Turns out, not everyone on my tram is out to infuriate me. Who knew?

Every day, with every tap of my myki, I prepare to make a new enemy.

Sometimes it’s the backpack-wearers who think that because they can’t see the extra bulk behind them, it can’t knock me in the boob on my way to work.

Credit: Robin Cowcher

Other times, it’s a collective nemesis, the crowd on a tram after a footy game who think that because they’re crammed in so tight, they don’t need to hold on. It takes the crunch of a sudden stop hurtling them across the floor to serve as a swift reminder that the rules of gravity didn’t exclude them personally.

But most days, I brace myself for the noise. The Reels and TikTok videos watched at full volume, one after the other. The FaceTime conversations I shouldn’t be privy to. The speakerphone users who need to go walkie-talkie mode while discussing dinner plans.

No matter how high I turn my volume, how likely I am to end up in an otolaryngologist’s office in my efforts to drown them out, their audio assaults end up drowning out anything I choose to hear. It makes me twitchy, irritated and un-fun. It turns me into a catastrophic cliche of a newspaper columnist using these precious print and online inches to wonder how we, as a society, got here. It reduces my temper down to nothing and means I assume the worst of everyone.

Until, every now and then, one of them proves me wrong.

On a plane a few months ago, I was sitting in the aisle and noticed the young girl in the window seat was angling her body to capture a picture of the sky outside on her phone. I’m not above a plane window photo; the window seat is my preferred spot and I go nuts for a tequila-sunrise-coloured sky (which, when writing it down, I realise is quite literally just the sunrise).

But this went on for several minutes – not long in the grand scheme of domestic air travel, but long enough for me to get judgmental about her inability to just appreciate a fleeting moment and let it pass. Not everything needs to be content, says I, the person who’s turned her life into, at various points, a column, non-fiction book and no fewer than four podcasts.

After I’d made these snap decisions about who this girl was and what she valued, she turned to me to show me the photos she’d taken and said, wide-eyed, that she’d never seen a sky like that. On the screen of her phone it was like the clouds were wearing a high-vis vest. They were ablaze with a dark orange glow. I’d never seen anything like it either. I’d made a nasty judgment about someone who was using that same time to indulge in pure, child-like marvel.

I wish I could say it taught me to approach everyone with a little more grace and optimism. But sometimes lessons need to be taught twice.

This morning, after taking my mostly uphill schlep from train to tram, I used my new paperback to fan myself before digging into one more short story. Back at the tram stop, I’d clocked an older chap in a suit watching me do this, and I felt a twinge of self-consciousness. It’s not fun to be perceived in public full stop, let alone when you’re actively trying to be less sweaty. He sat across from me and proceeded to take a call on speakerphone, earning the title of enemy No.1. The spot was open and he took it! A gold-medal outing – and all before 9am. Unheard of.

Then something happened. The opposition approached. He excused himself and asked if I was enjoying my book. I was honest when I told him yes – but figured this was “guy at a pub inserting himself in a conversation of women” kind of scenario. Based on historical evidence, unwelcome approaches usually are. But then he mentioned he loved the author, and named the decades-old Austen adaptation she’d written that he loved. I’d also enjoyed it, I told him.

He was falling out of enemy position as fast as he’d entered it! This had never happened before.
He’d been tossing up whether to buy this new short story collection, but my review had sealed it for him. He said goodbye, got off the tram and left me reappraising the earlier glances. Rather than judging my appearance, he’d been noticing a beloved author’s name.

It was so surprising and pleasant that my dread came unstuck. My temper cooled. His brief but disruptive speakerphone conversation became a blip on an otherwise glowing record of human interaction. We all make mistakes.

This time, I think, the lesson might stick. Maybe everyone whose conversations or algorithm spirals I overhear are also good, friendly people. Maybe these are one-off blips that require a little grace and understanding. Maybe they’re not a reason to write someone off and derail my mood. Maybe if I can overlook these minor annoyances, I’ll reach a true state of zen and stop steeling myself for battle every time I get on the bus.

Unless there’s a backpack in my face. Then it’s on.

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