I Respect Spontaneity

[sageb1]

At first I debated putting this post in Mens, but because it's actually my opinion and concerns women it'll go here until a mod decides where it's best placed.

Anyway, here's my rant:

Until an Asian woman can spontaneous start a conversation with a man without prompting, especially when studying English in America or Canada at ESL school, though, I see no real friendliness in Vancouver, BC Canada yet.

FWIW I respect a person for being able to start a conversation with a complete stranger.

In my experience, I have to wonder about Vancouver. It's sad when a woman from Halifax who is white is spontaneous on a bus where about one half the passengers are women (out of about 40). Not surprisingly, most of the other 19 women are Asian and are local. WTF.

Yes, I understand that it is polite not to strike up a conversation on a bus due to the fact that most people are either coming or going to work, may be tired after a long day and/or drunk.

However, chatting with strangers will not threaten one's safety and security.

Sometimes Vancouver seems like an unfriendly place, at least on public transit.

Can anyone relate?

[monkeygone2]

what does talking to a stranger on the bus have to do w/ "spontaneity"?
you're not on a date.

on the subway in ny, you look straight ahead. give up your seat for anyone pregnant, don't sneeze in anyone's face.

[eos]

^same in chicago. i usually just stand, with my ipod on, so i DON'T get roped into conversation. i already have a hard time dealing with leers and stares and don't need anyone following me after i get off at my stop. i'm riding the subway to get somewhere, not for fun.

[rice cracker]

Seriously, do not talk to me in a mass transit environment. I think anyone who tries to "mingle" on the fucking metro is a psycho murdering rapist. Or a homeless con man. Or a combination of both, out to rape, murder AND steal from me after wasting my time with a stupid conversation.

[Craig]

I've talked to people that I didn't know in a public transit environment in multiple places in the US (and people have talked to me). I didn't go out of my way to do it most of the time, but if there was a reason or somebody talked to me I was usually friendly enough.

[Adaon]

At first I debated putting this post in Mens, but because it's actually my opinion and concerns women it'll go here until a mod decides where it's best placed.

Anyway, here's my rant:

Until an Asian woman can spontaneous start a conversation with a man without prompting, especially when studying English in America or Canada at ESL school, though, I see no real friendliness in Vancouver, BC Canada yet.

FWIW I respect a person for being able to start a conversation with a complete stranger.

In my experience, I have to wonder about Vancouver. It's sad when a woman from Halifax who is white is spontaneous on a bus where about one half the passengers are women (out of about 40). Not surprisingly, most of the other 19 women are Asian and are local. WTF.

Yes, I understand that it is polite not to strike up a conversation on a bus due to the fact that most people are either coming or going to work, may be tired after a long day and/or drunk.

However, chatting with strangers will not threaten one's safety and security.

Sometimes Vancouver seems like an unfriendly place, at least on public transit.

Can anyone relate?

Personally, I'm not on the bus to make friends. I'm going somewhere, usually with friends, especially if I'm on the bus. Otherwise, I drive my lazy arse around.

And what does having to attend ESL classes have to do with anything?

I've met plenty of folk in high school who would openly try and speak to myself and the non-Asian folks in our classes.

Culturally, I doubt that Asian folks who just emigrated and started taking English classes are that willing to jump right into a conversation unless they have to, much less to it for fun in public.

If you're new to the area, and trying to find out more to a place, and go out and throw yourself out there and expose yourself (not literally) to people, you can't expect strangers to open up to you with open arms. Pretty unrealistic, in my mind.

[CBC guy]

At first I debated putting this post in Mens, but because it's actually my opinion and concerns women it'll go here until a mod decides where it's best placed.

Anyway, here's my rant:

Until an Asian woman can spontaneous start a conversation with a man without prompting, especially when studying English in America or Canada at ESL school, though, I see no real friendliness in Vancouver, BC Canada yet.

FWIW I respect a person for being able to start a conversation with a complete stranger.

In my experience, I have to wonder about Vancouver. It's sad when a woman from Halifax who is white is spontaneous on a bus where about one half the passengers are women (out of about 40). Not surprisingly, most of the other 19 women are Asian and are local. WTF.

Yes, I understand that it is polite not to strike up a conversation on a bus due to the fact that most people are either coming or going to work, may be tired after a long day and/or drunk.

However, chatting with strangers will not threaten one's safety and security.

Sometimes Vancouver seems like an unfriendly place, at least on public transit.

Can anyone relate?

Are you sure you really want the people on the bus in SURREY of all places talk to you? :biggrin: :wink:

On the skytrain, unless I know you well, please don't talk to me God I have enough to worry about.

[sageb1]

I detect a lot of paranoia on mass transit these days. Maybe it's a symptom of anti-social behavior or something. IDK.

Is this why most of you desire to buy a car?

The response I got to my post tells me that the unconscious reaction to spontaneity on a bus or other form of mass transit is to mentally run away screaming about some weird and creepy psycho.

Budes, I assure you most mentally ill and homeless people on public transit are no harm to others as long as you implicitly mark your boundaries when conversing with them.

