The odd ones
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On my way home on Friday, an elderly gentleman sat next to me on the bus. Straight away, he asked me how old I thought he was. I'm terrible at this, but I would have thought he was in his early seventies. I made a point of not looking for too long and, not wanting to risk offence, offered a guess in the mid-sixties. He seemed quite flattered by this and told me that he was, in fact, eighty. For the rest of the journey into Coventry, he told me of his life as a construction worker, pointing out the buildings he'd worked on and telling me things about them I'd never had known if I hadn't met him, despite passing those buildings every day. Upon arrival in the city centre, he bade me well and went on his way.
This morning, I took the bus to work as usual. Being a public transport user, I leave the house early in the morning and tend to see far fewer elderly people on my journey. My fellow passengers range from school age to middle aged, each with a reason to be up that early. Every one of them gets on the bus, finds their seat and sits quietly until they reach their destination. Nobody sits next to anyone else until all of the empty seats are taken. Rows of aisle seats are vacant, but for the few whose adjacent window seat occupier has put a bag on it to dissuade anyone else from sitting there. This is frustratingly common.
Crucially, unless there is already an established friendship, nobody acknowledges anyone else on the bus. Eye contact, if it happens at all, is fleeting and awkward. Nobody smiles. Nobody talks. Anybody who does is seen as odd. And nobody wants to sit next to the odd person.
There are two passengers, a gentleman and a lady, who sometimes share my journey to work who are an exception. The gentleman is always happy to smile and greet the passengers he recognises, even if he doesn't know them. When the two are both on the bus together, they'll often talk amongst themselves for the whole journey, laughing and smiling as they go. Both must be in their mid to late seventies (even allowing some manoeuvre for my ability to guess ages).
A few times on my days off I have caught the bus into town during the day. During working hours, buses are the domain of young mothers with pushchairs and the elderly. The contrast with my work journeys is startling. For one thing, the bus is much noisier. The lower decks are awash with conversation. People talk to the person next to them, in front of them, behind them and across the aisle. They seem so happy. They laugh. They smile.
At a glance one might assume they all know each other. But sometimes they don't. Sat amongst them, it doesn't take long to realise that this familiarity stems only from a shared bus route. Perhaps it wasn't this specific journey, but at some point on a shared journey, a conversation started.
My journeys to and from work take about an hour each way. They're familiar and dull. I often wonder how much more interesting they might be were a conversation to start. Like many around me, however, I'm loathe to start talking lest I be the journey's 'odd one'. Even as that elderly gentleman sat next to me on Friday, I could see the looks of disdain from some of the other passengers. But he was happy. And like others of his generation, I'm sure he'll do the same again with someone else another day. Seeing them enjoying their otherwise mundane journeys, I can't help but feel that their generation has got it right. Maybe we're the odd ones after all.