I just remembered something.
Last night, after having dinner with friends, I took a bus home. It was about 11pm, and the bus was otherwise empty. A few stops later, a man got on the bus. Despite the wide range of seats available to him (that is, all of them) he decided to sit right next to me. I continued texting on my phone without looking up.
"Hello" he said.
Sometimes you want someone to know you're busy and/or uninterested in having a conversation, without wanting to seem like a stuck up bitch who deserves to get stabbed. As a woman, this is a very tough balance to strike. Nice enough not to make a man angry, but not so nice that you're encouraging him. So, without looking up from my phone, I grunted a barely audible 'hi' through the scarf bundled around my face.
"You from the States?" he asked.
To be honest, I found this funny, because unbeknownst to him, that's a question I get quite often, but I really don't think there was a trace of an accent on my very muffled 'hi'.
Shook my head, continued staring at my phone.
"Really? Ya sound like you are."
He went on to ask me a ton of questions, which I answered with a series of nods and the occasional "mmhmm".
He was probably in his fifties, and not the most unpleasant person apart from the fact he was either unable or refusing to read the very clear social cues of the situation. I'm still not sure which.
Naturally, it dawned on me that he might get off the bus when I did to continue the interrogation, on the pretence of "what a coincidence!" but in reality to follow me home. I say naturally, not because I'm paranoid, but because it's happened before.
So, I got off the bus suddenly a few stops early in a strange, dark part of the city I didn't know and walked the rest of the way. Yeah, that's a thing I did purposely, just to be on the safe side. Read that again.
And then, before I had even reached my front door, I forgot all about it. I forgot about it and was only reminded tonight when a friend said something to me about accents. Because it's not note-worthy. And that, is a little bit note-worthy.
