Her Ladyship's Guide to the Art of Conversation by Caroline Taggart

Author:Caroline Taggart
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849944083
Publisher: Pavilion Books
Published: 2016-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

Strangers on a train (or plane)

The etiquette of talking to fellow travellers varies enormously according to where you live and how you travel. No Londoner talks to a stranger on the Underground – it’s obviously against some by-law or other – but the bus or a bus queue is different. Idle conversations on a short journey are easy to strike up for the simple reason that they aren’t important and aren’t going to last long. If you find yourself next to someone chatty, you might find you pass an enjoyable few minutes; if you don’t find them agreeable you can console yourself with the thought that one or other of you is getting off any moment now.

Commuters who routinely catch the same train and sit in the same carriage for an hour or so every day may start with brief nods of recognition, progress to idle remarks about the weather or the delays, and after a few months find themselves looking forward to the daily poker game on the way home.

Long-distance travellers often worry that they will get ‘stuck’ with a bore or a crank if they encourage the person sitting next to them to talk. On the other hand, you sometimes overhear people who were obviously strangers to each other at the start of the journey having interesting conversations. Does being too stand-offish mean you miss out?

It has to be your call, in Her Ladyship’s view, and much depends on the length of the journey: she can think of few things worse than being talked at throughout a transatlantic flight. It makes sense, on any long trip, to be on friendly nodding terms with someone you are going to have to climb over every time you want to get out of your seat, but that doesn’t mean you have to chat without a break for the entire journey. After all, the seven hours it takes to fly from London to New York (or the two and a half it takes to go by train from Glasgow to Manchester) may be the only time you have had in weeks to catch up on paperwork, or your last opportunity to polish the speech you are due to make when you get there. Even if you have no urgent work to do, it makes sense to arm yourself with a laptop, a book, a device on which to play games – anything that can make you look preoccupied. Then, if you encounter an inveterate talker, you can say something like ‘I’m sorry, but I need to finish this before I get to Swindon’ or ‘I know it seems trivial, but I’m on level 7 and I’m in competition with my son.’ If the other person keeps talking, answer with nothing more encouraging than ‘Mmm’ and they should soon get the message.

If they don’t, try excusing yourself to stretch your legs. If nothing else, it will interrupt their outpourings. When you come back, make a point of opening your briefcase or laptop and getting on with something.

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