Fighting The Flab

Those of you that follow me on Face Book will know that this week I have been 'training' it into London for work. My journey starts pre 6am at Benfleet station, to Fenchurch, walk to Tower Hill, then change at Embankment to Goodge Street. All in all approximately hour and a half. You will also know that I have been whinging about it a lot. Trains have been running well and on time, however, it is slightly busy (especially  18:00 on way home). I have also had to wonder about peoples behaviour. now I know I am old fashioned, but surely it is still polite to offer your seat to a woman? Especially elderly or people who appear to be struggling? Well apparently not.
I was also amazed at the lack of communication between people especially with so many people in the train. No eye contact, not a shared smile, not a hello, nothing.
So this morning I decided I was going to smile at everybody I made eye contact with. I started on Benfleet platform and got a couple of small smiles in return. I also got ignored a lot and a few people turned away pretending they had not noticed. So not too bad. On the train the same thing, most people trying hard to ignore the grinning nutter in the corner. On the tube it was slightly different, firstly it was quite packed this morning. The first person I smiled at muttered under there breath "F***ing weirdo". That threw me for a minute as I considered stopping it. Kinda Ironic though that the bloke calling me a weirdo was dressed, how shall we put it, hmmm, well kinda strange, topped off with died purple and red hair.
I decided to carry on and continued smiling at people. Just like before some smiled back, one person winked at me which made me smile even more. Unfortunately most ignored me. No matter how hard I tried the normal response was a look away or even moving away from me.
I think it is sad that most people wont engage in an form of communication, however, I am going to try it tonight on the journey home. So, if you see some nutter sat or more than likely stood on the train and smiling at you don't panic, it is probably me, just smile back.