Subway Stranglers

Can't it ever just be a conversation between strangers?

Why do you always have to ask me for my name, age and telephone number?

Why do you assume I have any other interest in this situation,
than just making a passing remark.

You are always more bold in the subway?
Why is that?

Is it because we are in the under world? Under ground? In a looking glass, down the rabbit hole situation?

But we're not.
We are still part of the real world.
So this means,
you act like this all the time
That you assume any girl who gives you the slightest provocation is also interested in what you've got in your jeans.
I bet you try to pick up women on the street who talk about Greenpeace or give out flyers on Jehovah.

I wonder why that is.
It would be easy to chalk it up to machismo chauvinism,
but I wonder
could you actually be a decent human being
Whose behaviors actually stem from
being ignored by your mother
who favored
your brother, sister, boyfriend, smoke, drink or drug
over you

or maybe

You are just cripplingly shy
and when a girl gives you a chance to speak
you feel like you've gotta give it everything you've got
because you couldn't ever approach her

Maybe it was because you are actually into me.
Maybe you think I am really pretty and you found what I said witty.
You know that this might be the only chance you'll ever see a girl like me
and you need to seize this moment before i slip out of your fingers

I know this is not the case
because
I looked like hell
In a baggy sweater, pack muled with backpack in tow, wet from the down pour outside
with eye crust and bad posture and halitosis to boot
I am not the picture of loveliness

And what I said was not so0mething funny or smart
It was an unremarkable remark about bad weather and bad moods
So what is the deal?

Why do you feel the need to take this somewhere it was never headed?
Can't you just nod and let me get on my train?
Why do you feel the need to make me feel like a jerk
for trying to turn you down as nicely as possible
for trying to save some face
for trying to0 be friendly with a stranger

Why do I even bother opening my mouth to you?
Shouldn't I know better now?
Shouldn't I know the subway is no place to talk to strangers?