'The only place where communication is possible is the public transport'

I love Vienna. Really, I do. If I could live anywhere in Austria, I would live in Vienna. Vienna is beautiful, fun and intellectually stimulating. Still, I have long deemed Vienna to be the most unfriendly city in Europe, if not the planet as a whole. I don't think anyone originally from Vienna will be offended by this statement, because I know very well that they agree. Having visited, lived and worked in all sorts of countries where old ladies smile at you in the streets and people in supermarkets don't attempt to stab you in the face if you take longer than five seconds to stow away your shopping, I'm always shocked, then amused, then depressed upon returning to Vienna. Old ladies only smile at you when they're about to let their specially trained fighting dogs loose on you and not only the supermarket's customers, but also the sales people and security guys will attempt to murder you if you don't run away as fast as possible. On the public transport, everyone generally makes a face as if their grandma just died (probably got bitten to death by her specially trained fighting dog)  and if you don't do the same and make a friendly face instead, they tend to think you're a loony or high on some suspicious drug. This, however, isn't a problem, because they'll vacate their seats and leave them to you, which is essentially a good thing.

When I first moved to Vienna I was a teenager and took pride in being a miserable bastard; i.e. I felt honoured when people walked to the other side of the street upon seeing me and thus I guess I didn't notice the general unfriendliness. It only occurred to me when starting to travel extensively, that the people in the rest of the world didn't seem to be at all like they are in Vienna. And yes, I started to think that it was actually a good thing to be nice to people, try and put yourself in their position and think about how you would like to be treated in their place. I don't know how well I'm succeeding at this, but at least I'm trying.

Anyway, recently it seems I have been turning into the kind of person that conspiracy theorists and cult members really want to recruit for their causes. It happens to me at an uncannily frequent rate that people of those categories start talking to me on the public transport and just won't stop. And I find myself sitting there nodding and smiling, completely incapable of telling them that I'm not interested in worshiping the Seven Snakes of Shiva or acknowledging that the Dalai Lama is responsible for 9/11. I've asked other people in my peer group if it happened to them as well. They said it did but they just tended to tell the conspiracy theorists/cult members to fuck off. Now that is incredibly rude! I believe if I was a conspiracy theorist and/or cult member, I would like people to listen to me. And so I listen to them, completely ignoring the fact that I am not, and probably never will be, either of the two.

 My last two conversations were pretty intense. The other day I spent 20 minutes on a subway listening to a woman who wanted me to come along with her to a meeting of a new Korean cult that celebrated whatever deity you personally wanted to believe in. I thought this was a pretty good idea, allowing everyone to believe in anything they could possibly want to believe in. When I said I didn't believe in deities she suggested I believe in some other thing that mattered to me - like interpersonal relationships for example. Apparently they then incorporated everyone's personal belief into a larger theology afterwards. It still didn't appeal to me enough to actually join the cult, mainly because it WAS one, but also because the woman - sweet as she was - appeared to be heavily alcoholised. Anyway, she was obviously very happy to have her story off her chest.

Today I met a man on the tube who asked me cheekily what I was reading (I was reading a handwritten note, so old it probably looked like a piratey treasure map to him). As a matter of fact, he didn't look like a conspiracy theorist, just like a friendly pensioner in a suit and tie. His first sentence wasn't all that strange actually, it was: 'The only place where communication is still possible is the public transport.'
Fair enough. Having lived in Vienna for years I wouldn't  agree, but it is still a coherent statement to make if you really want to. He then went on, however:
'That's how it is, but don't tell anyone, or else the drummers will come.'
What followed was probably even more creative, but it was so confused and incoherent that I just couldn't follow. It was something to do with environmentalism and the green movement, but what drummers and communication had to do with it is anyone's guess. When I got off the train, he was really happy to have it off his chest though.

And I don't think I mind. He was sincere and he was friendly and he appreciated my contribution. In this weird Viennese atmosphere, cult members and conspiracy theorists seem to be the only people who make the public transport a place where communication is still possible.