Soundings

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32566, 27 March 1971, Page 6

Soundings

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DENIS McCAULEY

Since they stopped us smoking on the Christchurch buses a bus trip has become a rare occasion for me, so I could look on the whole thing as an outsider when I was forced into using the public transport system recently.

In the old days (before smoking was stopped) there used to be a fairly rigid segregation of the sexes—-men in the back of the bus and women up front. I recall a letter to the editor just after the smoking ban, complaining about the uppity women running riot all over the buses, sitting wherever they liked and usurping the male sanctum at the back.

The system may have changed, but the principle hasn’t. At one stage you could, if you were a man, take your place at the back and be confident you were in the right place. Now it is a lot more complicated. There seems to have grown up quite a series of rules as to bus seating and while my few recent trips didn’t allow me to see them all, the main ones quickly became apparent. The first requirement It seems is: pick the right partner. If you happen to get on early on the journey when there are plenty of spare seats, you are safe enough. Just take an empty seat. However, once there are only single seats left, be careful. You may not be thrown off the bus literally, but the obvious air of reproach is a terrifying thing to behold.

If you take the wrong seat conversation on the bus comes to a halt. All heads at the front turn. Don’t think you can do it surreptitiously and get away with it The worst pairing in the eyes of bus passengers is the old man sitting next to the attractive young girl. Dirty old man, you can hear them all think. Just about as bad is the young man seating himself beside an attractive young girl. Dirty young man. The young girl sitting beside a young man is bad, too. Flirt. Of course, if the couple happen to know each other, it’s all right—as long as they quickly make it apparent to the other passengers. Any male sitting next to a schoolgirl is for it, although schoolgirls seem to get away with it in reverse. They are probably excused because they are young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and of buses in particular. An old woman sitting next to' a young man is high up the disapproval scale (dirty old woman) unless the young man happens to be in a school uniform. Seating mismatches are tolerated only when there are very few seats left. Even then, though, you have to make sure you take the lesser of two evils in choosing your companion.

If lack of room forces a mismatch there are still some rules to follow. The vigilantes watch very closely that you don’t use the swaying of the bus to play knees with your seating partner. So keep those legs (and arms and shoulders and all) well under control on the comers, even if it means leaning against the sway like a yachtsman in a high wind. In the days before the smoking ban, it seems, people were polite about mismatches. Even a woman at the back of the bus could expect a man to offer her a seat, even if she was usurping his place. Now, though, the conventions are enforced much more rigidly. Once, if you found yourself sitting in the wrong seat and the person next to you resented it and snowed you so by refusing to let you have your fair share of the seat, the whole situation could be sorted out quickly. You raised yourself slightly, smoothed your coat or something then sat down again. Your partner would then slide over fractionally. Then the whole process was repeated a few times until you had enough seat. It’s a different story now. The same response is met with absolutely no movement from the other occupant. So what do you do? The required thing is to move to another seat, but tjie gloating looks are too much to bear, and such retreat is the ultimate shame—not only are you wrong but you have shown that you know it. If you decide you are going to stay, the only answer is to raise yourself a little, then, with a good backswing, thump the other person with your hip. It doesn’t actually move them but it lets them know you are in no mood to be mucked around, and usually gets. the desired result, although the reproach from the other passengers is awesome in intensity. Of course, there is always the chance that the other person might do just the same to you and a bumping war develops. All other things being equal, the newcomer will win because the person nearest the window hasn’t got enough room for a good backswing. It is advisable that you take into account the size of the other person before attempting this method of attack. The thin young man I saw try it on a stout matron finished up in the seat across the aisle—where two people were sitting already. All this seems to be peculiar to Christchurch buses. Recently I was in Wellington and one night on the unit a middle-aged woman sat down beside me (young man) while there were plenty of spare seats around. Nobody stared reproachfully. No-one took any notice at all as far as I could see. But as a matter of fact, she was a dirty old woman.