It sounds silly but every time I ride the bus. I'm ashamed of myself. Not for riding the bus, but for the way I react to the people on the bus. I'm never outwardly rude my my thoughts are unkind and I draw inward and want to be alone. TOday I found myself riding the bus with the usual crowd of college students some very well off and some who appeared to be barely making ends meet riding the bus to their part-time jobs. It's always an interesting and kind of surreal experience to ride the bus. You see kids with parents paying thousands of dollars for their education playing on their iPads sitting just a few feet away from a 50 year old black man going to the food bank because he can't even feed himself. It kind of puts things in perspective when you think about which of though two people resemble most.
I'm just ashamed of the thoughts that crossed my mind today. On my way back from the doctor there was a girl who was a little weird. She stood up pulled the stop request for the next stop as soon as I got on the bus. I sat down behind her as she leaned toward the front of the bus and cheerfully said to the driver "Te nect stop please!" despite the fact that a giant bell rings and an LED light board says in all caps STOP REQUEST and you know, the driver does this all day and he understands what the bell means.... I thought "chill barbie, a little eager today?" She was a really cute girl- smile, pretty face, cute outdoorsy Boone look to her outfit. She looked just like a regular person, but it took all of 5 seconds to understand that she was disabled. There was nothing physically wrong with her. She was articulate, had full nerve control and developed motor skills. But it was clear she didn't understand social cues at all. There were only about 5 people on the bus, total. she leaned toward the guy in front of her who had in earbuds (protip: if you want to avoid social interaction on the bus, headphones of some kind are generally your best bet) she loudly asked the guy: "what's your name?"
No response.
"What's your name?"
He heard her this time, turned to face her, and handled the whole situation pretty well. "Alex" he said.
"Hi, Alex! I'm [whatsherface]! Where do you live?"
My thoughts would have been "Cool, today is the day some one waits for me before I get home, kidnaps me, puts me in their basement so they can cut of my skin. Too bad that one's already a movie. I could have been famous." Then it dawned on me that something was wrong with her and I felt pretty bad.
Her and the guy talked for a few more seconds before he put his headphones back in. Then she said to no one in particular, "I'm gonna catch up on TV today. I'm so exited." She was talking to no one in particular or all of us. The whole bus was sharing a bond of awkwardness, fear of something different, and a silent hope that we could to ignore the girl and that someone would engage her. It was maybe all of a minute and a half between the time I got on and the time she got off. As she left she said "Bye everyone!" No one even smiled at her. We all just didn't know what to do. It was so uncomfortable.
The worst part is that after she said "Hi, Alex!" I panicked because I didn't want to talk and I thought maybe if I acted like I was asleep she would leave me alone. After reviewing all my options in my head in a timeframe of about .5 seconds, I decided to go with it. Every second that my eyes were closed I worried that the wasn't a solid tactic. She probably would have tried to wake me up so that I didn't miss my stop but I don't think she noticed me.
It didn't take long after she got off for me to start feeling guilty. I was so afraid some spending a few seconds talking to someone a little different because I didn't know what to do. For all I know she was perfectly fine, she just didn't buy into social norms. I felt bad for assessing and sizing up every person on the bus. With in three seconds of seeing some of these people I determined who was old, poor, uneducated, dirty, dangerous etc....
I don't always have a problem with situations like that, I've spent plenty of time around people of every social level. I've been around the homeless, the dying, the mentally challenged. I've hung out with society's castouts and unwanteds and I've hung out with the well to do and swam in their backyard pools. I like to think I'm above treating people disrespectfully. But I'm not and it happens all the time. I often think how much better the world would be if everyone practiced a bit more kindness and consideration but today I was reminded of how difficult that is (even though it should be easy) and how far we fall short every day.
Riding the bus is an experience. I should do it more often.
*again I didn't proofread because I should be doing homework right now but I had to get that off my chest.
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