Tag Archives: flirt

Top 10 Issues With Public Transit in Boston

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I’ve been commuting by public transportation in and around Boston for about a year now. While I still prefer it any day to driving through or around Boston during commuter hours, it’s a much less than perfect system. Here’s a list of some of my ‘favorite’ issues in the form of a top 10 list.

Enjoy.

10. The bus didn’t see you. The tried to drive right past you. Maybe they did drive right past you. You’re wearing a long bright red coat, but somehow you’ve turned invisible momentarily. These things happen.

9. There is a delay due to slippery rail, mechanical failure, residual mechanical failure, disabled train, disabled bus, signal problem, medical emergency, weather related problem, residual delay, switch problem, heavy ridership, police investigation, traffic, weather related slip, heavy ridership, etc. My favorite of these delay reasons is “late train”. How can you describe the reason as the problem? Why is the train late? The train is late due to a late train. Okay, that clears things up. Here’s a good question: what’s the difference between a “slippery rail” and a “weather related slip”? Easy, one is caused by the weather and the other is caused by…

…you don’t want to know.

8. Someone has BO, too much perfume, permanent cigarette scent, and any other funk that you must now deal with. Pretty much any noise related issue can be solved with headphones, but even if you carry around a close pin or fruit-scented spray, there’s no really no way to effectively deal with this one.

7. You can’t get in the train. You’ve been waiting what feels like forever and need to get to your destination soon (or just would really like to). Oh, good. Here’s the next train. It opens. It’s full. A few people get off. A few people get on. Sometimes one of those people is you, but that can be almost as bad as being left on the platform waiting for the next one. If you are waiting for the next one, hope that this doesn’t repeat…

6. People won’t wait for you to leave to train before they try to get on. They somehow are always surprised to see you there trying to exit. It’s not the second coming of Jesus, folks. You should expect every time a train comes that at least one person is going to be walking through the opening and off the train. After a year, I don’t stop in the doorway and say ‘excuse me’ anymore and wait for people to register what’s happening. I just walk forward and hope that I can part the red sea of morons well enough to get through. I may not be Moses, but I have pointy elbows. Every now and then, someone decides to play chicken and keep walking towards me as if I’m going to get out of their way so they can board. Sure. I’ll just stay on the train for another stop so that you may board sooner. That makes sense.

5. Doors sometimes open in the front only, sometimes they don’t. While this happens ALL THE TIME on the Green line, I also see this on busses, and there are a host of similar issues. You know on this stop that doors are supposed to open on both sides. Then they just don’t for some reason. Or maybe they do, but have a weird delay to add to your confusion. Hm, these doors won’t open. I’ll just turn around and use the other- oh, hey, now they’re opening. Do I turn back and use those or just keep going? Some of this might be policies for certain stops at certain times of day, but it’s random enough that I think it’s a whim, or a cruel experiment. If it’s an experiment, why don’t I get a bit of cheese after when I choose correctly?

A kind of conditioning that starts to happen. I know I need to rush to the front doors in this long train. I’m dozing off a little or reading- THERE’S MY STOP! I get up and rush towards the front-

Only to realize I’m now in the far back of the train.

I turn around and run to the other side feeling like an idiot.

On the commuter rail, or any really big train, who knows where the doors are going to open. After a year I finally feel like I know which way to walk to and what to stand in front of to get off before we pull up. It’s always the same, except when it’s not.

4. There’s nowhere to go if you catch a crazy persons eye. If you’re in a station or at a stop, you need to keep waiting there. If you’re on a train, the car isn’t that big. If you’re on the bus, it also is not that big. The other people around you aren’t going to help you. They don’t want to catch the crazy’s eye. Employees don’t want to deal with it if they even are around and see it. What can you do? I usually ignore people and become super engrossed in my phone, book, or anything other than them. If you ignore them, they will usually move on. The biggest mistake I see is people trying to be nice. You might as well jump into a shark tank and slice open your leg. I’ve seen more than one conversation quickly go from crazy to worse:

A guy is signing very badly, “Hey, miss, do you remember that song? Hey. Hey miss.”
She makes eye contact, “No. I don’t.”
He sings a bit more, “It’s a great song. I haven’t heard it in forever,” sings a bit more, “Where are you from?”
She answers where she’s originally from.
“Oh cool. Do you think I could sleep on your floor tonight? I won’t take up much space.”
“Um. No, sorry.”
“It’s cold out! Please!”

