social dynamics

Last night, I was riding home on the subway, and I found myself seated near a young man who was listening to some sort of music playing device. He was listening to some [[suggestive]] rap and hip-hop rather loudly, and without headphones. I caught the eye of another passenger seated directly across the aisle from the music-listener. Visibly very irritated, he rolled his eyes and made an offhand comment about why headphones were invented. I nodded my head in agreement as I pulled out my own iPod with headphones in an attempt to block out the obnoxious noise.

The irritated passenger continued to make comments about the music and the lack of headphones, although he never spoke directly to the obnoxious young man in question. And said young man never even flinched or acted as though he heard any of the comments.

Two or three stops down the way, the irritated passenger stood to get off of the train. As he did, he finally spoke directly to the music-listener, although due to my own headphones I didn’t hear what he said.

Other passengers continued to get on and off of the train. Upon noticing the very loud music of the young man, all of them appeared to roll their eyes, or look disgusted at the obvious lack of subway etiquette this young man was displaying. The two ladies seated just to the other side of me made comments about parents no longer teaching proper manners, and seemed to make a somewhat unrelated comment about hygiene.

I, and other passengers contined to throw him dirty, disgusted looks, but the young man couldn’t even see us as he was leaned forward with his head down. Even all this while, I rehearsed in my head a mini-conversation whereby i would tap the young man on his shoulder and ask him cordially to turn down his music.

Each time I’d nearly worked up the nerve to actually do it, I stopped myself, thinking how out of place it would be for me to request that he turn down his music, when I couldn’t even hear it with my own headphones on. And so I would sit back and hope that someone else would say something. And I would again rehearse in my head the conversation, and stop myself, and again would hope.

As each stop went by and more passengers got on, the obnoxious young man continued to sit and listen to his music, oblivous to anyone else at all; the tension in the car grew so thick it could be cut with a knife. And surely there were others like me, rehearsing in their heads a confrontation with the young man in order to get him to turn the music off; yet no one said anything.

Finally my stop came, and I nearly ran out of the train to get away from the building tension. More than his music–which was actually music i wouldn’t mind listening to under other circumstances, and couldn’t even hear through my own headphones–more than his music, it was the tension in the car from all the passengers who surely wanted to strangle the obnoxious young man that I ran from. It was stifling.

And yet, since that first irritated passenger, no one said a thing. It puzzled me. Why would so many people rather sit in tense silence pierced only by the bass beat of some song about ho’s, blunts, and a cadillac, than simply ask that it be turned down, or off, and relax?

On a similar note, after I left the subway, I walked to the door of my building only to find a small crowd of people smoking cigarettes directly in front of the door. Once again, I noticed people other than myself who were obviously irritated by this (which is, in actuality, against the law, especially in new york city) and yet no one said anything about having to walk through a nicotine cloud on their way into the building. I just find it curious the length of discomfort that people (myself included) will go through in order to avoid conflict