15 Things You Should Never Do on the Subway

When it comes to living in a city or traveling to one, riding the subway is often a necessary evil. Even when there are no delays and your trains all connect, it still may not be the most pleasant experience, and that’s because many of our fellow travelers believe the train is their own personal living room, bedroom, or god help us, bathroom.

Yes, if you ride the subways long enough, you’ll see your fellow travelers commit all manner of etiquette sins that beggars belief in their obliviousness. To make everyone’s next trip less heartbreaking, let us offer these 15 helpful guidelines to make all your fellow passengers more readily tolerate you.

In a perfect world, this wouldn’t even need to be said. Unfortunately, we are far from that point, so here it goes for those people in the way back – don’t clip your nails on the subway. No one wants clippings ricocheting around the train car, and you don’t want them to come over and let you know. 

Please, we beg you, wait until you get home, where we don’t care what you do.

It’s one thing to wish the guy sitting next to you on the subway were wearing deodorant. It’s another to see him produce some Old Spice from his bag, lift his shirt, and apply it to his pits. We’re only using male pronouns and possessives in this example because we all know perfectly well that women don’t do this type of gross thing.

Again with the nails, but since example #2 about deodorant targets male readers, we want to give their female counterparts equal time. Ladies, do not apply nail polish while you’re on the subway because the “chemical weapons” smell that it generates will permeate every nostril in the entire car. Why not hose it down with a fire extinguisher while you’re at it?

We all need to eat on the go sometimes, and hopefully, when we do so on the subway, we do so with an odorless energy drink. But eating lutefisk, Limburger, or any other food that the entire car can perceive from afar is more than just a simple lapse in judgment — it’s the kind of thing they have tribunals in the Hague for.

You might be trying to get cozy, but whether you’re at the beginning of your day or its point of terminus, one thing is for sure – no one wants to smell or look at your feet while they commute to or from the job they grudgingly hold down so they can make rent. It’s not a crime to ride the subways barefoot (or even just in your socks), but maybe if we made a public example of one or two people who do it, it might stop? Just saying.

It matters not whether you’re listening to Kenny Rogers, Lil Nas X, or Manowar – no one wants to hear a single note of any of it, much less the tinny, all-treble version you’re getting out of your Bluetooth speaker. If you want to listen to music on the subway, wear headphones, even if you’re listening to Mozart.

Manspreading – the practice of being a seated male who splays his legs outward, thereby in effect occupying three seats – has been the subject of citywide advertising campaigns that have begged entire citizenries to abandon this hateful practice. Apparently, it didn’t work, so here we go again – please stop doing this.

This is a profoundly offensive practice for two reasons. One, it makes it impossible for anyone to hold the pole without touching your back, which no one wants to do. Two, the only way to make you stop is to come around to the front to address you to your face, which more timid commuters may not want to do. If that doesn’t bother you, you are morally bankrupt.

We get that their book looks interesting, but no one enjoys a stranger’s face hovering inches from their reading material, whether it’s the Bible or a celebrity memoir clearly ghostwritten by someone else. If someone on the subway wants you to read something of theirs, don’t worry; they’ll keep shoving that pamphlet in your face until you relent.

The entire practice of taking a phone call on the train is ridiculous. Almost 99% of the time, the call doesn’t even connect, causing otherwise intelligent people to repeat “Can you hear me?” into their phones at a very high volume. Next time you’re on the subway and need to make a call that the intended recipient will not hear, dummy up and use your inside voice.

This is a real thing. It’s not widespread, but it’s been spotted in the wilds of the subway enough times to deserve a mention. When you’re in a packed subway car going 70 miles per hour, that may not be the best time to pull out two gigantic needles and start working on a sweater. If you’re doing it while you’re standing, you’re even more likely to blind somebody inadvertently, so do us all a favor and keep this therapeutic hobby at home where it belongs.

Most people traveling together on the subway like to sit together. However, if you ride the train at a time when seating allows it, you may observe groups of three or four people staking out different seats a few feet from one another, then start yelling their stupid conversation that no one wants to hear. Hey, being loud and acting like you’re at home isn’t for the subway! It’s for the movie theater!

Provided it’s limited to certain areas of your body, scratching yourself on the subway is acceptable. Itchy shoulder? Fine. Itchy knee? No worries. Itchy bathing suit area? Tending to that portion of your body, even in times of great dermic distress, is a big no-no and must be discouraged at all costs. If you need this explained to you, please find the nearest 10-year-old, who will be happy to set you straight.

It doesn’t have to be about reptilian overlords specifically, but if you’re going to strike up a conversation with a stranger on the subway – which is already seriously pushing it – maybe leave the topic you just learned about on YouTube at home. Sure, that discredited study that proves everything we know is a lie may be fascinating, but it’s fascinating only to you.

Personal grooming is important to anyone who wants to dress to impress and create an image of success. The industry has given us such cutting-edge personal grooming devices as the handheld mirror and the cordless shaver, but that’s no excuse for sending thousands of micro hairs onto the garments of the poor victims around you, who will spend the whole day wondering what that weird stuff on their shirt is. It’s your beard, and no one wants any portion of it on their person.

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