When I lived in Boston decades ago, wearing headphones with a “walkman” tape player was a way to avoid conversations with strangers on the subway, while waiting, and while walking on the sidewalk.
lol that’s a good idea! Oh yeah and I forgot to mention, when I was on the train to Penn station I found an old wallet in my backpack. I was going to throw it out but instead I thought I would do a little test, I put it on the outside of my backpack in a little net that made it clearly visible. There was nothing in the wallet of course. I put on the backpack, got off the train and by the time i hit the street the wallet was gone. Didn’t see or feel anyone stealing it. Someone walked right up behind me and took it. Maybe it was one of the bums asking me for change, but I didn’t see them reach behind me or get behind me. Someone else took it. It was a nice little test to see how bad crime is there and that said it all. I wonder how many people get ripped off there in a day.