Our 7x7 patch of land may be small compared to other metropolitan areas, but here in San Francisco, there’s still plenty of room for TMI. From our neighbors’ daily sex schedule to our local religious nut’s thoughts on Jesus, there’s a lot going on that we can’t help but overhear. This TMI also spills over onto Muni, where a simple commute to work can turn us into a captive audience when a romance plays out as a serial performance—from its PDA beginnings to its tearful ending. The latter just happened to me — I became part of an audience to a stranger’s love life for the past nine months. So to my fellow 10 Townsend Muni rider: consider this piece my apology that he broke your heart—because you and I both know that if I had actually gone up to you to console you, shit would’ve gotten weird.
Let me back up a bit. I first heard 10 Townsend’s story about 9 months ago, when she ran into a coworker on the bus. The first woman (let’s call her Blondie) grabbed the second woman’s hand to look at her new engagement ring. A 20-minute chat about their love lives ensued — mostly with Blondie talking about this “totally great guy” she had just started dating, though “not technically dating,” she explained. “We’re not official yet, but I want to be.” My ears perked up, probably because I was in a similar situation. You know, the one where you totally like someone but they totally like not putting titles on things so you pretend you like that too? To put things simply, at that particular time, my love life was all sorts of #itscomplicated so I could totally relate to this stranger.
Over the next month or so, I would see (and hear) these two women on the bus. Each interaction began with an elongated, high-pitched “Heyyyyyyy” before they continued where they had left off the last time discussing the guy Blondie was dating. No super juicy details like how they met or what he did for a living or if they were official yet, but more general updates like “Things are going well,” “OMG, he’s so sweet," and “Yes, I still really like him.”
Then, one morning, I finally got to see The Guy!
I can only assume Blondie and The Guy had some sort of adult sleepover at her place the night before since I’d never seen him on our morning commute. Little did he know that I knew more about Blondie’s feelings for him than he did—but of course I didn’t know either of their names. Even so, I was oddly excited for this new development in their relationship.
Based on her stance, with her head nuzzled into his chest and his arm resting softly on her shoulder, I concluded that they were finally “official.” “You go girl!” I thought to myself. Dating is far from easy in this city, so I was happy that a fellow single lady had found love.
For the next few months, the adult sleepovers had obviously become a more frequent occurrence as I began seeing the couple together on a weekly basis. My internal pride in her ability to snag a hottie quickly turned into constant eye-rolls, though, because as the two got closer, their PDA got worse. She’d play with the buttons on his shirt and use his belt buckle to keep herself from falling during any sudden stops. They kissed every few minutes too. And with each lingering peck, my eyes rolled even more—partly because I was a little jealous (my #itscomplicated situation wasn’t getting any better) and partly because I just fucking hate PDA, okay?
When he wasn’t there, she’d rave to her coworker about whatever sweet thing he had done the night before or about their plans for the weekend. I was learning so much about this couple I didn’t even actually know. She’d talk about how he took her to French Laundry, how they enjoyed cooking together, and that he apparently knew a lot about wine. Blondie's descriptions of this dude’s shows of affection inspired lots of “aww’s” and “how cute’s” from her coworker. At one point, I started counting—I think the record was seven “aww’s” and five “how cute’s” over the course of our 20-minute bus ride together.
Fast forward to last week, about 9 months after my first auditory encounter with Blondie. At first, I didn’t even notice that she and her coworker were sitting in front of me on the way to work. She was quieter than usual, but I could still hear most of what she was saying because, as I’d learned over the course of the year, she wasn’t all that great at keeping private conversations private. Her coworker, who was now her former coworker, asked how she was. It turned out, Blondie and The Guy had broken up.
Her coworker placed a hand on her shoulder to console her. “It’s okay,” Blondie said. Tears suddenly flowed down her face as she rummaged through her purse, looking for a pair of sunglasses to hide behind. Unfortunately for me, by this point in the conversation, Blondie was too distraught to loudly go into detail about the breakup. However, based on her coworker’s empathetic facial expressions and lots of hugging between the two, it seemed pretty bad. It was then that I realized I had witnessed the entire rise and fall of her relationship. It was absolutely heartbreaking to witness, even though she had no idea who I was. In fact, to her, I was just merely an invisible fellow Muni passenger.
Though Blondie and The Guy offered the most consistent saga of my Muni-riding experiences, it’s only one of the many stories I’ve become engrossed with thanks to the common occurrence of Muni TMI. It makes me wonder why some people are so comfortable revealing their personal stories to complete strangers in public. And it also makes me wonder if they even realize that they’re doing so. Granted, Blondie didn’t go into every intimate detail but she still offered our bus line a very personal account of something that was deeply affecting her.
I’ve witnessed even more revealing personal stories than this one on Muni, often sharing a glance with the other “audience” members to acknowledge these unique theater scenes. It’s fascinating that by simply commuting to work, we watch so many mini dramas unfold over the weeks and months we ride together.
What kind of stories have you seen or heard unfold on Muni as an invisible passenger?