The Bus Always Wins
By Devin Baron
There is a girl my girlfriend and I refer to as “Skinny Girl,” not because she looks especially anorexic, but because we met, talked with, and laughed with her one time at the apartment front office, but we never caught her name. Soon after, we began relaying to each other every time we saw our slim-looking fellow resident on the apartment bus, which seemed like every other day, so the moniker came naturally.
Repeatedly seeing Skinny Girl on those drives back and forth to campus, we each separately decided to not cultivate friendship any further. It is hard to place why. There must be something inside our nature that told us not acknowledging her was the better option, better than a human connection. While contemplating this, I unearthed another theory.
Maybe it was the bus.
I considered my similar reaction upon seeing a different acquaintance on the bus. Let us call him Dave, though I did know this person’s name. I had not only met Dave in passing once or twice. He had also come to class one day to be a judge in a contest we were doing, and he singled me out with one of his questions. I knew him. He knew me. We both were aware of how we knew each other. Yet, my kneejerk was to act like I did not recognize him at all.
What the hell?
If I had seen him somewhere else, I would have said “hey.” Maybe walking the sidewalk. Maybe in another classroom. Maybe at a get-together or party. But the bus?
The bus has this metaphysical force field you step into when you board. When you have waited a half hour at the stop, the piercing screech of the rusty brakes is a relief in some way. Then, the doors swing open, and the bus kneels, and as you walk towards it, you start to feel the secluding air oozing out towards you. You can already smell the angst as you walk past the people exiting. The awaiting trip is only back to your apartment, but it feels more like a trip to boot camp when you enter. You are signing some invisible agreement to give up part of yourself, to become someone different.
I usually say “hey” and smile at the bus driver when I board. I like Donny more than Beth. Donny always hits you with the “good morning,” “alright, how’s it going,” “take care now,” and the “alright, have a good one.” Beth is stone-cold. I have several times tried to connect with her, but she just ignores me. I know she talks to other students when they get on and off, but the best I have ever gotten is an unpleasant, half-hearted smile. Maybe the bus lords over her too. Or maybe she just doesn’t like me. Both seem plausible.
Beth drives the afternoon/night bus, which is a more peaceful ride than Donny’s morning trips. The ease is partly because we are dispersed freely here and there on the 5:45 PM. On the 9 AM, we are packed in like my elementary school lunches. There is a thermos rubbing up against you giving off weird heat. There are chips, oranges, and Capri Suns smushed all around, and then Donny finds a way to make everyone feel like the string cheese when he abruptly slams on the brakes.
But the snacks you are crammed against are not the worst of it. The worst part is your own ingredients.
There is an unusual self-conscious mind boundary that exists on the bus. That area inside the mind boundary gets increasingly restricted the more populated the bus becomes, so that when you sit down on the 9 AM, it feels like you are wearing a neck brace in a prison cell.
I call this boundary the “eye box.”
The eye box is the constricted area you are permitted to look at while a passenger. Firstly, there is almost no wiggle room right and left. When human arms are pressed against you on both sides, any left-right motion of the head might indicate you are looking at their phone, which is off-limits. Secondly, the y-axis is significantly hedged. The most important rule on the bus is to never make eye contact with anyone. If a bus rider ten commandments existed, that would be the first one.
If you are experienced, you can pull off looking in the sliver of space between the two people in front of you, but that takes years of practice. I guess you could tilt your head upwards if you think people will believe it's your first time seeing the ads up there that never change, or if you are going for the “Lord, God, please help me” look, which would not be that uncalled for considering the place you are at, but I would advise against that too. With the uptilt and the neutral position gone, you have only a few options.
You can do the slight-down-tilt. Now, your eyes cannot look focused when doing this one. Instead, they must be glazed-looking. Why? Because you are essentially looking at or near a person’s crotch area, and depending on many different factors, some bus-etiquette related, some not, that person across from you may not be so okay with that. Nevertheless, you are usually always okay to do the slight down-tilt if it does not exceed 3 seconds at a time.
