As we approach another celebration of our country’s birthday, I thought it appropriate to share a story about something that happened to me today. As it happens, I had another encounter with “Creepy Guy” on the train again this morning. Readers of this blog (God bless them) might remember my unfortunate tumble on the train some time ago. It was then that I first noticed the stares of Creepy Guy. I figured at the time that he couldn’t get the image of me tripping and falling on a train car full of commuters out of his head and couldn’t help himself from staring, open-mouthed, at me the whole way into Toronto.
Ever since then, if I come across him on the train car, I can’t help but notice him because, well, you notice when people are staring at you. Creep.
So this morning I unfortunately had a space free next to me and low and behold, Creepy Guy decided to take advantage. Now, if you don’t take the train, you might not know that people of average height and build can sit next to each other without touching. The taller and broader among us will likely take up a bit more room and on these occasions I would find myself companionably touching upper arms with a stranger during the ride in. I never usually mind this when it happens and I tend to reflect that it’s actually kind of nice that we’re all sleepily taking the same journey together and what does it matter if you lean on your seatmate a bit?
This tolerance ends with Creepy Guy who took every advantage to continuing leaning in on me, DESPITE the fact that there was more than enough room for both of us.
During the whole 40-minute ride, I would scrunch myself a bit smaller only to find that he would casually shift his laptop case and allow his arms to once again resettle INTO MY PERSONAL SPACE. Finally, after yet another “re-shift” I finally looked up from my book and stared ahead purposefully. Body language is a powerful thing and he got the message. I remained unmolested for the rest of the ride. As soon as the train approached Union Station, I got up waited by the doors.
Why, you might be asking yourself, didn’t I just move? Well, I asked myself the same question and I think it comes down to social conditioning. I just couldn’t bring myself do to something so rude as to move and make it obvious that I didn’t want to sit next to him. Then I thought I might hurt his feelings. Jeez. Must be the Canadian in me.
