Yesterday I was taking the bus home, sitting in an aisle seat next to someone (the part of the bus where there are four pairs of seats, two pairs facing forward on each side of the aisle). There was a girl in the seats in front of me, with her bag next to her, preventing someone from sitting there, and two people sitting in the seats across the aisle from her. Eventually, she made like she was going to get off at the next stop, and put her bag on her lap. The guy in the aisle seat across from her (at an angle to me) saw, and looked rapaciously at the soon-to-be-vacant window seat. Then he looked back at me, and saw me eying the seat as well, and going through the motions of a Tarantino joke from Desperado (“Dick, glass. Dick, glass. Dick, glass.”), except with me and the empty seat. As soon as he realizes that he might lose the coveted window seat to me, he gets up and sits in the recently vacated space next to the girl to reserve the spot, before she even gets up to leave. Eventually, the next stop comes along, and she doesn’t get off. Instead, the person who was sitting in the window seat next to him before he moved gets up and leaves. The guy looks over to the newly vacated window spot, and, too embarrassed to move back, just stays next to the girl, stewing in the consequences of his error.

I could feel his scalp starting to itch, the way a sudden break of sweat starts to tingle the pores along the back.

And then I walked over to the window seat, and slumped down comfortably. Learning to never make assumptions and never be too anxious was easy. It was learning to live that by those rules that was the hard part.

I also touched some guys leg with my fingers later on, because he rudely shoved his knees into my legs while making his way to a standing spot. Nothing makes a man jump like challenging his heterosexuality.