I love taking the train to New York. It’s one of the few places left where you can strike up a genuine conversation with a complete stranger—or so I thought.
The other day, waiting on the platform for the NYC train, I fell into conversation with a friendly, grey-haired man who turned out to be a biology professor. We swapped stories about our kids: his son was diving into Python for machine learning, my daughter was studying virology. One of those lovely, serendipitous encounters that makes me appreciate Philadelphia.
Then I boarded the train and stepped into an alternate universe.
As the train trundled along, its usual rhythmic sound filled the background, but the passengers were silent. Everyone stared at phones or laptops, or simply gazed blankly out the windows. The young woman beside me immediately pivoted toward the glass, presenting her back like a defensive wall, and didn’t move for the entire hour-long journey.
“What’s wrong with the younger generation?” I fumed internally. “Has COVID completely obliterated their social skills?” My annoyance grew as I faced the dreaded prospect of killing time with work emails. Another pandemic casualty, another thread of our social fabric torn loose.
But then my daughters’ voices echoed in my head—all those stories about “creepy old men” imposing unwanted conversations on captive audiences. Not that I needed my daughters to decode the universal body language of “leave me alone”… Was I the creepy old man, desperate for human connection? Had I become the oblivious one?
My frustration changing to introspective concern. I’m too young to be the creepy old guy in someone else’s train story.
As we rolled into Penn Station, I stood to retrieve my bag and spotted an older woman wrestling with her luggage in the overhead rack. I offered help; she accepted gratefully. I lifted down her bag, she nodded politely—but exchanged no words. Not even a “thank you.”
“That’s it,” I thought, watching her disappear into the crowd. “Chivalry is dead. Conversation is extinct. We’re all just zombies, staring at screens, together yet utterly alone.”
Dejected, I turned to leave when something caught my eye: a small blue and white sign dangling from the ceiling that I’d somehow missed when boarding.
“Quiet Car.”
Bias is a hell of a thing. We’re all victims of it, and sometimes the signs aren’t so easy to see.