I recently stumbled across a website after hearing about it on the radio. The idea of the website is for women to take pictures of men on the tube sneakily and post them on the site for other women to comment on, have a look - http://www.tubecrush.net/ . This is an interesting idea, not as good as a feature in the now deceased London Paper in which men and women would write love messages to people they had made eye contact with on public transport in London, often inviting them for drinks or dinner. I read this feature every day in Summer 2009 while working in Canary Wharf because I found it hilarious and secretly hoped one would refer to me. One day I broke the unspoken rule of London and spoke to someone, it was pouring with rain and the roof in London Bridge station was leaking. The trains were ridiculously delayed because of so much water so I was sat on a crowded rush hour train that wasn't going anywhere. A young woman (I would guess at about 25) was obviously not happy and without thinking I made a humorous comment about something. She giggled like a schoolgirl before we resumed the norm and ignored each other but kept smiling until the train was eventually cancelled and we were all forced to get home another way. I rang my dad and moaned, he instructed me home somehow. The next Monday I was reading the London Paper and eventually came across my guilty pleasure, the lovestruck bit. After reading a couple I got onto one that said "To the young looking guy in the purple tie on the cancelled 18:19 to Dorking from LBr, you made me smile on a day noone else could, drink?" My immediate reaction was that it must be someone else but then I began to break it up: young looking - I was 16 so young looking, made me smile - I did that to someone, cancelled 18:19 - I was on that, purple tie - I only had 3 ties, one of which was purple. How could it not be me? I didn't follow it up, the T&Cs said you had to be 18, it would never go anywhere, it was cheesy and would be so inappropriate. I met my girlfriend 3 days later on Epsom Downs anyway so I really didn't miss out.
Anyway, this website, in principal it is mildly amusing but a technique I learnt in (sigh) critical thinking is to reverse the situation and this reveals a terrible truth. Say there was a website of pictures of women on the tube that men had sneakily taken without the women knowing. There would be uproar, people would get in serious trouble, heads would roll and the stories would be endless. With this in mind why is it acceptable for women to take photos of men they don't know and submit them to a website for public judgement? Comments include "How fabulous! The new Victoria Line trains come with matching hotties. We'd wondered why ticket prices had gone up!" So I'm playing the double standards card that I so often play when it comes to advertising, either I want this website gone or I want one that works in the opposite way. And no I'm not bitter that noone has put a picture of me up, anyway I haven't taken the tube for months so one day I might be secretly snapped.
Back to revision, chromatography and sprectroscopy await.
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