A woman sat next to me on the
bus yesterday evening, deep in conversation on her phone. That suited me to be
honest because I don’t like having to make small talk with people if I can help
it. In fact the only thing I dislike more on a bus is someone sitting next to
me in the first place. Having said that, I do get offended if they move as a
seat becomes available, as if my company (for what company I provide) suddenly
stops being good enough. My seat neighbour woman had never used this particular
bus today, (the Medilink service that leaves the QMC hospital – a reference for
Nottingham readers) and was nervous about which stop she should get off at.
Eventually I decided to help and told her that she needed the next stop if she
wanted ******* Road and I was getting off there too. She thanked me and said
that she wanted to be near a pub, so I replied that I too would be going that
way as I lived on the turning for the pub, and so did she as we both lived on
******* Road. We did that awkward ‘small world’ type exchange, before I pointed
out that it is quite a long road and that I actually live right down the other
end. To add to this coincidence, she also lived down the other end of this road
(if I may say so myself, the nicer end). I then jokingly said she’s probably my
next door neighbour, and I wasn’t too far wrong as she lived a few doors up and
she even confirmed that I had a dog, so our paths obviously cross without us
paying a lot of attention.
During the walk we managed to
talk about Nottingham in general, lack of discipline in today’s kids, the bad
neighbourhoods, people’s perception of Nottingham as a dangerous place (anyone
who thinks Nottingham dangerous should spend five minutes in Leeds after dark, genuinely
terrifying), and pet ownership. She was a really nice person, and if I had
stuck to my usual policy of not talking to strangers on buses I would never
have known. Had I been single this would have been the perfect way to meet a
potential partner, which is typical as this kind of thing would never have happened
if I was single.
The lessons I learned today
was that we hardly know our neighbours these days, and that we should talk to
people while out and about.
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