You can do the standard-down-tilt. It is the safest and most common option, besides one more we’ll get to later. You can avoid being judged or thought of as weird and creepy if you look toward the feet. (Yes, I know that is counterintuitive.) I always think this position has more potential, but I am constantly disappointed by people’s shoe game, so I don’t know. You are good to do the standard down-tilt for the whole ride if you can. It is just super difficult to keep your head in the same position for those eight minutes and not go crazy.
Another option is the hyper-down-tilt. People may think you are sleeping, but if they see your eyes open, then you look depressed. Looking depressed is okay because no one would ever reach out and check on you or anything, so you are good.
The last option is just an add-on to the previous three options: looking at your phone. If you are on your phone in any of the three acceptable positions, slight down-tilt, standard down-tilt, or hyper down-tilt, you are sure to be in the clear. You are acting like a normal human.
Do ordinary humans not also start up conversations though? Do people not struggle with feeling isolated already? Would they not benefit from occasional kindness and happiness sprinkled into their day? The bus has a peculiar hold over how normal humans act.
The back section is a curious caveat to bus culture. Unlike the main front seating, where you are seated across from another equal, the back seaters sit above the main-sectioners, facing towards them, looking down on them like subjects. It would be a violation for a main section rider to look towards the back of the bus since that would be breaking the left-right barrier. Yet, if you are riding in the back, you can usually look at someone in the main section for a long, long time. And you know what?
You do.
We will stare for longer if we know there is less risk of getting caught. The fear of looking weird or creepy fades away. We prove that people are fascinating to watch. We demonstrate the naturality of looking, even staring, at other humans.
It almost feels like a triumph over this mind-controlling force we call the bus, but it is not. It is not a victory. The bus is already arranged that way for us. It is a truce. It is an extended hand reached out. There is nothing triumphant about it because the bus still owns us. The bus is taking it easy on us by including the back seats, letting us have a little something.
So how do we break out of it? Now that we recognize it is a trap, how do we pierce the forcefield?
Maybe it starts with a conversation? Then two or three? Then, before you know it, you are known as a person who is not afraid to talk to strangers on the bus. You are not a weirdo for it because you are chill. You are kind without being obsessive. You are interested without being violating. You make people’s days better. You make friends. You make acquaintances. You make enemies (the bus soldiers.) It is fun. It is normal.
How does that lead to change though?
The idea is that hopefully others start to follow. Other humans get bold. Like you, they put themselves aside and stop caring what their fellow scared riders think of them, and they strike a conversation. Then two. Then three.
Could that work? Could we overthrow the hold of the bus with one random, unsolicited conversation at a time?
It is hard to know. Our ingredients are hard to use. We are inherently creatures of comfort and space. Maybe you have a lot of stressful crap on your plate and cannot deal with an intrusive stranger. Maybe you already have talkative semi-acquaintance-friends in your classes and your roommate is annoying, so the bus ride home is the reserved eight minutes of peace in your day. Maybe you read up on the “Killing of Tim McLean,” and you are always thinking about the 22-year-old Canadian who was cannibalized on a Greyhound. In that case, the bus may really have a hold on you.
We each bring different elements with us onto the bus, some more nutritional than others, (just ask Tim,) but the bus has an enzyme for each of us. It always knows what to sprinkle in to catalyze us into self-preservation, to overpower the go-talk-to-Dave herb that exists deep down. The bus always wins.
Still, it bothers me enough to try. I need my quiet bus rides sometimes just as much as the next person, but I cannot stand it every time. I should at least attempt to spice it up, to try out a different flavor. Maybe I will start the movement this week. Maybe I will get off a 9 AM this week and think: “Today is the day. When I ride the bus home this afternoon, I’m gonna start a conversation. I’m gonna make a freakin connection, whether the bus likes it or not!” Maybe I shimmy off the timidity and hop on the bus with a pep in my step. Maybe I see a loner already and sit near them, as to not wait for an opportunity, but to make one myself. Maybe I say, “Hi, how’s your day going?”
Probably not.
I will put in my AirPods and stay in my lane.
I will probably sit in the back section though. It is more comfortable there.