To the asshole riding the 6 today

Dear sir,

I know riding the subway is hard. The trains, you know - they move, they stop and start and sometimes the cars move side to side too, sometimes there are lots of people and strollers and grocery bags and crazy people and all sorts of entertaining and distracting things to look at. Welcome to the snapshot of New York, etc. etc., whatever, we've all heard it all. It's always an adventure: it starts the minute you swipe your card and push through the turnstiles, when the artificially-stale air blows your hair back to signal an approaching train, when people lean dangerously out over the tracks to look for the express. I know I know, the subway is awesome, and for a lot of people it's a daily trek.

You want to know what makes my day and my commute even better? Assholes like you. The kind who pretend to be drunk as an excuse to "fall" on me when the car jerks suddenly. I know you're larger and heavier and stronger than I am, I don't need an actual physical reminder of the fact, thanks though. And then you squish yourself next to me, closer than you should - the kind of closeness that's really only permissible on really, really packed trains, and then etiquette dictates that you keep your hands to yourself and your eyes down. You? You did neither of these things, on a half-empty train, and I'm sorry, but your feigned drunkenness fools no one, especially not me. You ignore my cues - I shrink in on myself, pull my purse onto my lap like it'll keep you away from my body, curl in my shoulders and bow my head until the position is almost fetal - all in an effort to move myself away from you, and then I start counting how many stops until I can get off the train. It's a pretty goddamn clear message, I think, but do you get it? No, of course not.

You know what you do instead, of course. You start talking, loudly, to your friend - who's still standing and looking around the car with an embarrassed half-sheepish expression, an unspoken apology for your behavior that does nothing for me - about how much you like women. About how many, you know, fucking hot girls (your words) there are on this train, you know, man? And how you're going to get fucked up tonight (again, your words), and how much you just wanna get some chicks, you get me? (also your words), and several other choice phrases I don't care to repeat, all while you're pressed right up against my side. I don't know what's worse, honestly: either you think I'm stupid enough to have my iPod turned up so loud it blocks the ambient noise around me (of course not, do I look dumb? no, I look fucking hot, in my black pants and black jacket, thanks ever so), or you want me to hear what you're saying. Either way it makes you an asshole, a predator, and it makes you the reason for my pissy mood on an otherwise-alright Friday.

People like you remind me why I appreciate New York in the winter, the fall and the spring. Because for all you rubbed up on me this evening, you never touched my skin - for which I am eternally grateful, because if you had I'd be in the shower right now scrubbing off your touch with steel wool and bleach. You don't even win the award for the biggest pig I've ever encountered on the subway - but you do win the award for the person who most ruined my day today, and that would mean a lot more if you had seen what I was dealing with at work this afternoon. I'm really glad I was permitted to pay $2.25 for the pleasure of being something pretty for you to look at. You asshole.

I always wonder what exactly is the point - do you do it just because you can? Am I supposed to feel flattered, to feel special? Am I supposed to treat it like a come-on and give you my number? Is it supposed to make me feel insignificant and unimportant and downtrodden? It makes me feel none of those things, you realize - it just makes me mad, because this is 2011, I am not a thing, I am in charge of my own body and you can just fuck right off, please. The worst part, of course, is that this encounter is filed under the "not so bad" incidents of my life and the overall female experience. It's truly lovely.

To everyone else on the train - thanks for lowering your eyes and thinking, At least he isn't bothering me. To myself - way to stand up for yourself, maybe one day you'll grow a pair large enough to do something besides make yourself smaller and to not lower your eyes when it happens to someone else; I have no illusions about my hypocrisy here. To American society - what the fuck makes us think something like this is okay?

Love,
me