non-place

i ride the great metro buses pretty much every day so i figured that would be a good non-place for me to observe. i've always felt a little weird standing around with a bunch of people waiting for a bus. pretty much everyone keeps to themselves. yesterday the people there were listening to ipods and reading books. there are occasiosionaly people who talk to each other but that seems to be very rare. i've always thought to at least learn the names of the people i see at the bus stop over and over but that rarely happens because people always seem so serious with a 'don't bother me while i wait for my bus' look on their face. i feel like when you actually get on a bus people get even more protective of their personal bubble even though you are closer together. it's basically an unwritten rule to fill up each individual row and every other seat first before people will sit directly next to each other. i've had people come sit right next to me when there are still other seats wide open and have thought to myself 'why are you sitting here, don't you know anything about buses?' so it seems that even though bus stops and buses are very public places, there is very little interaction between the people who spend parts of their day there.