That Awkward Bus
Conversation
by Cian Manning
Those of us
familiar with the joys of travel by bus will all
have an ‘awkward’ bus conversation
story. I for one have had many. A journey from
Cork to Galway with a man I couldn’t
understand. He omitting a noise which to him had
some semblance of coherence, to me replying with
what was a mantra in this conversation...’Sorry’.
Another
journey from Limerick to Waterford would appear
to have mirrored the hedonism of the 1960s. The
man in front of me was viewing pornography for
the whole two and a half hour trip while a newly
married couple not only consummated their vows
but also conceived their first child on the
backseats. At least I think they were recently
married, they always say attraction is greatest
around then, that’s why you have sexual
relations four times on a TWO HOUR AND THIRTY
MINUTE bus trip with no air conditioning. But I
didn’t complain; the bus driver had enough
things to contend with.
However the
most heinously awkward bus journey I ever had to
contend with was when I started college. Going
from Cork to Waterford and all the joys of
starting first year from student discounts to
being continually turned away from clubs for
looking twelve years old (what those bouncers
didn’t know was I was actually seventeen, so
there) things were pretty good on the study front.
While intently reading the Collins Dictionary of
Sociology, as we all do in first year, this
bright twenty-one year old with a slightly
English tinged accent relays to me his sexual
exploits. Now I wish I was on the Limerick bus,
at least they don’t talk about this sort of
thing.
He proceeds to
list Mary, Joan, Sue and another Mary till he
concludes ‘But I am bi of course’. Like
a rabbit in headlights, my daydreaming of getting
home has led me to a rather vulnerable position.
Did he say bi or boy? If he said the latter it’s
just a Waterford colloquialism for breaking a
sentence like a pause of breath or a full stop. I
thinking this, I proceed to change the subject
before he comes back to saying ‘See with
being bisexual I can...’
It’s the
former with more questions arising, why is he
telling me this and secondly is he propositioning
me? Oh how to retrieve a bus journey that still
has an hour and twenty minutes before we reach
the terminus. His list of conquests now also
includes Michael, James, Sean and Matthew and
there’s still an hour of this journey to go.
I try to direct the conversation to more studious
related subjects like does he enjoy university
and living in Cork, but he’s having none of
it.
After now
receiving his life story, his journey of
discovery and enlightenment (His philosophy being
you real don’t know anything till you kissed
both a man and a woman in the space of an hour) I
then realised my mistake. I should have never
said hello in the first place. It always attracts
talkers and sex addicts on a bus. It’s like
pollen to a bee.
Now when I go
on the bus I have a hood which covers my face bar
my eyes. This at least allows me to look at the
views outside. Once an elderly man with a stick
got on the bus to Cahir but instead of sitting
next to me with the only empty seat, he proceeded
to stand for the rest of the journey. And then I
thought...that’s what I should have done the
first time.
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