Why Stereotyping Someone Might Just Save Your Life...

Well, this has been a thoroughly interesting month for me. It all began when some cowardly assholes stole my beloved motorcycle from a place where I believed it to be utterly secure and now it's led to me having to get public transport everywhere in order to get around until I get another bike sorted. Needless to say I'm thoroughly pissed off.


I'm not going to rant about the fact my motorbike was stolen as its obvious to even the most retarded individual that I'm upset about it and there's no need to inflict that on anyone else. What I am going to talk about is the wonderful insight into the parts of society I had almost forgotten existed and the magical place that allows me to view such snippets of real-life drama that would inspire the writers of Hollyoaks for years. Of course, what I'm talking about is public transport. Buses. And the wonderful people who ride them.

One of my friends once asked me why I don't listen to music when I'm travelling or when I'm walking about town. Apart from the fact that I find it distracting, the other reason is because it is far more entertaining to sometimes just sit back, watch and listen to the people around you. I don't watch soaps, I don't particularly enjoy many TV dramas and I don't lead a particularly dramatic life so I get my entertainment from listening to the people around me. Yup, I'm the weird quiet guy sitting in the corner listening in on your conversation.

Now, that may strike some as incredibly weird or perhaps even invasive but in such an enclosed space like a bus or train, if you talk about your life you have to accept that people are going to hear you. Not only that, but most of the people who talk about their life on public transport actually want people to hear them. The great thing about public transport is that it bridges the gap between the classes and it brings people who would usually have nothing in common with each other together with funny, disastrous and always entertaining results.

For example, on a bus you can always guarantee one of the following characters:

1) The mental: This man or woman can either be a really introverted, quiet person who wants nothing more than to enjoy the bus ride with only a few little ticks that give away their mental condition. Or, at the other end of the scale, it can be -- and often is -- the borderline psychopath with paranoid schizophrenia who is convinced that everyone on the bus, including the driver, is out to kill them. These are usually the most interesting of characters.

2) The old man or woman... who stinks of piss: Yeah, I'm going to hell for admitting it, but usually there's an old person on board who has lost that last shred of dignity but by God are they not going to let it spoil their day. If you have a seat free next to you then they WILL come and sit there.

3) The talkative elderly person: These are probably the nicest people you will meet. They will sit next to you and at first you'll throw them an awkward glance as they invade your personal space, but once they get talking and you've had a couple of their Werther's Originals you'll be completely comfortable talking to them and you might just learn something too.

4) The aggressive chav: Chavs? Being aggressive? On buses? That's surely a stereotype? No, it's the truth and you all know it. Consider yourself blessed if only one of them gets on your bus. If it's a male, he'll probably be drunk or on some kind of drug and will undoubtedly ask you if you smoke, if you have the time or if you have 20p for the next bus. Failure to correctly answer any of the above questions will probably result in you being another stab statistic. If the chav is female then she'll usually have a preadolescent cretin with her or a baby, and they will make your bus ride even more uncomfortable.

5) The child with the overactive imagination: An example of this would be the child who I used to see who made explosion sounds and put on voices as though he was watching Star Wars in his head. Man, I wish I had that kids imagination. The more hyperactive variants of this character can be intensely annoying and will run amok whilst their parents do nothing or insist on sitting next to you whilst asking ridiculous questions.

6) The village drunk: Everyone has one. The man who looks like a tramp and appears to be wasted regardless of the time of the day. The fat, puffy red face and glazed eyes will give him away immediately whilst his inability to stand up even when the bus has come to a stop will bring about bouts of laughter from all aboard. Oh, what a jolly fellow.

7) The student/schoolchild: These poor individuals sit in the corner, with their music on trying to make the ride go as quickly as possible in the hope that nobody sits near them or tries to interact with them. Chavs love to invade their personal space.

Whilst it makes me cringe to see such stereotypes sitting around me, it's wonderful to get an insight into their lives. Just this morning I heard an interesting conversation between two chav mothers. One of them was pretty upset because her hubby was in prison and the other was comforting her, telling her that if her hubby 'behaved himself' he wouldn't have ended up in prison and that she shouldn't blame herself for him being caught. When asked what he was in prison for, the upset chav whispered something to her and I only made out the word 'heroin'.

I find this funny because the way the comforting chav mother had described the others hubby and talked about how he'd not 'behaved himself' it almost sounded like some surreal parents evening at school. The hubby was not a filthy criminal but just a bit of a naughty boy. "Oh, he was just caught hardlining heroin into his eyeball in front of little Jimmy here... he's a bit of a scamp". Jeremy Kyle would kill for them on his show.

It's about this time that you will probably be thinking that I'm some kind of a snob who is moaning about the fact that I've been forced to associate with individuals I would usually look down my nose at in the street and in a way you're absolutely right. I do stereotype people and I don't see anything wrong with it.

You see, as I listed above, I've grouped people into only a small number and put them under the greater heading of 'bus people' which means I've stereotyped them and in some ways taken away their individuality. This is considered to be a very bad thing because stereotyping means that you're assuming that someone has a particular character or mannerism simply because they dress or act a certain way... but the point I'm trying to make is that this is not bad and in many ways it is essential.

A person who is loud, dresses in a way I associate with aggression and glares at people in an oppressive way is someone I would avoid and rightly so. Perhaps not all 'chavs' are aggressive, horrible people but it is unfortunately a part of that culture which they have chosen to be a part of. If a chav turns around to me, has a polite conversation and doesn't threaten me or make me feel uncomfortable then this won't change my view of all chavs, it will just be a pleasant surprise and will make me a little less weary of an individual in the future.

When I was in the police I was told that stereotyping was bad, but at the same time it was necessary in order to do the job. If you saw a group of lads hanging around down an alleyway in the middle of the night, you would rightly assume they were out for no good and give them a wide berth. Of course, it could be the nightly meeting of 'Christians Against Antisocial Behaviour' but I would still give them a wide berth because my life might well depend on making such a stereotype.

There were and presumably are still statistics that are released giving information about who commits what types of crimes. As far as I'm aware these are not published or made widely available, not because they are top secret, but because people would consider them stereotypical or even racist. Common sense would support these figures anyway, but we can't let people think too much about them can we?

The sad truth is that particular crimes tend to be performed by particular groups of people. Prostitutes tend to be mainly women (call me sexist), gun and knife/gang related crime tends to be committed by Afro-Caribbeans (call me racist), burglaries and shoplifting tends to be young white males, fraud is more likely to be committed by businessmen or people from the Asian community and 'travellers' ie. 'gypsies' are more likely to be involved in theft from properties and obtaining property or services through deception.

Of course this doesn't mean that every black person is a gang member, every white person is a shoplifter or that every traveller is going to promise to pave your driveway and then make off with your money but these stereotypes have come about for a reason and being weary of someone is not a crime. I often wonder what would've happened if Sophie Lancaster, the 20 year old goth who was brutally murdered in Lancaster in 2007, had been as closed minded as her murderers and had decided to avoid them. I feel a life could've been saved that day simply from being stereotypical.

I reserve my right to stereotype people and I reserve my right to occasionally be proven wrong and get a very pleasant surprise. After all, you can avoid someone and be polite about it.

Now could the gypsies that stole my motorcycle please return it.