication between us was actually just a cover-up for the very real social awkwardness we would feel if one of us were to break our silence (there are occasions on buses when stranger-talk is acceptable, of course, but they follow strict rules and will be discussed elsewhere…). I began to wonder just what would happen if I were to turn in my seat and start discussing the weather, a reasonably safe topic for stranger-talk, with the woman behind me, or, more drastically, get up from my seat and actually be audacious enough to sit next to her, to more easily facilitate such a discussion.
The more I thought of this, the more the idea repelled me.
It was like an invisible barrier, a subconscious shaking of the head in
response to this outlandish action. I couldn’t imagine me sitting next to that woman
and starting a conversation; what on earth would she think?
She might answer my questions politely enough, though sooner or later we would undoubtedly lapse into silence again. She might be thrilled about talking to someone and breaking the monotony of an otherwise dull bus ride. She might, however, be totally repelled by this blatant breach of social norms, by which strangers stay strangers, don’t talk on buses and don’t intrude into other passengers’ personal space. Due to cultural conventions, though, even if this were her internal reaction, it is likely that she would have carried out option number one, while the centre in her brain titled ‘cultural norms’ was going into overdrive. This seems, from all angles, the most likely, and I have reached this conclusion by imagining myself in her position; I would definitely be thrown off by random conversation with random people, on a bus which I’ve only caught so as to reach the social safety of my car and become anonymous and confined once again.
She might answer my questions politely enough, though sooner or later we would undoubtedly lapse into silence again. She might be thrilled about talking to someone and breaking the monotony of an otherwise dull bus ride. She might, however, be totally repelled by this blatant breach of social norms, by which strangers stay strangers, don’t talk on buses and don’t intrude into other passengers’ personal space. Due to cultural conventions, though, even if this were her internal reaction, it is likely that she would have carried out option number one, while the centre in her brain titled ‘cultural norms’ was going into overdrive. This seems, from all angles, the most likely, and I have reached this conclusion by imagining myself in her position; I would definitely be thrown off by random conversation with random people, on a bus which I’ve only caught so as to reach the social safety of my car and become anonymous and confined once again.
Oh dear. Maybe it’s because I’m of a younger generation,
where over-the-garden-fence chats have been replaced by networking sites and
face-to-face communication by text-messaging, and the message ‘don’t talk to
strangers’ has been tattooed on the inside of my eyeballs (along with all the
capitals of the world and the square root of pi, obviously). Believe me, it would take a lot to remove that
invisible, social restraint from my mind (seems like a ‘mind forg’d manacles’ moment to me. A-thank you, Mr Blake…) so that
I could initiate a conversation on a bus, and I don’t think it will happen
anytime soon.
And I find this a great shame. What kind of future will we have, if we are all alienated from each other, unable to talk with people outside of 'controlled' environments such as the workplace or schools? It seems to me that this is the perfect breeding ground for distrust of others and therefore the use of only stereotypes and prejudices to guide our judgements of other human beings; by which other means would we judge?
And I find this a great shame. What kind of future will we have, if we are all alienated from each other, unable to talk with people outside of 'controlled' environments such as the workplace or schools? It seems to me that this is the perfect breeding ground for distrust of others and therefore the use of only stereotypes and prejudices to guide our judgements of other human beings; by which other means would we judge?
So, if you are of the older generations, talk to the
younger, before we forget how to. If you are of the younger generations, just
talk. Maybe that should be my challenge for the week; start a conversation on a
bus and thereby take the first step in circumventing a bleak and bitter future. Yeah, right…
