I always hear complaints — valid, I'm sure, but still — about how awfully rude we men are on the T.  I don't know if it's because women just notice these things more with men, feel victimized by it more when it's men, feel more entitled to politeness from men than men do, or if men really are bigger assholes on the whole than women, at least to women.  Honestly, it's a mystery to me.

I don't know if I would go so far as to say that for every man with a wide stance taking up two seats on the T somewhere there's a woman with a big bag spread out over two, too, but I'm skeptical that disregard for others, or distaste of having them too near, is a gender-specific phenomenon.  Especially on the T.   

The days when men were gentle, and ladies were, well, ladies, are gone.  Recent traffic-snarling rumbles at Forest Hill, on the Orange Line, were said to have been sparked by high school girls, although once they threw down, the boys were more than eager to jump in and lend a hand, a fist, an iron pipe, whatever.

Still, I am often surprised by the bad behavior I see regularly on the high-end of the Red Line.  From Men in Burberry sneezing without the least pretense of covering up to women in Cartier coughing on their fellow commuters with equal disregard, I am constantly amazed at the incivility that seems to prevail in public even at the very top of the food chain, where it is least justified. 

Granted there's a lot going on.  People, when they're alone, even in a crowd, behave differently than when they're among their cohort.  I am convinced that everyday incivility among those who should certainly know better is rooted in fear of and contempt for the other at its most democratic. I find it hard to believe that some of the well-heeled commuters who share the ride from Cambridge to Boston and back would cough and sneeze on their family, esteemed colleagues, and friends.

OK, it happens.  But some behavior is completely beyond the pale, even when anonymity is assured.  Like what I saw on my morning commute today.  There was a very old man — he was extremely tall, lurch-like even, with unsympathetic features, and I would say from his attire that he was working class — who stepped into our medium-crowded car at Porter Square. 

I mention what I assumed to be his class because I believe it's often as much a factor in how people are treated as race, ethnicity, gender, and gender-identity.  I think, given the population on that end of the Red Line, if he had been a spry little old professorial type, he may have been offered a seat earlier than he was.  But he was a little shabby, and as ancient as he was he still had a mildly menacing aura about him.

Before you call "douchebag!" on me, he was halfway down the car or I might have offered him my seat.  Luckily I didn't have to.  Right before reaching Harvard, a middle-aged man in the "please give up your seat to the elderly and handicapped" seat got up and offered it to the old man, who was about to take him up on it when they both turned to find a woman my age had slipped right in, ninja-like.

The man who had given up his seat was actually sort of straddling the seat to make sure no one took it, and she managed to slip under his arm unnoticed while he leaned toward the old man to tell him he was holding it for him.  He was totally taken aback to see her in it.  She had grabbed the seat so quickly and with such stealth that everyone was surprised to see her in it.  And the old man, who already looked like he was carrying the weight of the world, heaved a sigh as it got a little heavier, but said nothing.

The man who had given up his seat let out a nervous laugh and aplogized to the old man profusely, obviously attempting to shame the woman into giving up the seat she had stolen.  He did it in such a way, though, that she could give it up without losing face. She could easily have said, "Oh, I thought you were getting off — I'm sorry — please sit down!"  And been a hero.  We all would have felt better about our humanity had this comedy of errors ended happily. 

It was not to be. 

What she did next was unconscionable.  She completely ignored both men.  She pretended not to hear what those of us halfway down the car could.  It was the single most obnoxiously, consciously inhumane act I'd witnessed... well, all day.  And she didn't even have earbuds in.  There was no plausible denial here.  She pretended she was so engrossed in the morning METRO — the METRO! — that she couldn't hear the man above her apologizing for her audacious act of incivility.

Vile.

Of course, this method of distancing yourself from responsibility for your acts is pretty common in these parts, although as a Midwesterner, I still find it jaw-dropping on a daily basis.  I wouldn't dare just flat-out ignore someone in a situation like this.  I can't imagine the inner life of someone who could.  Whatever embarrassment she may have been covering up by her reaction, she was not about to give up that seat to alleviate it.  I guess that's what my mother used to call "life in the big city."

But it so easily could have been turned into a Mitzvah.  It so easily could have ended in laughter and goodwill among strangers. 

And who knows, the old man might have thanked her and refused to take the seat in the end, showing us all that chivalry's not dead after all.