Boiling blood on the tracks

Now, I don’t agree with the pre-booking of seats on trains. I don’t know why. Presumably because it never used to happen, and this is the first of the many things in life that from now on I’m going to be ranting about because they have changed.

I turned 31 last week, you see, and it seems to me this is the beginning of the time when a man’s feelings fossilise, and he no longer hunts out new ways of looking at the world and starts complaining.

So, train to Cardiff, and a nice-looking Asian lady is in my seat. I think: fine. No worries. All power to her, she doesn’t care about the ridiculous pre-booking system either. Hats off – I’ll just sit here next to her.

But the seat next to her is reserved too. Only it’s not reserved yet, it’s reserved from Reading, the next station, to Swansea.

By this time the woman in my seat has noticed me standing there, a big doofus, looking from her to her seat ticket, to all the seats that all have tickets stuffed into the top of the head-rest.

So, passive-aggression kicks in. “I’ll just sit here then,” I say. Testily. Very testily. She was probably withered by my testiness. Obviously, she gave no outward sign of being so affected. I couldn’t say why.

And now I had to sit in the wrong seat all the way to Reading.

It was unbearable. I couldn’t think about anything else. I kept getting out my ticket and looking at it, then looking at the seat number overhead.

By about the M25 I had worked out a plan. When A18 got on and found me, I’d feign ignorance, look at my ticket, and say: “Goodness me, this lady is in my seat.”

Then we’d all change round and it would be OK.

Well. A18 was testier than me. Posh lady, two snotty kids. “Hmmm,” she hmmmed. “18, 19 and 20.”

I was instantly flummoxed.

“18, 19 and 20.” She wanted me, 18, to do something about it. That’s passive aggression for you.

“You’re in my seat,” she said. Then the killer. “They said we’d get a table. There’s no table.”

What was I meant to do with this information? I hated her. I moved over.

As soon as I got home I looked up “passive-aggressive”, and here is a list of behaviours that help identify PA behaviour.

Ambiguity, forgetfulness, blaming others, not expressing anger openly, fear of authority, competition and intimacy, fostering chaos, intentional inefficiency, sarcasm, stubbornness and wilful withholding of understanding.

All me. But not just me. It’s what I have in common with everyone I’ve ever called a friend, or, in fact, an enemy.

There should be TV channels devoted to it. We should have a motto and a crest. A scowling face and the words: “No, it’s fine, I don’t mind.”

We would be certs for gold in the PA Olympics. If we could be bothered to show up.