The Quiet Agreement Between Strangers

There's a peculiar arrangement we enter into when we sit opposite a stranger on a train. For the next hour or so we may share a table, knock knees occasionally and become familiar enough with each other's belongings to notice if something gets left behind. Yet neither of us is under any obligation to acknowledge that the other person exists.

I rather like that.

I noticed these two while travelling and it was the similarity that caught my attention. Both reading, both wearing glasses, both completely absorbed in whatever was happening on the page. They were sitting close enough to have a conversation without raising their voices, but neither appeared remotely interested in starting one.

There was no awkwardness either. That's the important bit. They seemed perfectly comfortable sharing the same small space while being mentally somewhere else entirely.

We're quite good at this in Britain. Put two strangers opposite each other on public transport and we'll develop an entire system of cooperation without speaking. Bags move when necessary. Legs are repositioned. Someone gets up to let the other person pass. There might even be a brief smile, although obviously there's no need to get carried away.

Reading makes the arrangement even easier. A book is one of the most socially acceptable ways of saying, "I'm perfectly happy here, but there's really no need for us to become involved."

I made the photograph because the balance of the scene caught my eye, but looking at it afterwards I became more interested in the behaviour. Street photography and documentary photography often work that way for me. The photograph starts with something visual, then later I notice the little human things going on underneath it.

Neither person is doing anything remarkable. In fact, almost nothing is happening, which is probably why I like it. We tend to think photographs need an event, an expression or some perfectly timed piece of chaos to justify themselves. Quite often I'm more interested in the bits between all that.

Most of life happens there anyway.

There's also something slightly odd about sitting inches away from another human being while reading about people who don't exist. We'll happily spend three hours getting emotionally involved with the problems of a fictional stranger while doing everything possible to avoid accidentally making eye contact with the real one opposite us.

When you put it like that, reading on a train is quite an antisocial activity.

A very civilised one, though.