Why sit next to me?!?? (London)

 

Something that annoys me a bit is how people insist on sitting next to me on the bus, wherever I might be seated.  

The seat immediately behind the middle door is the most obvious: they want to be close to the door for getting off.

But I could be on the other side of the aisle (the far side from the door), and they’d still come and sit next to me, often making me move my bags of (food) shopping onto my lap.

Ditto if I were in the second seat behind the door.

Yesterday, I suddenly discovered the visual reason for this.

I was in the second seat behind the door, therefore not the most obvious one in terms of proximity to the door for disembarking.  A woman came and sat next to me in spite of there being only one woman in the seat behind the door, and only one man in the one the other side of the aisle.  

It was only then that I noticed how big the two Westerners are, taking up more than half the seat.  

It was something I’d only realised two months back, looking at a photo taken at a meal with my students.  I was shocked to see that, even standing up, I am barely taller than a student (from Malaysia, not a beefy Westerner) sitting down.  

Then, a classmate from RI (Raffles Institution) sent a compilation of photos from the last 40 years, and I saw that even against my Singaporean friends, I’m the smallest.

No wonder these people on the bus all want to sit with me: there’s a much bigger space next to this tiny Oriental.

(London)