My anonymity is at stake

She asked risky questions. I gave wrong answers.

I was sitting on the front row in the top deck, my usual spot on the evening bus. Less people take this bus, so I don’t feel too uncomfortable with the idea of many people sitting behind me, in the position to perceive me. My laptop was precariously balanced on my knees, headphones playing music in my ears. I began typing when I saw a girl approach me from behind. I turn towards her to see her looking at me and take off my headphones, “Sorry?”

She stepped back and says, “Oh, sorry. I said ‘hey’ because I thought you were someone I knew.”

This is the third time that has happened to me on that bus. It’s the consequence of dressing to blend in. Suddenly everyone thinks you’re someone they know. I tell her it’s okay and she takes her place across from me. It was an awkward situation, and she was still eyeing me nervously, apologetically, from where she was sitting. So I decided to strike up a small, polite and quick conversation. It was anything but that. If I had known we would end up talking for the entire journey, and that a topic I was too uneasy to disclose would be revealed, I would have let the awkwardness sit in the air between us. I was tired, too tired for a social interaction, and I had intended to get my head down and write for the ride.

I asked her what she did. She told me she was a first-year pharmacy student and threw the question back at me. We went back and forth, an unstimulating conversation for a while. But then she apologised a second time, motioning to my laptop that was still sitting open on my lap and blacking out every so often, to which I woke it up, hoping to get back to it very soon. I was waiting for this opportunity. An out. I should’ve then told her it’s okay and got back to my neglected word document. But my mouth had ideas of its own. I said, “Oh, no, I was just writing. I like to write.” That stupid mouth of mine. She probed, of course, and I told her about my Substack.

“Substack?” she asked.

“Ah, yes. Just an app where people post interesting articles,” I told her. And alongside those, a tumblr-like format where people can scroll through other people’s fleeting thoughts for eternity, wasting away precious hours, I thought. It’s a place for self-proclaimed ‘quirky’ people who think they’re too much of an intellectual to be scrolling through any other social media, but really, it’s just the same as any other. Maybe the app used to be great, but I didn’t meet it then. I see it as the sheep it is now.

Our conversation led to her asking for a link to my work, as anticipated. And so I asked for her point of contact. She gave me her Instagram. I couldn’t tell her no. ‘No, sorry, my Substack is supposed to remain anonymous. No one is supposed to know who I am and what I look like.’ But I’m afraid of confrontation. And it’s too late for that. I’m in it deep. But in the instance where I do end up sending her my work like promised, I needed to warn her about the content, so I told her, “I’m a people watcher. My writing may surprise you.” Because I’m incredibly judgemental, I thought. Who knows, I might add our little interaction in there. I might talk about you in a way you didn’t think I could.

She didn’t catch the hint of my warning. She was delighted and told me she was a people watcher too. She told me she liked to look around and observe her surroundings. She told me a story of how she caught sight of an old school friend in public once, holding hands with a boy and said excitedly that her friend must have gotten a boyfriend. “But my friends don’t understand. They think I’m a creep for figuring out things like that.” Oh, if only you knew how unrelatable you were being. I am a creep.

And I don’t think she truly grasped the concept of the art of people watching. People watching isn’t simply noticing big things out of your general observations. It’s watching everything about a person. How they move, how they talk, their voice, their tone, their words. It’s all of that, and more. When they’re unaware that anyone would be observing them so uncomfortably closely.

I’ll give you an example of how different her and I perceive the art of people watching, with something similar; bird watching. To her, bird watching would be finding a species and identifying it. I can imagine her pointing at it excitedly and telling her peers about it. Ticking it off in her bird watching books. Taking out her phone and capturing its essence forever, never to be looked at again. For me, bird watching would be carefully watching its movements, seeing what it does, taking guesses at what it was doing before and what it plans to do next. Wondering if it’s a tired mother, wanting to get back to her nest or young bird, still finding its role, its slot in this big world of ours.

Both her method and mine are valid ways to bird watch, but they exist on opposite ends of the spectrum. For me, it’s not about how rare its species is or how colourful its feathered wings are- no, that doesn’t excite me much. It’s what’s behind that armour. The raw, soft unseen essence of the bird.

