I enter the tube at the same time as another woman a door further down. The seats at the right of me are at the end of the wagon, and a place where the drunk and high sit, so I turn left. 6 seats in a row, opposite of two at a 90 degree angle, to leave an open space between them. On one of the two, an older man with half of his teeth sits, so I turn further left, to the six seats. Two people sit there already, as far apart as possible. Apparently, the woman from the other door faced similar circumstances to me at her side, because she is standing opposite as me now. We don’t meet eyes, but are mutually aware of each other. Is she going to take the seat closest to her, or one of the middle two? If she’s going to take closer one, which is unlikely, because for that she would have to predict me taking the middle seat and take the chance shit will be awkward, I would get the furthest distance by sitting in the middle. If she sits in the middle aswell, my positioning doesn’t really matter. So, statistically, I chose one of the middle seats, further influenced by the manspreading happening on the seat closest to me.
I keep my momentum in a smooth motion, as does the woman across, and we sit down next to each other in the two middle seats perfectly synchronised, as predicted. Somehow, this is the only right feeling arrangement we could have ended up with.
This all happened in 2 seconds, and somehow, it’s the clearest, most synonymous thinking process across all people.
