doodledee

The bus I usually ride to work in the morning starts its route just down the street from my house. This means that most mornings I'm the first one on the bus, so I get to pick the seat I want. I usually take one a couple rows back on the left side, because that's the side that faces Calhoun later during the trip.

It also means I get to observe how a bus fills with people.

It's more fun than it sounds.

What I've noticed is that up to a point the behavior is obvious and predictable: with few exceptions, everyone looks for their own seat. The exceptions are usually those rooted in the societal rules of seating, such as husband and wife, and perhaps two old ladies who are close friends.

The magic starts when all the seats have one person in them and somebody gets on the bus and has to make the awful decision about which stranger they are going to sit with. When it happens to you, it's never fun. When it happens to others, it's like a spectator sport.

Through careful observation, I've started to detect a few patterns:

• More often than not, a women boarding the bus will sit with a female stranger instead of a male stranger.
• More often than not, a dude boarding the bus will also sit with a female stranger rather than another dude stranger. Furthermore, initial observations seem to indicate that dudes will sit with the most attractive female available.
• Both males and females will normally double up near the front of the bus rather than look to the back. This rule sometimes takes precedence over the rules stated above.

It's also neat to watch people try and defend against the double-up. Some riders box out by sitting on the inside seat, effectively forcing someone to crawl over them if they want to share a seat. That can be messy. Others imploy more traditional techniques like the old 'newspaper on the seat next to you' or the 'coat on the seat next to you' or the 'mysterious spill that still looks wet on the seat next to you'. Some of those techniques are amazingly reliable.

Maybe I'm weird, but I'm kind of in the other boat. I like it when I'm picked. Not because I especially like sharing a seat or anything, rather, it's just reassuring to know that in a snap-judgment situation, a perfect stranger has deemed me the least gross and the least scary and - most importantly - the least likely to start a conversation with them.

Screw the rest of you kooks, I'm normal!