Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Observations from the P Train

Today, I write about one of the differences between men and women. Now, if you are among those who believe that men and women are psychologically the same, let me defend myself before getting your undergarments of choice in a twist. I firmly believe that this difference is a result of men having years of training in a related area that women have not. If women grew up with this same training, I am confident this difference would not exist. But it does (or at least it appears to based on my scientific process of noticing it from time to time), so I'm going to write about it.

The difference that has come to my attention is that men are significantly better at choosing seats on the subway than women.

First, let's look at an example of where men sit on a subway car. For the sake of simplicity, let's say there is only one group of seats (even though there are really more). The same principles apply to actual seating arrangements, but it's easier to discuss this way. When the first man walks in, he sits at one end of the seats. The next man will then sit at the opposite end. If a third man comes in, he sits in the exact middle. If more come in, they sit in the middle of the longest section of open seats, until there is only a single seat separating each man. If another man comes in at this point, he stands and waits until there is a 3-seat opening for him to sit in the middle of.

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule. First, there's the close friend exception. If a man is with a close friend, they can use the seats directly next to each other (but only if that is the only way they can both sit, and only if doing so still allows for a buffer between the friends and anyone else). The second exception is the crowded exception. If a train starts to get crowded, men can fill in the buffer seats, but if they do under no circumstances do they look directly at the person next to them. This exception is used only when it starts to get noticeably crowded; if there's just a few extra guys, they stand.

Women sit... I don't know. I haven't noticed any real pattern. Some will follow the same pattern as the males. I assume that these are long time New Yorkers who have learned the right place to go. But sometimes they'll sit one seat away from the edge, making the edge seat completely useless. It's quite aggravating.

So let this be a friendly reminder: space is precious, so spread out and make it easy for everyone else to do the same.

3 comments:

  1. so we get this training from YEARS of urinal usage. The same principle applies to where you go when having to pee...

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  2. Yes, that was the "years of training in a related area" that I was referring to

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  3. JAJAJA you're so right! I sit anywhere. I try not to sit right next to someone, but if sitting at least one seat away means sitting one seat from the edge i might do that...completely ruining the end seat for someone. I'll have to be more considerate in the future!!

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