Urban politeness.

[rivka]

Vignette 1: I am sitting on a bench along the sidewalk, eating a sandwich. At the other end of the bench, a middle-aged man is talking quietly on his cell phone. I catch phrases here and there - benign ones, at first, but then he starts repeating, "Why you got to say that? Why you got to talk like that?" His tone remains mild.

Suddenly, he gets up from the bench and walks over to stand about ten feet away from me, still talking into the cell phone. It's still close enough for me to hear him, because he's gotten much louder: "Listen, bitch, you better remember who you're talking to!"

I was a bit taken aback, but pleased that he was considerate enough not to disrupt my lunch or make me nervous by shouting obscenities right next to me.

Vignette 2: I get onto a very crowded bus. There are no seats at all, even in the front section that's reserved for the elderly and people with disabilities, so I brace myself to stand. A frail older woman who looks to be about seventy catches my eye and starts to rise.

"Miss, would you like to sit down?"

"Oh no, ma'am, you don't have to get up."

Immediately, two middle-aged, apparently able-bodied men fall all over themselves to get up and offer me their seats. They'd be the right age to be sons of the older woman, although they obviously don't know her. "Here you go, miss, my stop's about to come up." "You can sit right here."

I thank them as I sit down, and then thank the older woman - who seems quite satisfied with the response to her etiquette lesson.

Comments

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I've thought about some of these things, too. Mostly I try to solve those problems by not sitting in seats in the front half of the bus. Heh.

I've also had a few observations with respect to people who might be considered borderline cases -- people with a small stroller, or people carrying lots of stuff, or people who are only mildly disabled or just starting to show in their pregnancy. What tends to happen there is that people will look at each other, with the unspoken message of "are you gonna get up?" If one person gets up, then, everyone does, since nobody wants to be perceived as impolite. But someone has to make the first move and declare that person someone whom it's necessary to stand for.

Incidentally, your solution with the book would absolutely not work here -- people are far too obsessive about standing for anyone they deem it necessary to stand for. If I were absorbed in my book, people would poke me and make me get up. (This has never happened to me, but I've seen it happen to other people.)

-J

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Yeeps! Where is "here"? (I'm in Toronto.)

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I live in Edmonton.

-J

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I guess this proves the whole, "Toronto, home of cruel-hearted Canadians," reputation, then. ;)

The problem with the back-half-of-the-bus solution for me is that I'm a big guy, so more often than not, even if it's plausible to do so, people won't sit next to me. :( I normally don't really let it bug me, but it does mean that me sitting anywhere but in the highly-sought-after single seats near the front of the bus results in a very sub-optimal arrangement where one seat just goes unused. That's one of the few times I feel REALLY self-conscious about my weight -- when there's a packed bus with one empty seat next to me that nobody wants to take.