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Post-Modern Drunk: Subway Creepery
I watched a man--overweight, with clothes that were on the verge of falling apart, a shower and some spending money the only things separating him from being a homeless man riding the subway--systematically harass and scare off two young women on the subway. It was very close to rising to a level where I felt I should step in.
Speaking out against subway creepery is a touchy subject, and it's hard to know where to draw the line. Both of these women handled it quite well. The first was actually just a girl. The creep sat next to him on the subway platform, tried to talk to her. She was polite in answering his first question, but then when he tried introducing himself and extending his hand for her to shake, she stood up and said, "I'm fifteen years old," and stood up and walked away, moving down the platform to where there was a cop who had just minutes ago confirmed that she wasn't a truant.
The creep sat next to the second woman on the train, and immediately tried to talk to her, ignoring the fact that she was reading and telling her what station he was going to. As far as conversation topics go, this is not the best one. She ignored him and continued reading. He started to get belligerent with her, asking her if she was deaf or a zombie. When she closed her book and walked away without a word, he called her an uptight bitch, and sat muttering about her for the rest of the trip.
I was very tempted to come to her defense at a number of times, but didn't, because, well, I was unsure if that would have made it worse or not for her, or worse for me, as well. It's a hard call to decide when to step in with strangers.
Pretty much everyone on the subway just wants to be left alone. If someone's reading a book, they want to be left alone. If someone has headphones on, they want to be left alone. If someone's eyes are closed, they want to be left alone. Basically, the only people who might possibly not want to be left alone is someone who makes eye contact with you and smiles at you, and even they probably want to be left alone.
To invade someone's space and harass them doesn't make them an uptight bitch, it makes you an asshole. So the urge to tell this guy that was very strong in me. But I don't know at what point it becomes okay to speak up. If she was unable to get away, then I would have felt more justified in speaking up, saying, "Hey, buddy, she's obviously tryiing to politely ignore you, leave her alone." I didn't say anything today as well because, if I'm going to be honest with myself, after she walked away the urge to tell him off mostly came from my overwhelming urge to find people who are wrong and tell them that they're wrong. It's not anything chivalrous; it's just the compulsion that someone is wrong on the internet! Except of course this is not the internet. It would be a conversation with a guy who's three feet away from me on a sealed metal tube.
