photo by simplytaty

You walk onto the metro. You find yourself a seat. And you promptly enter the cone of oblivion.

What is this cone, you ask?

It is the numb uncaring and blindness that seems to close over everyone riding public transit as they try to pretend that they’re the only people in the car. Reading a book, listening to an iPod or simply staring dejectedly into space are the techniques I most often see employed.

What are the effects of this cone? Well, here’s a little story.

It was the end of the day and I was tired. I got onto the metro car only to discover that the only available seat was right in front of a crazy looking homeless man (I assume he was homeless due to his unwashed clothes and blood stained front. I assume he was crazy because of what happened next. If neither of these assumptions are true, my apologies). But I said, “fuck it!” I was tired and we would both just play the game. I would pretend that he didn’t exist and he would do the same.

Unfortunately, he had other things in mind. As my bum was about to touch the seat his big foot shot out and kicked me sideways. I was knocked over but managed to save myself by grabbing the pole before hitting the ground. I was shocked. I was confused. And because of the way this man kept glowering at me, I was a little bit scared too.

But what scared me more than this man’s erratic behaviour was the fact that not one person, in the relatively crowded metro car, batted an eyelash. I looked around me hoping for some sort of acknowledgment but no one would even meet my eyes. I would have thought it hadn’t happened, but for the fact that this man continued to give me the stink-eye.

He eventually got out of the car and shoulder checked me on the way out. Our encounter is now a story I tell among friends and laugh about. But I remain freaked out by the atmosphere of uncaring that pervades in public. What happened to Kitty Genovese made a lot more sense that day.