Boredom on the bus

A few days ago, while riding the bus home, I had the displeasure of sitting in front of a particularly irritating gentleman. I fear I won't entirely do him justice without a full scale tirade, but I'll hold back this time and just mention that he had an unfortunate habit of loudly sucking his tongue against his teeth, every 3-5 seconds, all the way from SFU to East Van. God, it was awful. The annoyance I felt towards this man (which, by Kootenay Loop or so, had escalated into a rage of sorts) reminded me of something Simmel wrote about the metropolitan individual's aversion to others, which he refers to as a "mutual strangeness." He says that, despite our assumed indifference, "our minds respond, with some definite feeling, to almost every impression emanating from another person." Well, I was certainly responding to this one – somehow he broke into my sphere of indifference.

Generally, when I am in a place that involves a large number of potentially irritating strangers, I do a fairly good job of affecting what Simmel might call a blasé attitude, a total lack of interest. The daily 135 bus ride is different, though. I am quite irritable on that particular bus – sometimes I grow to hate people simply because of their facial expressions or back packs or because they sit next to me (the nerve!). This makes me wonder – does my 135-bad-temper have something to do with boredom? Is it some very peculiar way of entertaining myself for those 45 long minutes every day? Sure, "Dr. Computer Plus" and "Loss Control for Pee and Poo" are funny signs, but only about the first hundred times you see them – after that, you have to find new sources of entertainment. For those of us who get car sick and as such can't fill the "enforced leisure" with a book, what better way to pass the time than to get good and indignant?

An aside, or, rather, a slight change of topic: for me, the persistence of the 135 bus ride in my life troubles the distinction between situational and existential boredom. My commute is a very small part of my day, and it makes sense that my extreme aversion to it stems from situational boredom…but is there some deeper level of situational boredom when the situation repeats day after day after day? I think of the poor souls who have to battle the suburban traffic jams every day (the opening scene of Office Space, perhaps?)…the boredom of the commute is undeniably an integral part of these people's lives; it's inescapable! So, do these hours spent on the bus or in the car constitute a deeper antipathy than your average situational boredom? Have our daily commutes altered our conceptions of boredom?