Do you ever get the urge to talk to people about what they're reading on their morning commute? Just this morning I saw a woman reading Nick Hornby and a younger man reading a yellowed copy of Herman Hesse that was about as old as he was. I wanted to plop down next to both of them and ask what they thought. I imagine as I age and my inhibitions lower this is how I will make a nuisance of myself. Society at large won't appreciate it, but I'll be having a gay old time, the chatty old lady on the purple line who natters on about Steppenwolf.
The time I fought my impulse to lean in and say something the hardest was several years back. A frattish looking dude in a baseball hat was sitting on the train, open-mouthed in front of "A Prayer for Owen Meany". His elbows were on his knees, then he was sitting up straight, then he was fidgeting, eyes riveted to the page. Occasionally he would stare blindly at the advertisement opposite him, ingesting what he'd just read. I enjoyed reliving the shock, horror, and giddy mind-expansion that accompanied having John Irving bat me around in a good way. I wanted desperately to say something, share the moment, but I couldn't think of an acceptable in. Instead I got off the train at my stop and carried the memory of that guy's face with me for a good long while.
Would you enjoy it or resent it if someone tried to strike up a conversation with you about your morning read? If somebody breached the sacred wall of pages you were holding up around your face and heart?
And if you did want to be approached, what would be your preferred come-on? Something clever, or would any old opener do to get the conversation started?
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