Alex's space

On Freaking out fellow commuters etc.

I have always been a fairly outgoing sort of chap, and willing to talk to strangers. Of course this sort of behaviour is looked upon as complete madness by most of the people that commute in to London every day – so this is what I do now, I spark up random conversations with people on trains and at train stations, walking accross bridges and generally bimbling around London.

I have to come clean and say that most of the time I work from home so it is only usually once or twice a week I have to make the journey up from Brighton, to me it is a great big adventure whereas to most people it is the bit of the day when they would rather be in bed.

Most people react as if you are on day release from an institution if you talk to them, as if you are affronting their personal space (which i find bizzare as yesterday, rammed on to a train between Clapham Junction and Waterloo, nothing to hold on to, held in place by everyone else, not knowing what to do with my hands, trying to avoid falling on to the pretty girl behind me and not touch the chap infront etc etc … this personal space thing should not have been an issue – i guess the baaaa, sheep noises, i feel compelled to make in these situations do not help).

Tips for conversations, these will be improved upon with experience:

• weather, Brits love talking about the weather
• general dissing of public transport
• football (have to admit not very good at this one)
• if you really want to go for extreme reactions, try to spark up a conversation about a topic in a newspaper that they are currently reading, this is so wrong on many levels for the commuter!

• boys avoid pretty girls at all costs as they will think you are hitting on them (in emergency if you really have to, do but the topic must be a killer).

• Girls DO talk to boys as this will scare them! [insert dog tail wagging theory here]

Yesterday was a brilliant day for it:

• 8.00 am – Waterloo station, could not fit on first train – made a joke about it to assorted suit wearers – got 99% eye contact avoidance and one rueful smile

• 8.22 am rammed into train with same suit wearers, one young one smiles at sheep noises

• meetings all day

• 2.30 pm, train from Waterloo to Clapham, I remark to young rocky / hippy couple that the Christmass decorations already up on the side of the track were a tad early – Day Release reaction

• 2.31 pm same train, chatting to a couple of chaps (no problem there), rocky / hippy couple by now think that they should call the police a report me as escaped.

• 3.30 pm train back to Brighton cancelled, so grab first three likely candidates for a taxi from Gatwick to Brighton, all of whom are from Brighton, converstation was sparked and fun was had, completely mixed bag, IT professional (not me Ha)!, EasyJet cabin crew and student (as well as me) all chatty and all decided that in the end that Ozzie Ardiles and Maradona should not come to play with Brighton and Hove Albion (not sure what that is about but it seemed important).

Following on from this excercise is the classic random act of kindness. Whenever you can, always do something nice, or helpful etc for some one else … in London the reaction to this is usually shock, helping a mother get a buggy on or off a train, picking up something some one has dropped, giving up your seat, letting some one on to a train or through a door before you, helping some one carry a case up or down some stairs etc etc… if your mark is a Londoner the reaction is generally – you’re mad but ok i’ll let you help me, Mothers are just grateful and tourists are genuinely happy!

So browsing good old US sites I found this random acts of kindness dot org in itself not a bad thing, except … well how can i put this …

planning an act of kindness is not random however they do have worksheets and lots of ideas on how to generally be a nice person.

I will continue my comparative study and make pertinant notes here.