Meeting a stranger at the bus stop (London)

I was waiting for a bus opposite my house when an African woman took the initiative in greeting me without our having made eye contact.  

London is generally a stranger-friendly place: people who happen to have made eye contact with you in the street or on the bus/Tube will smile instantly, spontaneously.  Unlike in Singapore where my own experience is that the default is a glum almost-hostile look if your eyes happen to meet, never mind if you were to actually smile at them which will be treated with suspicion.  (Except, I’d noticed in my visits over the last two decades or so, older Chinese people fresh from mainland China who are ever so keen to be accepted or to make friends — or just happy to be allowed into Singapore as an immigrant, so popular it seems to have become.)

It’s usually old people who are keen to talk to strangers, but this African lady is not that old — I’d say in her 50s.  So I guessed that she must be a visitor.  Sure enough, she turned out to be from South Africa, asking me how to get to Manor House Tube station on foot.  I said I’d go with her as the weather was sunny and pleasant.

She commented on the rain we’d had the last few days, saying what a relief it was not to have all that deluge.  I said, coming from Singapore, I’m ever conscious of not having enough water, as we still import our water from Malaysia and pay for every drop.  I asked her about the water situation in S.Africa, which then got moved on to how she absolutely hates wasting food — another pet hate of mine, it so happens.

So the half-mile (3-bus-stop) walk to Manor House turned out to be taken by two like-minded strangers.  As we were parting, I asked her for her name, to add it in when saying how much I'd enjoyed meeting her.

Her name?  One guess.  (Yes, same as mine!)

(London, 2023)