I recorded a Christmas frame of Me 1 vs Me 2 snooker this evening (not sure of Orange Mark's movements over the next few days so it might not go up immediately) and then headed out for the penultimate "Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People". There were no prawn cocktail crisps there tonight. Almost like they knew somehow.
I got on the tube at Shepherd's Bush Market - it wasn't too busy but there were only a few seats in the carriage and so I moved towards one next to a middle-aged guy. He was sitting in the seat at the end and there was a woman in the seat at the other end. The two seats in the middle were empty, but there was an armrest in between them so I had to sit right next to the man. He was stretched out and had his legs splayed fairly wide, showing that he was an alpha male, dominating the space. He obviously didn't want me to sit down there, but I didn't have much choice. I hovered for a second to give him a chance to scoot over a bit, but he didn't take that chance. He stayed where he was, with a good proportion of his body encroaching on my seat. I squeezed in between him and the arm rest and even though I was close to sitting on his knee and our lower bodies were pressed against each other he made no effort to move. I positioned myself so that I was leaning as far towards the arm rest as possible, but he just stayed as he was. He was saying this is my territory, why should I move? I was thinking, well probably because that's quite rude of you and this is enormously weird and uncomfortable for us both.
He was asserting his masculinity, I assume, trying to demonstrate what a man he was. Ironically he had chosen to do that by having his leg pressed hard up against another man. There is a chance that this was the second clumsy gay pick-up that I had experienced on the Hammersmith and City Line in the space of a week, but if so he was doing it all wrong. He was tense and this was awkward. If I found being pressed against a man I don't know erotic (and I don't and anyone who says I do is lying) then this was not going to do it for me.
It was a stand-off. My only way out of this was to move to another seat and perhaps the man thought that his rudeness would convince me to do so, but he had the option of escaping this awkwardness by shifting his hips to the right and moving his legs. I couldn't understand why he wasn't doing this, but suspect he thought that that would mean he'd lost. He'd become confused and thought he owned the two seats that he was on. It was so clear that this situation was wrong that I didn't feel it was a good idea to ask him to move. I could only really imagine that he was doing this because he wanted me to challenge him and then that would be an excuse to punch me in the face. Wasn't my body pressed against his and the way I was awkwardly positioning myself over the arm rest enough of a request? And why should I have to say anything? Shouldn't basic manners mean we do the best to accommodate each other without being self-defeating arseholes? Isn't this desire to own territory actually a sign of masculine weakness? A man comfortable in his skin and assured of who he was would be accommodating, only a small and petty fool would make this an issue. By that logic maybe if I was more of a man I would have just moved somewhere else, but I was angry about his rudeness and didn't want him to think that this was an acceptable way to behave. I stayed put. He was not going to win this tussle of the Beta males.
I tweeted about the situation and he was trying to read my tweet over my shoulder, so I had to angle myself in an even more comical way to prevent him from doing so. Still he didn't move. This can't have been nice for him. Our bones were touching. Surely no one's spatial awareness is THAT bad.
Eventually he conceded and shifted a little bit, but it took at least five minutes. Then at the next stop the lady on the other end of the row got off and I moved over to her seat. I could move now, because I had won the battle of wills.
The train got a bit more packed and all the seats were full and an elderly couple got on and I gave them my seat. Of course my nemesis had been reluctant to give up a seat that he wasn't sitting in so he was never going to move for someone else. I had demonstrated my superiority and politeness and was now 2-0 up in the competition, though wondered if I had been so keen to give up my seat just to look good, which wouldn't score me any points with Jesus.
At the next stop the seat next to the idiot became available, but I wasn't going to sit in this Penis Fly Trap again. A woman sat there instead and although she was significantly slighter than me I noticed the man moving over to give her more space. What the fuck? Perhaps he was just desperate for the sensation of another man against him or just so macho that he could never move a male. What was going on in his brain? I wish I'd asked him now. But he got off on the stop before me. I didn't take his seat.
