Is my reading disturbing your yammering?

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

Ah, so, it’s Lisacurl and Laurange with whom we dipshits have such problems.

This could get interesting. You don’t, presumably, enjoy being disturbed unduly. (I presume that when you’re out at Starbucks gabbing politely with your pals, you would be a smidge distressed to discover that someone had decided to bring his two pit bulls in to the venue and was amusing himself by allowing them to fight to the death in the space between his table and yours.) So where do we draw the line between socializing and over-the-top intrusion of your space?

I’m quite comfortable setting my decibel-level at “the minimum that my companions need to understand me, erring on the side of ‘too low’”–it’s better that I should have to repeat myself sometimes than that my voice is bothering people outside the earshot of my intended audience.

Do your standards of polite behavior differ? And if so, how so?

[aruvqan]

@LaurAnge

I may be a lone voice of dissent.

Many of the behaviors you described are annoying, yes. But public transport is not a no-talking space. Conversations, cell-phone or otherwise, are perfectly appropriate, as long as they’re not disruptive.

I know that the train between Boblingen and Gaertringen anytime I took it last spring was fairly quiet. The few people using cells were reasonably quiet, the small kids didnt whinge, mommy took care of them quickly and discretely, people chatted in a quiet tone. Very civilized. American trains are hell on tracks=( I hate taking amtrack from the annoying people standpoint, but it was otherwise a great way to go between New London CT and Tidewater Va…

[tdn]

@Fiveyearlurker

I don’t mind the platform screamers. But, I do mind the guy on the train. Basically, I’m captive at that point. Plus, I’m fairly certain that it’s just a scam

I don’t think so. I think that it’s just your garden-variety witnessing.

I got roped into one Bible study once. (Don’t ask – let’s just say that in a battle of wits, this time the little head beat out the big head.) The people that showed up were perfectly nice, and didn’t ask anything of me except to take a turn reading a few verses. They were otherwise perfectly content to let me remain a spectator. The only pushiness came the next week, when they tried to talk me into going again, and wouldn’t take no for an answer (which they eventually had to). And the week after that. And the week after that. Every week for a year.

In fact, I think the only religions around here that would actually take you away and try to force you into their cults are Scientology and Krshna. And I haven’t seen them do that for 20 years.

[matt_mcl]

@D_Odds

You forgot the subway ‘philosophers’, who often identify themselves as Christians yet know nothing about Christianity. Warning: Do not take their lord’s name in vain in front of them. Not once has anyone but a born-again Christian come on the subway to give a religious spiel, which often turns out to be a hateful diatribe to anyone not born again.

Want to know how to deal with these people? Show tunes.

[Marley23]

That’s right, I never got around to ranting properly about the born-again irritating “y’all going to Hell in a gasoline suit” preacher who yelled on and on about Jesus on my El ride home last week. It must’ve gone on for 15 minutes, and no matter what anybody - mostly me - said, he didn’t stop talking. I thought Jesus was big on listening to people, and told him so, but that didn’t quite get through. Yiy. At least he managed to be inadvertently funny by mentioning, a few too many times, that he used to be really attracted to drag queens.

[Helen_s_Eidolon]

Yes, they differ. A train is not a library. A train is a public space where, as in a restaurant or a mall, talking is perfectly appropriate.

I take the bus every day, and I read on the bus. But I don’t expect all of public transport in this city to revolve around my desires for silence.

[Biggirl]

I’m with LaurAnge on this one. You want quiet? Take your car to work. You want to read? Go to the library. This is the subway and I paid my two dollars just like everybody else. I’m going to talk and if you don’t want to hear it, stay home-- away from the public.
I can’t imagine the sense of entitlement you grew up with to think that people on the subway should be quiet so you can read.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

OK, that’s three votes in favor of yammering.

Anyone else , either pro-yammering or pro-entitlement dipshits wishing to encase the world in a Cone of Silence?

Not to put too fine a point on the subject, or anything.

[stpauler]

@don't ask

While I agree with the complaints of the OP I must chastise pseudotriton ruber ruber for some cavalier use of the English language. In much the same way that George on Seinfeld wanted to pretend to be an architect I was always taken with the job of extruder operator - what the hell is an extruder and how do you extrude something. So I went to a factory and found out. Extruding is shaping rubber, metal or plastic by forcing it under pressure through a die. So while drool may be drooling I don’t believe it is extruded. I make no apologies for my pedantry and I can now die a happy man - that day I visited the factory in Gladesville was not wasted.

Don’t forget, Play-Doh can also be extruded. My niece got this Play-Doh Creativity Table for her birthday (see picture of red-headed girl happily extruding. Charlie Brown not included). On the box it even said “Fun Factory extruder”.

As to the OP, I have a pedestrian commute to work. Ever since I’ve gotten an iPod my commute has become much nicer without the occassional solicitations for pecuniary aide from the masses.