This is why after talking with a stranger at a bus stop, the first rule is "Never sit beside each other to continue the conversation."

The second rule is, "Never continue any conversation you had with any stranger when disembarking from a bus or other form of mass transit."

However, the prime rule for safe mass transit is "Always watch your back on the way home."

[sageb1]

Another rule is, "If it's late at night (after 11 pm), and you have friends or family, then get a ride from the nearest exchange home."

[Adaon]

It's not really spontaneity any more if you do it at every bus stop/bus you go to.

Generally, even the most extraverted people I know don't feel the need to express themselves to anyone while getting from point A to point B.

[Craig]

Generally, even the most extraverted people I know don't feel the need to express themselves to anyone while getting from point A to point B.Well, perhaps they'd be more likely to talk if they weren't using public transit in San Francisco.

[Adaon]

Well, perhaps they'd be more likely to talk if they weren't using public transit in San Francisco.

Where you're more than likely to not get a response in English, or even a verbal response at times. LOL. Touche, Craig, Touche =)

SAMTrans and AC Transit never seemed too fun, either though.

BART looks like a good friendlier place to make with a chat.

Check out Http://www.emotioneric.com, and look up the look he made for the question "Does this make me look fat?"

I used to commute from San Francisco to Oakland on BART, to go to community college.

As it was about an hour on the train, I'd usually take a nap on the train in the mornings there, after I stumbled out of bed and dragged myself to the station.

During one particular nap, I woke up to feel some weight on my lap and chest, and was about to slug whoever was climbing on me, when I saw it was lil girl. Apparently the toddler had crawled out of her stroller and climbed into my lap and pulled off my glasses for fun. Her mom was talking to a friend, and didn't notice until I woke up and sort of screeched. Apparently, the lil one liked climbing into her dad's lap and steal his glasses when he was napping too, so she figured it'd be okay with me. I got to see lil Natalie and her mom regularly because of their frequent trips to visit grandma and pappy, so I'd find myself pseudo baby sitting her while mom took a nap or had a conversation with her friend/sister.

Sometimes Jackie's companions (Natalie's mom) would ask how we met and how they could trust me, and she'd shrug it off and say that Natalie "knew" who was safe and who wasn't.

Makes me wonder where they're at now, think she's a kindergartener or first grader now.

Nice guy vibe for the win!!

But yeah, that's SUCH a random and unlikely thing to occur again.

[Craig]

Where you're more than likely to not get a response in English, or even a verbal response at times. LOL. Touche, Craig, Touche =)

SAMTrans and AC Transit never seemed too fun, either though.

BART looks like a good friendlier place to make with a chat.

Check out Http://www.emotioneric.com, and look up the look he made for the question "Does this make me look fat?"

I used to commute from San Francisco to Oakland on BART, to go to community college.

As it was about an hour on the train, I'd usually take a nap on the train in the mornings there, after I stumbled out of bed and dragged myself to the station.

During one particular nap, I woke up to feel some weight on my lap and chest, and was about to slug whoever was climbing on me, when I saw it was lil girl. Apparently the toddler had crawled out of her stroller and climbed into my lap and pulled off my glasses for fun. Her mom was talking to a friend, and didn't notice until I woke up and sort of screeched. Apparently, the lil one liked climbing into her dad's lap and steal his glasses when he was napping too, so she figured it'd be okay with me. I got to see lil Natalie and her mom regularly because of their frequent trips to visit grandma and pappy, so I'd find myself pseudo baby sitting her while mom took a nap or had a conversation with her friend/sister.

Sometimes Jackie's companions (Natalie's mom) would ask how we met and how they could trust me, and she'd shrug it off and say that Natalie "knew" who was safe and who wasn't.

Makes me wonder where they're at now, think she's a kindergartener or first grader now.

Nice guy vibe for the win!!

But yeah, that's SUCH a random and unlikely thing to occur again.In the South Bay (Sunnyvale) I talked to people (and vice versa) working at my company (Lockheed) the other companies (Yahoo, Juniper, SanDisk, etc.) a number of times. Quite frequently I talked to other people with Masters or PHD degrees, so not really a threatening situation. Old Chinese people frequently also talked to me thinking I could answer questions related to them getting to Cupertino Village, etc. (it was on the route). However, lots of times people just ask questions asking about how to get someplace, etc. and just chatted out of boredom.

As far as the community college, that was a very good place to talk to people also. Maybe it was the situation of me being in Austin (Texas), and the logistics of the bus system, but it was quite common to talk to other students and even sometimes outsiders. However, if you are with other people chatting it may work to scare off some of the girls from talking to you (or potentially be used as an opener to hit on some other girls). As far as BART, from my limited experience I probably wouldn't initiate chatting with others there, but that's me.

Lots of babies like to grab eyeglasses. Babies are probably more in tune with sound intonations and body language than most adults, ... So they are more apt to be able to determine if somebody were to become threatening quite quickly. While there are a lot of undesirables on the public transit system, it's also a system that has lots of decent people.

[Dimeron]

I have meet many people who talk to random strangers on the bus.

Most of them are either crazy or really really drunk.

Bus stop is another story though.