A Bus Novice

According to my colleagues I am a "bus novice".  Apparently this is because I chose to converse with a fellow passenger on my way home last week.  Since moving to the CBD for work I now regularly use the bus service for transport.  It has been many years since I last had to do this, so maybe I am a little naive when it comes to this form of transport.

While waiting for the bus I was approached by a man asking me which bus he should catch to get to his destination.  I suggested he wait at the same stop as there was a bus coming soon.  He then proceeded to mention he had recently returned home to Christchurch and was finding it difficult to make his way around the city.  Considering I live here and sometimes have the same problem, since the earthquake last year, it must be daunting for those who have been out of the city for a while.  My colleagues tell me my first mistake was to engage in any sort of conversation with him.

The bus arrived and he stood back to let me on.  I seated myself and before I knew it he was sitting next to me.  He did ask me if I was comfortable with this and to be honest I had no problem with it.  We continued our conversation.  I found out he was turning 50 this month, had been clean for a year (no longer drinking, drugging or smoking) after going to Wellington for treatment and had been living on the West Coast for some time.  My colleagues think this put him in the "do not talk to" basket.  I think they are naive and maybe my past interactions with people who have lead similar lives makes me more compassionate and approachable.  My colleagues would suggest I am an easy target.  But should I have ignored him because he didn't fit the respectable middle-class criteria my colleagues appear to value?  I think not.  If he had made me feel uncomfortable or scared I would have told him so and ended the conversation before it began.  Instead I had an intelligent conversation with a fellow passenger which made the journey pass very quickly.  He brightened my day and I hope I did the same for him.

Travelling by bus can never be boring as I am fascinated by my fellow travellers.  There was the young girl, with a baby, who had an extremely loud conversation with her social worker on her cell phone.  She then proceeded to tell her friend (and the whole bus) the reason she had a social worker and all about the circumstances behind her baby's birth. There was the elderly lady who carefully got off the bus with her walking frame and as we drove off I could see a single loaf of bread and a cask of wine in her basket.  Then there was the young woman trying to get on the bus with her pram and I was delighted to see other passengers getting up to hold her baby and lift her pram.  They are just a few of the people I have come across so far and I am sure there will be more that will catch my attention