And now we all feel awkward, and terrible, and aren’t sure what to do.

Some of these people are high, drunk, crazy, and/or homeless.

A tactic I’ve been seeing a lot lately is a homeless guy getting on, and then once he’s on asking people for change for a commuter rail ticket to a specific place where there is a shelter (or something else). The close quarters and no where to go are in favor of this guy. I feel bad for him, but I also feel bad for all of the riders aggressively being approached. That’s just awkward for everyone.

Some of these people are just jerks with no real excuse.

On that note, as a woman, you can imagine that a lot of awkward flirting and pickup attempts are to be had when you’re just trying to get from point A to point B. Normally I’m good at ignoring sexual harassment, but I’ve fallen for awkward flirting that starts off as innocent, casual conversation. To any guy out there reading that has done this, I’m only riding this bus, train, etc. because I don’t have a personal teleportation device and my mutant flying powers have not yet manifested. If you’re looking to find someone, might I suggest joining some kind of group activity to meet people?

3. There isn’t one pass to rule them all, but they make it sound like there is. Let’s take a place like Back Bay station where you have the orange line MBTA train, and commuter rail AMTRAK trains in the same building. You see signs for Charlie Cards (the passes for MBTA trains and busses) everywhere along with an explanation for the fees. Isn’t it great that you can use the same thing for both the train AND the bus? Well, it doesn’t quite work like that. Commuter rail passes are different. You can’t use your Charlie card on the commuter rail. You need to know to buy your pass at the machine in the station, unless you have cash, but they’ll charge you more on the train if you do it that way.

Well. Wait. They’re different passes unless you have one that covers both.

Some monthly passes can cover both, but if you have one, it’s not a Charlie Card. This means you can’t just tap it on a card reader when trying to get on a bus or train, you need to take it out and feed it into a ticket taker. That’s only if you’re on a bus or the T. If you’re on the commuter rail train, you follow the amazing scientific system of waiting for a person to come around and look at it. They have no card reader. They just visually check it. I’ll also add that that commuter rail is way more expensive, so I’m sure a lot of people scam this system. It gets worse. Unlike your Charlie Card that you can register online and get replaced if lost, obviously the one that is easier to lose and super expensive is not. So getting a combination bus, T, and commuter rail monthly pass, even if it’s economical for how often you use them, you’re eventually going to screw yourself by losing it.

Lets not forget that if you’re in an area right outside Boston taking a bus, you can now often use a Charlie Card! Wait! If you have a monthly pass it won’t work.

I found out some of this the hard way, and I see people mess this up all the time. This is terrible when combined with our next item…

2. People making the rules and working there assume everyone knows what’s going on. What, you didn’t know that at certain hours during the day on this specific commuter rail line that the inbound and outbound tracks switch? Lol. You should have read the printer paper sized sign by the stairs you ran down to get to the platform. It’s really clear, if you actually saw it and already knew what was going on. There is also a notice buried somewhere on our website I think.

Also, we switched the track number of your train that you take every day. We didn’t announce it, or maybe we did, in a cut-off garbled message over the speaker. Whatever. It’s not that hard to figure out that you need to board on a different track all the sudden. And really, get with the program when we switch back. We didn’t let anyone know we were, but you should be happy that it’s going back the way you wanted it.

Bus service replaces T service on this part of this line on these specific dates and during these specific hours that aren’t really specific. We’re going to start out early every time so you can’t plan around it even if you know.

I know no one told you, but you need to buy your commuter rail passes at a station of get charged a trolling fee. I know not all places have a machine where you can do that, so we only charge for those that don’t unless we feel like being jerks.

We’re on holiday schedule today. What holiday is it? It’s famous dead white guy Monday or day before an actual holiday day. Who cares. You should know that and know that this only effects the T and busses, but not the MWRTA bus or the commuter rail you’re trying to take today. Have a nice day!

You should know. Everyone who has been taking public transit has for their whole lives and had these secrets passed down from their ancestors. If you’re dumb and brave enough to think that joining this elite group would be easy, well then think again! You may think we’re trying to make money just like any other business, but really we’re government funded. Okay, well, we’re not really exactly fully government funded- look, it’s complicated. The point is that we don’t care if we discourage people from riding by making it hard.

