I am absolutely That Bitch who will just ask anyone doing this to stop doing it, and I think what surprises me most is that the vast majority of people have one of two reactions: sheer incredulity that their tinny little podcast could possibly be anything other than an exquisite audio experience for anyone else, swiftly followed by a deeply mortified little smile and a shame-ridden silence for the rest of the train journey; or absolute rage that I'd dare ask them to do something to make the space even remotely more comfortable for - dry heave - other people.
A few months ago, I asked a man in the hospital waiting room - in the ENT department, for extra audacity points - if he could please use headphones, and he said 'no, I don't have any,' and when I said 'well, no-one else here wants to hear it,' he just shrugged and said 'but I do.' He kept listening to it without even turning it down, and everyone else just rolled their eyes and muttered about what a prick he was. A middle-aged woman once told me that I needed to 'mind my own business' for asking her just to turn it down, because she was listening to it at full volume, and then she proceeded to loudly bitch about my appearance with her daughter for a solid 5 minutes, interspersed with direct suggestions that I should sincerely consider fucking off, and it was only when everyone else in the train carriage confirmed that they, too, had been pissed off by her behaviour that she stopped yelling at me and sat back in her seat with a face like a smacked arse. And once, I asked a bunch of teenagers on the train if they could turn it down, and they started filming me and told me they'd make me 'TikTok famous', which frankly excited me in the moment, but has since sorely disappointed me because I've yet to become a household name.
My point being: people are either just so self-absorbed that they genuinely don't realise that other people might not enjoy the experience of being subjected to whatever they, the arbiter of good taste, are listening to; or they're complete sacks of piss who truly do not give a shit about anyone else, and refuse to consider the prospect of doing so. The former is frustrating, but ultimately just a lack of awareness that can usually be remedied by making them aware in the moment that they're being annoying. The latter makes me want to go on an actual murder spree. If you're the kind of person who listens to stuff in public without headphones - and yes, I'm including people who make calls on speakerphone - then just know that you are a festering polyp on the anus of society, and everyone in your immediate vicinity wants to flush your head down the nearest toilet.
