It’s a cliché to say that one feels loneliest in a crowd, but it also sounds like the opening lyric for an alt-rock angry-girl breakup song. Still, this doesn’t make the statement less true, especially in larger cities. Every large metropolis I have been to treats strangers essentially the same way, i.e. by ignoring that they exist to varying degrees until it becomes unavoidable. Parisians look at strangers but rarely converse; Londoners vary their attentions depending on how much they have drunk; Romans won’t even look in your direction till they are sure you are not a tourist; Montrealers smile at you even in the dead of a snow storm. Some places are different, are Happy Places, as one might call them with a snort of derision. The West Coast US cities are pretty laid back and full of smiles, and in Chicago people actually talk to strangers on the subway in a convivial way. In Athens someone gave me a flower.
But New York City has a special relationship with strangers, as its residents are trained to ignore everyone and everything around them at all times. This translates in pop culture as the stereotypical attitude of “big city living”, and the density of people in such a confined space may have something to do with it. Pressed up against each other in cafes or subways or at traffic lights, what else can one do but pretend that there isn’t anyone around you? How else do you protect your personal space? (In Mumbai, you don’t). Making eye contact with anyone for more than two seconds in the city is essentially a declaration of war, and I wouldn’t recommend you try it. I see this attitude, the municipal version of “resting bitch face”, as a tool for survival in a city where you are literally rubbing shoulders with strangers all day, but to visitors it can come across as callous. Take that drunk who is heaving on the floor of a crosswalk at 2 in the morning on a Saturday because he had drunk too much. People will funnel around him like water round a rock, careful not to acknowledge that he exists lest they get drawn into someone else’s drama. Or the homeless guy who is lying on the floor on a busy crosswalk, staring ahead with dead eyes, holding a sign that says “For the love of God, please help me.”
Leonid Afremov - Loneliness in the City
Do you ignore the bigot on the train and pretend nothing is happening, thereby tacitly contributing to the ongoing fascist spirit that is dripping down from Trump's presidency?
Just the other day I was walking home when I heard someone shouting at me. I had my earphones in and it was only the alarmed looks of tourists in front of me that alerted me that something was happening. I took out my earphones and looked back whilst this deranged man in soiled clothes shouted that he existed. That’s all he said: “I exist!” I put my music back on and walked away, muttering the refrain that gets most city dwellers through the day: Not My Problem.
We face this in Pakistan too. Think of all the times you stop at a traffic light and a little child raps her knuckles on your window asking for money, or a woman in a burqa holding a small baby presses up a laminated note to your window that details her misfortune and her medical bills. Most of the time you ignore that person, waiting impatiently for the light to change.
I am thinking of all this because a few nights ago I was on a subway carriage going home when a lanky white man with a shaved head stepped into the train. It wasn’t a crowded train and he sat down in a seat near mine. Eventually I saw him pointing to a Hispanic man wearing earphones just opposite us. The Hispanic man took off his earphones to hear what the white guy was saying. So did I.
“Legal, or illegal?” said the skinhead with a sneer.
“What?” the Hispanic man said.
“You legal, or ILL-legal?” The skinhead put a cruel emphasis on the second word. The carriage became suddenly very tense. The Hispanic man put on his earphones again, trying to ignore the whole thing but the white guy kept talking loudly and pointing. He even looked in my direction, and for a minute I thought he would ask me the same question. It was like beholding a bully in the school playground. In moments like these one weighs the pros and cons of intervening for the sake of civic duty. Do you ignore the bigot on the train and pretend nothing is happening, thereby tacitly contributing to the ongoing fascist spirit that is dripping down from Trump’s presidency? Or do you intervene on behalf of the man to show he isn’t alone, not knowing whether the white guy is simply a bigot with a problem or possibly a madman with a knife/gun in his pocket, just waiting for a victim to take him on? Is this, in short, worth dying for?
It’s an odd monologue to have in your head on the train, let me tell you. A white woman in her fifties sitting opposite the white man squared her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. “How dare you ask someone that?” she started. “Who do you think you are? You can’t just ask someone that!”
They argued for a bit, and the rest of the carriage was paying rapt attention, their body language now overtly hostile to the man. The next stop came and the accuser left abruptly, possibly sensing he was outnumbered. The woman smiled at the Hispanic man (he was still listening to his music, but who can blame him) and the rest of the carriage was giving her looks of approval.
It left a bitter taste in my mouth. I’m glad the woman stood up for him. I’m sorry she had to obviously. As those inspirational pictures of sunsets online keep exclaiming, “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” I would like to think that I was about to speak out and stand up to the bigot. We would all like to think that. The bitter taste wasn’t from what he said, but really from the hesitance I felt to say anything back because it “was not my problem.” Except it very much is.
