Today, I spent two hours on a train listening to a conversation. Two tradesmen decided to travel home by train instead of heading with their crew on the highway. Throughout the conversation, the younger of the two men repeatedly expressed his frustration over the fact that they had lost time by spending money on the train (their crew was already home shortly after we left), while the older man told him again and again to relax, and to enjoy himself for once.
They had a few beers along the way, and their conversation was at times heated, deeply personal, nostalgic, and humorous. They were each a little rough around the edges, in slightly different ways. The younger man had lost his driver’s license for one reason or another, the older had been heavily involved in gang activity when he was younger. They discussed women, drugs, getting and staying clean, their plans for the weekend, the past, really the gamut of life. They rejoiced in their friendship, they talked about how they hated each other (and each threatened violence to the other, at times jovially, at times seriously).
The younger one was intent on saving money and hurrying, even if it meant taking extreme personal risks. The older kept telling him not to bother — a particular sticking point was around their transportation when they arrived. The older man wanted to just split a cab, while the younger man insisted they only take a cab as far as his house, and then he’d drive the older man home. But he wanted the older man to cover the cab. The older man insisted that neither of them should drive; they’d been drinking. The younger man repeatedly brushed him off.
It was really interesting. Near the end of it, during a reprise of their earlier argument over timing and the cost of the train and why they took the train in the first place, I suddenly started listening as if they were characters in a play. Things slipped into an uncanny valley very quickly, and I felt like someone outside of the world, or that these men might just be actors who screw with travellers, performing a brilliant two-man show. Suddenly, their lines didn’t seem to be delivered as convincingly. It sounded like they were just saying what they thought they were supposed to say.
It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever noticed.
As we got into town, the elder man, frustrated with how sour the younger had been throughout the trip, stood up and headed for the exit early. The younger one sat silently for a bit, and then followed. I had a few minutes to mull the experience over. I considered the subjects they’d talked about, their differing perceptions of time, and their attitudes toward life, each other, and the people they knew. I haven’t had an opportunity to observe people so different from me in such a candid fashion before, and it was really stunning.
My final thoughts, as I put my laptop away and got off the train, were that I, like a fish in water, pay very little attention on a daily basis to the geekiness of the people in my universe. I had actually forgotten that most people aren’t like the ones I interact with every day, and it’s weird to recall that generally, I am the weird one.