Stranger Danger

Posted by Cynical Sarah on January 4, 2007

There are a few different types of overly chatty people who ride the Skytrain. First, there are the drunks who just can’t help but be overly talkative, then the crazies who may not even be talking to a real person, and then the creepy ones.

Last week I had the dubious pleasure of getting in the same train car as a very drunk old man and what I assume is his girlfriend. At first it was no big deal because he just chatted with his female sidekick. In fact, it was mildly entertaining as they discussed their decision to call themselves Fred and Wilma for the evening and were trying to make their way back home to Bedrock.

Not content with just one person to talk to, though, he eventually turned and started talking to me too. I got all sorts of compliments on my hat while he encouraged me to smile and then blew kisses at me.

There was definitely no threat there since he was a friendly drunk, but it was a relief to finally get to my station and leave Fred and Wilma behind to find their Bedrock.

That encounter was a safe one. Even the crazy chatters on the train are fairly safe, especially when they’re just talking to themselves. A friend of mine recently encountered one of the creepy ones though.

She was riding the train one especially crowded morning and ended up chatting with a man and a woman she was crammed in with. A few days later, she happened to get on the train with the same man she’d talked to before.

Not so creepy just yet as he made small talk, but then he made a comment about how it was so odd they ended up on the train together since he’d just been thinking about her that morning. Creepy? Yes.

Even creepier, when he got off at his station, he waved to catch her attention and then put a Hershey’s kiss between his lips and blew her a kiss. To make matters worse, a couple weeks later, she saw him again at the Skytrain station and he seemed to be waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Then she and her husband spotted him near her home.

That kind of stranger encounter is exactly why avoiding eye contact and avoiding making conversation are an essential part of being a public transit user. You never know when the next person you chat up could become a stalker.

Of course, that pretty much holds true for any social situation where you get stuck among strangers.

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Tags: humor, public transit

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