Columbus Circle station, early summer, bench.
Young black guy, cool hipsterish clothes, large backpack, amusingly be-patched (does he really belong to Lehigh Valley Police Revolver League?), subtly spray-painted (faint black shading on light khaki), iPod, iPhone. 50ish white lady, peculiar hair, Kindle.
Hurry, hurry.
C Train pulls in, guy turns to look. In so doing, bumps woman with his large amusing backpack.
He turns to her, makes eye contact, says “Sorry. My bad.” Turns back to his iPhone.
She murmurs some words of acceptance (what? “It’s okay”? “No worries”? “Don’t give it a second thought”? “I’m good”?) but he is no longer paying attention.
The A train pulls in, they both get on.
We are left behind to analyze. Was that a good apology? Does losing interest in it take points off? (When is our train coming?)
I was going with good. In 3 words, he apologized, and took responsibility FOR SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGMENT, LET ALONE APOLOGY.
What’s in that basket? If he turns suddenly, I want to be a safe distance away. Which keeps you from looking over his shoulder at his book.
(People are generally aware of the space they take up with their actual bodies, but so often they are not aware of what their backpacks are doing, what their shopping carts are up to, who their bags are insulting. Also? Those rolly bags, slyly attacking people’s feet and ankles, then looking all innocent. People are clueless about what their rolly bags are doing. And THAT’S WHY PERFECT STRANGERS ARE SLUGGING YOU. You didn’t do anything? Well, your backpack did.)
But on the other hand, he turned away, cutting off any give-and-take. In some places that wouldn’t work. But in the context of a New York City subway platform, maybe it works. No more interaction than necessary.
Cousin Bernie disagrees. I described this scene to him, and he thinks the turning away invalidates the apology, and possibly creates a new offense. He was rather convincing.
Readers?
Nah, Bernie’s wrong, you’re right. This is a subway platform in New York. The guy acknowledged what he did, and that he did it, and that it was at least a tiny bit hurtful, all in two words. And he apologized. Way more than you usually get in the subway in New York. He was also right to cut off further contact. He may have been just getting back to his own world, but he also may have been thinking that the older white woman whom he had just bumped might feel more comfortable if he kept the apology short and to the point.
I agree.
He was checking to see if he had bag slugged anyone who could take him down. When he saw that he was gonna be able to skate on the offense, he went brief so he could get back to his tinder app.
Did he beat her to the handicapped/senior seating? If bag slugging is outlawed, I think an exception should be made for people who use their iphone to avoid looking at the handicapped people hanging from straps as they do important stuff on their phones.
Small offense; small apology; small acceptance: the universe is in balance.
Also, agree with Joe; more contact may have been unwelcome.
The usual response in London is for the person hit to apologise for having been in the way. I think a brief acknowledgement on the part of the hitter is better.
Perceptive comments here, and I agree. The guy made a good apology. I’ve been thwacked by many a backpack where the human bearing it just glowered at me for being in its way.
I would say that it was a not very strong apology for this minor offense. Sufficient, but not exemplary.
But the only one who can judge it is the receiver. A whole lot of communication can take place in fractions of a second. I think we are not privy to that communication here.
From my perspective as a city-dweller and transit-rider for the past 25 years (Oakland and SF), that reads as fine. Making eye contact before/while apologizing makes it personal, rather than a tossed-off BS mouth-noise.
As others have suggested, it’s a fairly minor offense. A low-key apology is both fine and appropriate.
Yeah, I agree that eye contact makes the difference.