1. We changed the schedule and raised the fares, and we even let you know about it! We don’t really care if you can’t deal with that. You just call up your boss and say, “Hey boss, I know I need to be in at this time, but this stop was cut, so now I can’t get there until that time. You understand, right?”. Is the new price too much? Well just tell your boss, “Hey, I need a raise.” Actually, just suck it up, because it’s still cheaper than gas these days unless you aren’t driving very far. Just be thankful and eat less.

Getting Jealous and Trying to Get Jealousy

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I’m single now, but have been in long term relationships, one which was almost five years long. Even though been cheated on, abandoned, and I still don’t get the whole jealousy thing.

I don’t understand the purpose being jealous. Feeling threatened by other people or even (ahem) objects just shows a lack of trust in the other person and security with one self. It’s also a major turn off.

I equally don’t get it when other couples tip toe around, being careful not to make the other person jealous.

I’m not saying I haven’t done stupid things like neglected friendships when being in relationships. However, I have never thought to give up one on one encounters with people of the opposite sex just because of the status of being in a relationship. I (surprise) connect with guys. I enjoy their company in an entirely non-sexual way.

Many of them are gay and many of them have relationships of their own anyways. Sometimes I’m in a big group, and sometimes, one on one with a person. I don’t think you give up that right to have plans with your friends when you enter into a relationship, even if the friend is of the opposite sex and even if it’s just the you two doing something together. I have always been more likely to hang out with people one on one or in a very small group, so maybe that’s why I don’t see anything wrong with people keeping their other close knit friends no matter what their relationship status.

If anything, maybe a guy should take care with women having gay and bisexual women friends. It makes the same amount of sense.

If a boyfriend or husband ever tried to tell me to not hang out with someone, how would I handle it? I think I would have a hard time seeing their point of view, though I’d try. I’ve let guys come between be and friends too much in the past. There just has to be enough trust to allow that most important person in your life have other people be important in theirs. If your significant other isn’t worthy of your trust, what are you doing trusting them enough to be in any kind of relationship with you?

Do you worry about flirting? Anything can be flirting. Anything can be interpreted as flirting. Worrying about that is like worrying about a ‘your mom’ joke. It isn’t serious unless it’s serious, and really, how often is that?

I’d give any guy the same free reign I expect from them, to hang out with whoever. The guys who are going to cheat on me will whether or not I try to control their friendships. They are not worth keeping anyways. If I can’t trust someone without monitoring them, then I can’t trust them at all.

I guess the most important thing is to make sure you’re on the same page in a relationship. If you’re not, that could take some serious discussion. It’s probably a better discussion to have before hand than after the fact. Different people have different boundaries and limits, and for those to be respected, they have to be known first. Then, I guess, you can tackle the obstacle of trying to understand why and coming to some sort of understanding.

Phlirting

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Working tech support as a woman I think is mostly the same as for guys with a few very, very obnoxious, notable differences, one of the biggest being:

I get hit on. Yeah, over the phone. Ya, rly.

“So, where are you located? Oh. Really?”
I wish I made it up, cuz you’ve been kinda creepy this whole call.
“Oh, hey, my ex is from New England. I used to go on up in there all the time.”
Orly.
“Ever come down here?”
TWSS.
“No? You should come down here some time.”
Hah… yah… for crying out loud, I’m a voice on the phone!

I’ve been getting this since I started on the phones.

Yesterday I got a super long pause after my customary call ending question, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?” The laughter following the pause wasn’t any more of a comfort. “Well, uh… you COULD but it’s not related to this stuff.” Oh. No. You. Didn’t.

The other day one of the guys got told,

“So you like to hike? You ever hike up here? Oh, yeah, maybe I’ll run into some time.”

For a moment I thought, how sexist of me to assume that the guys didn’t get the creepy flirting stuff.

Then I was told that she had started the call with a thinly veiled threat about how he better help her, and knowing where we were located, and how she could come down here and ask for him if she didn’t get helped.

Yowza. That’s a bit scary. I can’t say that I get yelled at or threatened much. I guess I kind of prefer the awkwardness of phone flirting.

