Since
I started commuting to work again after 10 years of freelancing from my
upstairs study, I’ve become aware of a phenomenon that can most succinctly be
described as, ‘a whole lot of people who are acquainted, desperately trying not
to meet each other’s eye on the tube platform in the morning’.
You’re
on your way to work. You’ve barely woken up. You’re looking forward to getting
on the train and having half an hour to yourself where you can read, catch up
on your emails, do your make-up – whatever you like. And there, on the platform,
is someone you know. If your eyes meet, you’ll have to chat. And the worst of
it is, not only do you not want that – but you know perfectly well they don’t
want it either. And there’s absolutely nothing either of you can do about it.
I’ve
observed various techniques to get over this problem. Personally, I unfocus my
eyes – as if trying to see the 3D image in one of those Magic Eye books – and walk down the platform unable to see anything
clearly at all. This does mean I run the risk of bumping into the tube signage
or wandering on to the track, but needs must. Other people have developed a
sentence that they say as soon as you make eye contact. This ranges from the
uncomfortably abrupt, ‘Oh hello I have lots of work to do on the tube today see
you later bye’ to the infinitely more gracious ‘Isn’t the tube journey
marvellous for being able to catch up on your emails?’.
At
the other end of the scale – and utterly unforgivable – are the people who hail you over as you’re walking down the
platform, as if you’re at a bloody cocktail party. Please, those people! Stop
being pleasant, gregarious human beings and join the morose and anti-social hordes
around you who understand how to behave properly.