The girl continued, telling me that people watching is good when the right person, a nice person, is watching. I forced a polite laugh at that. I’m not the right person to watch people. And you know that, reader. You know that I’m the worst person for it. But also the type to have utmost respect for the craft, knowing exactly how to do it and what I want from it.

The conversation then shifted, to my relief. There’s only so much faking I can do. We found out that we both had a mutual friend. “It’s crazy, really. I can’t believe you know her too.”

I nod my head in agreement and respond with, “The world is a small place,” to which she feverishly agreed. It’s not really. It’s quite big, and there are 8 billion of us out there. We only meet 0.001% of them throughout our entire lifetime. Globalisation might be making the world smaller but it’s still vast, I promise. And the chances of me sharing an acquaintance with someone on this bus was very likely. We lived in the same small city all our lives. There are only two major schools in the area, so I’ll either know her, or know a person she knows.

She started talking about other people she met on the bus and who she knew. I found out that she knew that engineering student on the 8:05am bus that I meet almost every morning. That arrogant boy that I like to write about on here. I asked her questions about him. What school he went to, his name. What is his personality like. But she’s smarter than I gave her credit for and figured out that I must have written about him on here.

Ah, shit. Now I’m a deer and I see the headlights.

I decide then, for sure, that I am not sending her my Substack. She’ll never find this anyway. She laughed and told me that she’ll tell him about this. It felt like a fist was grasping at my heart, squeezing it with all its might. How could she say something like that so casually, so boldly. She told me he’d benefit from reading it and maybe he’d learn to soften his language. That, I agreed with. I do hope that he somehow finds himself reading this, but I for sure, do not want him know the author. That shouldn’t matter anyway. I’m just an observer, that’s all.

We got off the bus and this ill-fated interaction had finally come to its end. Or so I thought.

“Which way are you going?” she asked. I told her, wary not too reveal too much information. I’ve told her enough as it is.

“Okay! Let’s go the same way!” she said. I groaned internally. But obliged. I’m too nice to hurt a stranger’s feelings. We talked a little longer.

Before we parted, I debated telling her not to mention anything to the engineering student. She’s a stranger, I told her information, and she has the right to do whatever she wants with it. A rule I live by is never to utter a single secret of mine to anyone unless I’m okay with it being spread like a wildfire. Once it’s out, it’s out and I’m the only person to blame. That rule began from a wildfire of its own, years back. I learnt the hard way to not trust people. Only pretend that you do, and you’ll be fine. I caved in and turned to her before I crossed the street towards mine. “I want some anonymity on that app. Please don’t tell him. Or you can tell him about the publication but don’t reveal my identity.”

She smiled at that and told me, “Don’t worry. I won’t. It was lovely meeting you and I hope I see you again. We’re bound to.” Well, I hope not. And I don’t think we’re bound to because I’m taking another bus from now on. An earlier one or a later one. But I returned the sentiment and the smile and went off on my way.

Although this was the worst turn in circumstances for me and my Substack, it also had a major benefit. I found out some information about the engineering student. His name, his school. It’s funny, because I searched up the meaning of his Chinese name, and it means ‘virtuous,’ and ‘wise.’ Both of which, I have concluded, he is not. The girl also told me about his ‘real’ personality, but from her perspective. “He’s nice at heart,” she told me. “He was just around the wrong type of people.” I understood it then. He was around the wrong type of people until he became them, and then he was surrounded by the naïve type. Like this girl, who can so easily come up with excuses for his egomaniacal language. It was only inevitable that he eventually adopted that personality of his, thinking he was better than everyone. Nobody around him challenged him. They let him be himself. Not that he is their responsibility, anyway. I hope university changes that for him. Or that he finds this publication and instead of feeling resentment towards me, he directs that at his reflection in the mirror.

The girl told me, “Don’t take what he says to heart.” Why would I? I immediately shut the idea down and told her I didn’t. That I’m just an observer and people can do what they like. At the end of the day, he’s a stranger and I have nothing to do with him.

To the girl on the bus who mistook me for someone she knew, if you did find this, I’m sorry you had the displeasure of meeting someone like me. You were kind, and I know you meant well. And now you know what I’m really like. But you must understand. This is a cruel world, made up of two types of people: those who are taken advantage of and those who take advantage of others—even in something as simple as two strangers meeting for the first time on a bus. And I don’t want to be the former type. I want to survive.