This post’s screen shot is from the Gameboy Advance release of Final Fantasy 6. “I’m tech support, not some 900 number phone operator!”

Communication Technology

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So, people have a hard enough time with regular socialization skills. Now with all the tiers of communicating, it’s a wonder anyone can keep up. It’s not just technology to master, otherwise geeks would be super-pro at socialization.

First there were people communicating at social gatherings and work.

Then there was phone.

Now there is *deep breath* AIMPhoneMSNICQCellPhoneMySpaceEmailFacebookBlogRTSTextMessageForumMMORPG *another breath* -you get the idea. You figure this would ease communication. We’d be super in touch with everyone all the time. No. Because there is no way someone is going to call you to tell you something important if they can text you even if you disabled text messaging because you’re either dirt poor or got sick of getting texts of “hi :)” (or both). Even though you told them in person that you blocked texting, they forgot and they don’t like talking on the phone. They’d rather enjoy Olympic button pressing and staring at a post-it sized screen for 5x the time it would take to say what they needed to. They scoff and think that if you really cared to keep in touch with them, you would enable texting so that you’d get that one important text out of 500. And don’t dare ask them to email you, because that’s *totally* not the same thing.

I once had a boyfriend who argued with me on the phone until I downloaded an instant messaging service to talk to him. It doesn’t matter that we had cell phones, texting, and SKYPE (back when you could dial out for free). This was his most comfortable way of communicating, so I better adapt. On some level, I can understand. You can minimize the other person, don’t need to listen to their tone of voice, can play your RTS or MMORPG, have both hands to type unlike a cell phone, and they don’t know if you got up to get a bagel or pee. On the other hand, we were kind of trying to be emotionally intimate. One other advantage of online messaging is that I still have logs from these chats. That’s what I need… a record of how much I don’t stand up for myself. Hindsight is supposed to at least be softened by memory, and here I have a .txt file showing how pathetic I can be.

Sure, check your email, but make sure you have your FacebookMySpaceLinkedInRandomNetworkingThingies configured to let you know when someone sends you a message on one of these websites. But usually, you can’t read it in your email. I go into my email, see I have something on facebook, and in facebook go to my wall or my inbox… TWO separate methods of communication in ONE networking tool that tells you through email.

Woe onto you who have more than one email. I have two… one that I have had since… before it was cool. The other I got in college and has forums for jobs and places to live and alumni and dialogs on campus and stuff for sale and calls for art. It also has instant messaging built in too… so instant messaging services open and go into your email with yet another instant messaging service and texting on the cell phone in your pocket that can also ring… I’m sorry if I haven’t got around to checking my other email in awhile.

We’re not at the sad part yet. Want to know what the sad part is..? I’m part of a generation who is used to it. Sure, I set my boundaries. I’m on facebook. I’m not getting MySpace too. I’m not enabling texting for the pope- if you’re at your cell, call me!

But I’m used to it to the point where it is ingrained in me as a socializing solution to my communication shortcomings. That’s right, I sometimes look for even more alternate forms of indirect communication… Sure, I could turn around and say something to the funny and good looking guy in my IT class who I’ve thought was pretty cool since the first class (even if he does have a girlfriend but who cares it’d just be nice to communicate). Or, instead risking getting giddy and giggling like an idiot, I’d could go run, cmd, net send…

But the instructor set his boundaries. Thou shall not abuse net send or I shall disable it. Don’t make me do it.

And then people started writing batch files that sent net sends by the hundreds… and logged into other computers with remote desktop to say ‘it wasn’t me’… and flirted using poetic computer based metaphor (Oh, wait, that was just me… and him… as far as I know).

It’s ridiculous, and I realize it. I looked myself in the eye reflecting in the monitor and made a decision.

I asked for his cell number in the parking lot. *cheers* Score one for the communication revolution! At some point in the future, we will hang out and communicate outside of class- in person!

…now I just need to call it …and stop giggling at everything he says to me in person. Yes, even I- currently rated number three most confident on the compare people face book application of all my facebook friends who also have said application- can get shy. (see documentation above)

With all the additional ways to communicate and keep in touch with people, it’s true, we still don’t know how to communicate with other human beings. The opposite sex… oh, forget about that. This isn’t Star Trek you know. We don’t have the technology.

Follow up posts:
Communication Revolution: Quashed!
Wednesday Night