It took me four tube trains before I plucked up the courage to talk to someone. I’ve got to say, striking up a conversation with a stranger on the tube is a lot more intimidating than I’d expected. On the walk to the tube station, I’d come up with what I thought was a fool-proof script for starting a conversation that I’d begin after catching another standing passenger’s eye. “Going anywhere interesting?” I’d say. “Work” (or something boring) they’d reply. “Let’s not talk about that then,” I’d say, hilariously. “What about you, where are you going?” they’d naturally ask. “I’m flat-hunting. I’m new to London you see. Do you have any tips for me?” and so it would go on.

As soon as I set foot in the carriage, I knew that’s not how it would go down. For a start, no-one else was standing. Second, anyone whose eye I caught looked at me in such a disdainful, almost withering way that I had to look away immediately. I ended up standing in the doorway, looking at my feet, hoping for more friendly looking people to get on. None did. Not disturbing your fellow tube travellers, I realised, is a real social convention and absolutely no-one breaks it, unless they have an express purpose, which I didn’t (or unless alcohol is involved, of course, which it wasn’t). I’m not a shy person, but I’m no manic extravert either. Maybe I’m too British for this, I began to think. I felt like I was about to strip to my underwear in front of the other passengers. While keeping my socks on.

So I bravely decided that observation was the better part of valour and took a few more journeys up and down the Northern Line to acclimatise to the environment and psyche myself up. I was not going to let myself go home without having talked to someone, goddamn it. I’d already put this off for two days. I just needed to talk to one person and then I’d lose the fear. There were a couple of times I was just ready to do it, had an angle worked out in my head. After the next station, I’d think. Both times, my target got off at that stop.

Eventually, I got on a southbound train and sat down inbetween an blonde older woman, maybe a bit over 65 (I’m quite bad at estimating age though I think), playing solitaire on her phone, looking down her nose at it in that slightly suspicious way older people often look at technology and a man intently reading on a Kindle. The man looked quite engrossed and had headphones in so the woman it was. She didn’t look too scary either, bit of a kindly granny type, with one of those wrinkly granny mouths, but by no means past it. “Hi” I said, turning to her. She didn’t respond, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. “Excuse me,” I said in a friendly but louder voice. She looked up from her phone, looking a little surprised. I explained that I’d been travelling around on the tube a lot today (true) and was bored (terrified) and asked if she minded if I chatted to her. I think the tiny sound that came out of her mouth was a “No,” which I took to mean “No I don’t mind”. I told her I was new to London and asked if she had any tips. She shook her head, looking more alarmed than surprised now. In for a penny, I thought, and kept talking. For a while, I didn’t think she was going to say anything at all. I had expected this would happen sooner or later but on the first try? Gradually though, she started to open up into monosyllabic answers, and then into what could be described as awkward conversation. I did most of the talking, but it was a conversation.  “You don’t have much of an accent,” she commented when I told her where I was from, adding “Fast trains [to there] aren’t they?” It didn’t get much past this but I had done it, and by the time she got off a few minutes later (looking a bit relieved) she waved goodbye politely.

But I was on a roll now, and besides felt a bit stupid just sitting there after the other passengers had heard me tell her I was bored and wanted to talk. Still, none of them looked particularly up for it. Luckily a short-haired skinny young guy, maybe late 20’s, wearing a polo shirt and tracky bottoms who had been talking animatedly to his friend came and took the woman’s place, his heavily set mate going further down the carriage for a seat. Thinking he might have seen me talking to the woman, I just turned to him and asked straight up “Have you got any tips for a new Londoner?” He reacted completely differently and turned to me, instantly engaged “Hmm, I dunno,” he said, thinking about it hard before shouting to his mate down the carriage “Jim! Any tips?” Jim didn’t have any, so I gave him a little prompting: places to live, how to get a job…? “Well, it’s all drinking, innit?” he replied cryptically in his thick Essex lad accent. He was easy to talk to, however, and this got us onto my interview for a bar job that afternoon, as well as other drinking spots. Get off at Charing Cross and make your way to Leicester Square or head for the “Saafbank, na’at ah mean?” was his recommendation, although he said he always had to get the train home early because he lived out towards Dartford. It’s going to take me a while to get used to the accents down here and I didn’t catch what he did for a living or have time to follow it up as he certainly didn’t need much prompting once he got going. I laughed along to his negatively defined assessment of festivals – “All that living in a field, shitting in a box, it’s not for me” – and music – “All the bands and indie stuff, it’s not really my cup of tea” – for a good 15 minutes, but although he talked a lot, he didn’t really have that much to say and I was a bit relieved myself when I parted ways with him and Jim at London Bridge. Still, I’m glad I spoke to him and, on reflection, actually got quite an insight into his life I suppose. I think I’ll have to make more effort to steer the conversation in interesting directions in the future though.

Nonetheless, both of my first two talk-ees, despite being very different people, showed that with a little encouragement people will open up and start talking on the tube. A social convention it may be, but I took a big step towards getting used to breaking it today, which is just as well as I’m going to be doing a lot more of it for this blog.