Here’s a commuter dilemma I’ve wondered about more than once.
You’re on the train home. Your stop is approaching.
The people from your station rise. They put on coats, if it is that time of year. They fold up newspapers and seal up bags.
You see a guy from your stop that you’ve been seeing for years, though custom dictates that you do not say hello. (For a delicious treatise on this bizarre commuter custom, check out what Ted Berg has to say here.) He’s sleeping. Or he’s engrossed in a particularly compelling book.
Either way, he’s making no effort to exit at your stop.
Do you give him the courtesy tap on the shoulder? Keep in mind, you’ve never met him, never spoke to him, perhaps do not care to meet him.
Or do you leave him alone, assuming, well, maybe he had to drop his dog off at the dog-sitter’s and parked at a different station–even if it means the dude pulls an Accidental Tourist and has to cab it back to his home station?
Happened to me yesterday.
I left the dude to keep reading all the way to Pleasantville.