A Better Alex, stage 2: ASC Journal

[apollolux]

Posting here to note a pretty unique occurrence for me.

As I was on the train this morning to head to school a man sat next to me. This man looked a bit disheveled and people reacted to him as if he were homeless. He had a cane which he put on his lap and it started poking me. I nudged the cane away as I said to him "excuse me, your cane is poking me." He begins talking to me but I could not understand the words he was saying; his speech was garbled likely because he was missing teeth. The assumption I made based on how I attempted to interpret what he was saying was that he was telling me about how other people treat him like he is less than a person or not even there. I told him a couple of times that "I would like to have a conversation with him but I could not understand the words he was saying as his speech was garbled." He looked like he understood as I continued to stare at him directly in the eyes, my face feeling like I had a somewhat sad/neutral/soft(?) expression to it. I got off the train at my stop and reassured him that I would have liked to have understood what he was saying. I got the vibe that he might have even been a veteran.

I would have never had this interaction before ASC. I would likely have done my best to ignore this guy, maybe even going so far as to move to another car. This is the second such recent interaction on a train to school, the first being some guy who was heading all the way to Queens (a 1.5-2 hour train ride from the station he got onto the train from) to pick up a paycheck because his car was in the shop and during the train ride talked loudly about people being afraid after the Paris terrorist attacks.