Growing up in the large and metropolitan—at least by Canadian standards—city of Calgary, I thought I was an expert when it came to the rules of urban politics. You know, when to hold the door for someone, when to say “hello” to a stranger and when to pretend to be absorbed in the fascinating world of your own arm hair, and all those other vague notions of “good citizenship” and “civility.
Then I moved to Toronto for a summer of subway commutes and apartment elevator rides, and found my innocent, naïve notion of urban camaraderie stripped away.
Its replacement? A steely-eyed gaze, a firm shoulder for sidewalk shoving and a strange sense of loneliness, even in the busiest city settings.
It all started last week, as I braved the sea of commuters on my daily subway adventure to work. With the car filled, I glimpsed one remaining seat, next to a woman about my age. Gleeful at my luck, I sat down next to her and pulled out my daily crossword puzzle. A few stops into my ride, my new subway companion stood up, walked to a freshly vacated seat, and plopped herself down. Startled, my first thought was to smell myself (because there’s nothing like two years as an undergrad to get you into a sub-par hygienic routine). Nope, fresh as a daisy.
I next looked at her now empty seat and the floor around it: clean, no piles of festering trash to compel this woman to swap spots. After an in-depth study of the subway car and its contents, I came to the shocking conclusion that she had moved simply because, for the rest of her ten minute subway ride, she wanted to sit entirely by herself, safe from any risk that my small, silent, crossword-enthralled self might interfere with her inner thoughts and appraisal of wall ments for Lactaids.
At this point, you might be asking me why the hell I care about one woman and her personal space issues. But the incident of the subway seat-switcher is merely one example of a far-reaching urban epidemic that I’ve become all too aware of as a newly minted Torontonian. People in Toronto really don’t like other people, and they want those other people to know it. I don’t know if this is true in most urban centers, but whether it’s avoiding physical proximity on subways, abstaining from eye even at the cost of walking into a post on a quasi-regular basis or pretending that the ceiling of the elevator is covered in artwork so awe-inspiring that one simply cannot force themselves to look away, it is my experience that city dwellers seem obsessed with maintaining an obsessively strict veil of anonymity and a sharply delineated region of personal space.
I can’t quite pinpoint the reason for the profound unfriendliness I’ve found to permeate my new city, but I have a few ideas. Maybe, in our culture of fast-paced schedules and superficial escapism, people are too caught up in their own lives and the lives of the doctors on Grey’s Anatomy to say “hi” on the elevator. Maybe living in a big city breeds a paranoia that if I touch you on the subway, it’s either because I’m injecting you with heroin or trying to cop a feel. Or finally, maybe I’m just too sensitive for my own good, finding unfriendliness where there is only unintentional neutrality. But be warned, citizens of Toronto and the rest of the urban world: if the seat beside you is empty, brace yourself, because you’d better believe I’m going to take it. And close your eyes, because I might even throw in a smile while I’m at it.
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