Commuting on a train in the morning sucks. Fact.

This is slightly alleviated by travelling out of the city centre rather than in because you tend to get a seat.

There you can dive into your copy of Metro / novel / whatever helps you get into tunnel vision mode ignoring the outside world as any good city person does in the morning. And three seat benches are good because generally there's space in the middle.

Generally, but not always. Not always because there's always the squeezer.

The squeezer comes and squeezes into the middle seat. OK, it's fair that you want to sit and even a middle seat is better than no seat. And being the polite Britain trained commuter I am, I try to make some space to accomodate for the squeezer's generally fat thighs.

But here comes the outrageous bit: the squeezer leans back, tucks in one shoulder and then the next, in the process robbing me of my backrest! A little wiggle here and there and before you know it, the squeezer and I are suddenly very personal.

What the hell?

OK, some contact is unavoidable, but this much?

Sometimes I wonder whether they do it on purpose. I've noticed that often the squeezer also doesn't move when the seat next to them becomes available, which makes me suspect that they do it on purpose. Maybe it's a lack of love at home thing.

But do I have to be love replacement?

I hate to generalise, but so far it's always been women who've squeezed in. This would be OK, if those were attractive women, but again fate would not deal me such a good card.

Or maybe they are just battle hardened commuters who have taken to tunnel vision ignorance to a whole new level.

Buddhist commuting.