“We engage in all sorts of behavior to avoid others, pretending to be busy, checking phones, rummaging through bags, looking past people or falling asleep. Sometimes we even don a ‘don’t bother me face’ or what’s known as the ‘hate stare’.”
- Avoid eye contact with other people
- Sit on the aisle seat and turn on your iPod so you can pretend you can’t hear people asking for the window seat
- Look out the window with a blank stare to look crazy
- Pretend to be asleep
“Ultimately this nonsocial behavior is due to the many frustrations of sharing a small public space together for a lengthy amount of time,” concluded Kim. “Yet this deliberate disengagement is a calculated social action, which is part of a wider culture of social isolation in public spaces.”
Apparently this is common behavior on a bus. Oh, but I’m the weirdo for doing those things everywhere I go?