”Silence is golden, or is it?”

It was exactly the morning of the 26th of October 2005, it was a Wednesday, and it was also my 3rd day in Sweden. There I was, off to tackle the horizons and look for a school in which I could pursue my studies in. Fundamentals came in first, I got train coupons and trotted along the empty tram platform in Årstaberg. I then resided in sitting inside the tram hoping to somehow chat with someone casually. The tram was jam packed with people who were off to their respective destinations for the day. It wasn’t even 5 minutes into the ride that I was struck with a sudden unfamiliarity. At first I couldn’t put my finger on the unseen disturbance until I finally realized that there was the absence of the usual sounds of rush hour. Everything was almost there, the tram motor wheezing, the sound of newspaper pages brushing against each other, but there was one missing humane element, voices, there were none.

There was no living soul in that train that was engaged in any form of conversation, everyone was either occupied with reading the newspaper or was simply staring at a particular point that dodges the glances of other people. I looked around a bit more and saw the same situation all over the tram, it surely was something that fascinated me in some sense. Eventually I learned to play along with the ‘trend’, I’ve mastered techniques of glancedodging and silence. Every now and then I see people who do exceed expectations and involve themselves in smalltalk, oftentimes, these people are immediately perceived ‘weird’ if not completely insane, the only time I hear proper ‘trainchats’ between strangers are during Friday and Saturday evenings, it’s either a drunk conversation or a hook-up. Nothing casual.

I personally think it wouldn’t hurt to greet a passing stranger or ask a random person about his/her day during a 20 minute train ride, who knows, you might just make someone’s day a little bit better.