So, I was having a conversation with my stepdad about this the other day about this. My main use for the iPod is to keep me occupied on the hour and a quarter to and from college on the bus every day. Most of the kids who go to the college come from the other direction (I'm going up the valley, they're coming down it), so a lot of days I don't see anybody on the bus that I know. This is the simplest situation, you put in your headphones and you're set all the way. All you have to worry about is if your headphones leak sound and a loud song comes on that makes people look at you strangely. Last week I bought some £30 Sennheiser earbuds (reduced + discount), so that's that problem pretty much sorted out. I guess it's everybody else's loss that they can't hear my awesome music now.

Next: when you're listening to your portable music player of choice when you see a friend. My reaction in this situation is to turn off the music altogether, take out the earphones and strike up a conversation.

What about when you see an acquaintance? For example, a friend's girlfriend, a classmate who you aren't close with, or somebody you recently attended a maths competition with. This is much more difficult. There are several options:
a) Pretend you haven't seen them.
b) Nod at them, possibly adding a perfunctory greeting. Don't remove the headphones or adjust the volume. After this, pretend you don't see them.
c) Turn the volume down or remove one headphone. Say hello.
d) Turn off the music and take the headphones out altogether. Say hello.

There are problems with all of these. For a), obviously, if it's not believable that you haven't seen them, like if you've made eye contact or they sit down next to you, then you're going to come off as rude. To maximise believability I find staring in the opposite direction simple but effective. Of course, that's only going to work up to a point.

With b) it depends heavily on how much the other person wants to talk to you. Sometimes you'll both just nod and then be content to just ignore each other. If the other person speaks to you, however, you're in trouble, especially if you couldn't hear what they said. This means you have to take out one or both headphones and politely ask them what they said, which puts us in the same position as c) and d). (If they speak and you don't react or remove the phones, this can also seem rude).

Option c) and d)'s main problem is that you have to wait for the exchange with the acquaintance to finish before you put your headphones back in, and it can be very difficult to tell when that is. If you put them back in and then they say something else to you, you have to take them back out again. Once this happens, you're reluctant to put them back in again, which tends to lead to awkward silences. Several times I've gotten stuck wanting to put my music back in but feeling too awkward to do anything except stand there and be awkward.

This is even worse when someone you don't know starts speaking to you on the bus. These are generally older people, who'll remark to you about the weather, insist on touching you on the arm when they talk to you, and tell you about their prescription and their pets that have died. They don't understand about headphones and don't seem to realise when I have them in it means I'm listening to noise. And as soon as you think they've talked themselves out and put the headphones back on, they start talking again. Don't get me wrong, I give up my seat for an elderly people on the bus, I'm cool with old people, I'm just not big on talking to people I don't know on the bus, especially when I just wanted an hour to myself to listen to You Look Nice Today to cheer myself up.

So what do you do? Man, the sooner I learn to drive the better, it's going to solve all manner of problems.

Also, space was in the news today. I like it when that happens.