[GaWd]

@Turkeytaker

On the other side of the journey, I have people handing out The Watchtower. I’m not sure what denomination they are, but they (also to their credit) are also quiet.

They would be JW’s.

Sam

[SLingshot]

@Halfpint

I commute to work for an hour and a half in each direction, and even on the other side of the world from you, we are blessed with the same delightful travelling companions.

Halfpint then went on to mention (in order): lack of beggars, (a plus); guys trying to impress girls who are trying to put their makeup on; giggling women before 8am; middle-aged women shoppers with more shopping bags than sense.

In response to this, I have to say Ha! I just moved from Tokyo! I agree with everything. But you you didn’t mention the gropers. What about the gropers?

[Ogre]

I love watching and listening to people. It’s fascinating. Therefore, I’m definitely pro-yammering. Want to exist in your own little world? Don’t take a crowded public train. Simple.

I used to love to eavesdrop on conversations and observe behavior on the DC Metro. It could keep me entertained for hours. In Atlanta recently, I eavesdropped on the conversation between a pair of youngish black girls (not that it required spy equipment or anything…they were pretty loud.) The sentence, “He keeps on tryin’ to sit next to me on the bus, and I’m like, uh uh! You bettah check yoself!” had me grinning for the rest of the day.

[matt_mcl]

I have no problem with people who talk in the metro, obviously. I do have a problem with people who bellow, roar, holler, or otherwise speak in a volume inappropriate to an indoor public place.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

Maybe my interest here is evolving as this thread evolves, from the sardonically-dismissive to the genuinely interested question: who shares my standard of pitching my voice low enough to risk having my interloquitur say “Pardon?” once or twice rather than pitching it loud enough so that I never get asked to repeat myself but more people inevitably get exposed to the conversation.

Which one do you choose?

[The_Devil_s_Grandmother]

@SLingshot

In response to this, I have to say Ha! I just moved from Tokyo! I agree with everything. But you you didn’t mention the gropers. What about the gropers?

There are fish on the trains in Tokyo?

[Fiveyearlurker]

@Biggirl

I’m with LaurAnge on this one. You want quiet? Take your car to work. You want to read? Go to the library. This is the subway and I paid my two dollars just like everybody else. I’m going to talk and if you don’t want to hear it, stay home-- away from the public.
I can’t imagine the sense of entitlement you grew up with to think that people on the subway should be quiet so you can read.

I don’t think ANYONE here has said you can’t talk. I know on the NYC subway, two people sitting next to each other can have a normal conversation that no one else can hear due to the din of the train. If anyone else can hear you, you are speaking too loudly.

I think the complaints have been about people assuming that since they paid two bucks, they can scream about Jesus, sell me cheap crap, tell me about their fake high school’s imaginary basketball team and scream into their cell phones (luckily not a problem in NY).

It’s like a restaurant. Just cause you pay your bill doesn’t mean you get to stand on the table and scream to the patrons. Except at Denny’s.

[Biggirl]

@Fiveyearlurker

I don’t think ANYONE here has said you can’t talk. I know on the NYC subway, two people sitting next to each other can have a normal conversation that no one else can hear due to the din of the train. If anyone else can hear you, you are speaking too loudly.

From the OP:

@pseudotriton ruber ruber

3. fellow passengers conversing. Sometimes this is just your garden-variety on-life-support everyday conversation, usually at three times the decibel-level required, which is bad enough (“So I sez to him Do you want fries with that and he sez Yeah, so I asks him With ketchup? and he sez No, I want it on the side And I sez to him Ya want a big glob of it on the side or do ya want one of them plastic packages, I got both for ya–”) but the one I find particularly frustrating is the one where a youngish guy finds himself riding with a youngish girl, both in their late teens or early 20s, whom he doesn’t know as well as he’d like to, and has nothing really to talk to her about, but instead of just voicing directly his desire to rid them both of their clothing and copulate right there on the IRT–which pretty much everyone in car understands is the ultimate purpose of the conversation–procedes to talk about any old shit that randomly flitters across the tatters of his brain, in the vain hope that these revelations will make him more attractive to the young woman than simply keeping his piehole shut.

Sounds like he just don’t like conversation to me.

[Fiveyearlurker]

From the OP: “usually at three times the decibel-level required”

No it doesn’t.

[Biggirl]

Whose definition of “required”? The guy who admitted to talking so low people have to ask him to repeat himself?

[Fiveyearlurker]

I think we can assume that the OP meant “required” to indicate the level necessary and sufficient to have the listener hear. I’m not one of these people opposed to cell phones in public. I’m opposed to assholes with cell phones in public. It is perfectly possible to use a cell phone on a bus, and not annoy a soul. But, there are more than a few people who speak louder than is “required”.

And, yes, one should tend to err on the side of speaking too quietly in group settings.