Ever enter the subway in the morning and wonder why people sit where they sit? Ever get into a fight with the person beside you because his leg is touching yours? Ever afraid to sit beside people because of the looks on their faces, or the way their faces look? Well, you are not alone. I have gone through the same thing and in fact there are a number of students who have. So in order to fully understand why people behave as they do on the subway, specifically students, I figured that it was necessary to conduct an unscientific anthropological study of the factors that determine how passengers behave. Clearly I have time on my hands.

Forty students, 10 from each grade, were asked to fill out a survey with questions ranging from describing the person you would sit beside, to what determines where you sit on the subway. They were also presented with a rough schematic of a section of a subway train, and they were asked where they would sit or possibly stand. They were given the schematic above.

The results proved to be rather interesting. And so I decided I would use the information gathered from the surveys, and test it by doing several things on the subway to see what people’s reaction would be.

I figured that I would base all my experiments using seat B for a couple of reasons. Seat B is beside seat A, which is a preferred seat by students. Seat B is more or less in the middle of all the seats in a section of the subway. It is also the seat that was less preferred by students and, according to them, they would rather stand than sit in seat B since no one selected seat B in any of the scenarios.

On any given day, it is rare that you can get to sit in seat A or E, since it appears to be a favourite amongst students and other TTC riders alike, based on the surveys and general observation.

The information provided by students, for the most part, appeared to be true. I then decided to test why people don’t like seat B by personally sitting in that seat. I waited for seats A and C to be occupied and then planted myself, rather forcefully, into seat B. I was greeted with grunts from both sides. About three subway stops later, during the morning rush hour, I realized why seat B is so hated. Besides the fact that you have the morning breath of people on either side of you intermingling with your breathing air, you also have their leg fat drowning your own, eventually numbing and crippling your entire lower body.

Showing the results to Naomi Balasooriya, a Grade 12 student, I asked her what she thought of them and she said that, “it is not surprising that people don’t like to sit in seat B. It is very uncomfortable.” A lesson I learned the hard way.

Another question that I asked was, What determines where you sit? But after receiving an interesting idea, I decided that I would explore the idea that people do not sit beside people if they are crazy, or talk to themselves. So I got onto the subway, sat down in seat B and began to curse under my breath, make loud grunting noises and stare at people who would walk by in a shady, unblinking manner. I figured, Hey, if people like seat A so much, will they be willing to sit beside a disturbed person to get to their favorite seat?

And the answer for that was no.

As the masses of people quickly darted past me, trying to act as if they hadn’t seen me, I realized riders would rather stand than sit next to a disturbed person. People seemed slightly threatened for obvious reasons, which tickled me slightly.

On a couple of surveys I noticed that one of the things that people hated on the subway was when someone would come onto the subway with their music blaring. And of course being the pain in the ass I am, I went for it. Entering the subway car the following day, I turned Yellowcard’s ‘Ocean Avenue’ up to the point that every drum beat caused me to wince and my eyes to bulge with pain. Once again I planted myself in seat B to see if people would sit in seat A. There was still reluctance, but someone did sit in seat A.

Eventually I was approached by a woman who started mouthing something to me. Out of curiosity, I turned down my music to hear what she was saying and managed to catch the part where she said she’d report me to the driver if I didn’t turn it down. But I figured, even if the driver were to announce for me to turn down my music, it’s not like I would hear him.

What determines where people sit? One major factor is hygiene. Students like to sit beside people who have good hygiene, who don’t look scruffy and who don’t smell bad. A Grade 10 male student went on to say he would not sit beside “smelly, sweaty, old, hairy, fat people who take up two [or more] seats, talk to me for no reason or have no sense of style.”

It is no surprise why people choose to stand. After all, they have many things to contend with when thinking about a seat. They have to worry about the people in the surrounding seats, worry about finding their favorite seat, and have to fight off the other passengers who come on at the next stop.

So the next time you get on the subway, you will understand why students sit where they sit, and what determines where they sit. You might tell someone who sits too close to you that he should stand because his leg is devouring yours (at your own risk of course). You might try screaming and twitching on the subway train if you really don’t feel like sitting beside someone today. But if you learned anything from this article, it should be this: the next time you see seat A empty, shove, climb and do whatever you must to claim it for yourself, because there is going to be a flock of vultures coming on at the next stop looking for their favorite spot and when they do, you can look at them knowing that you got your favorite spot, and they didn’t.