A note on space, age, and consideration.
I take the bus twice a day, often enough that it has stopped feeling like a means of transportation and started behaving like a small, predictable ecosystem. The same seats fill first. The same stops release people in the same order. Patterns form quietly, without anyone ever agreeing to them.
Over time, I began to notice something specific. It wasn’t universal, but it was frequent enough to feel deliberate. Most often, it was elderly passengers who chose the outermost seat — closest to the aisle — leaving the inner one empty beside them. Not occasionally. Not by accident. Repeatedly. Purposefully.
At first, I assumed there must be a reason. Bad knees, perhaps. The desire to stand quickly. The need for space. But the pattern held even when the bus filled, even when people boarded hesitantly and scanned for somewhere to sit without having to negotiate for it.
What this creates is a quiet discomfort. Anyone who wants that inner seat has to ask. Has to interrupt whatever private world the seated person has already claimed. Has to perform a small apology simply for needing somewhere to exist. The request is never hostile, but it is always awkward. Bodies shuffle. Coats brush. There is a moment where everyone pretends not to notice.
What struck me was how often this expectation fell on the young. The elderly are quick to speak about respect — about how it’s disappearing, how young people are self-centered, how no one considers anyone else anymore. And yet, on this bus, consideration seems to move in only one direction.
Most young people I see take the inner seat instinctively. They leave the aisle open. They make themselves smaller. They anticipate the arrival of someone else without knowing who it will be. There’s no moral triumph in this — just a quiet understanding of shared space.
When I sit, I do the same. I choose the inner seat because it removes a future interaction. It spares someone else the decision of whether to ask. It makes room before it’s needed.
I don’t think consideration announces itself. I think it lives in these unremarkable choices — in who assumes the inconvenience will belong to them, and who assumes it won’t.
Analog nights 
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