Elevators are one of the weirdest intimate experience strangers have on a daily basis
Summary
Elevators are one of the weirdest intimate experiences strangers have on a daily basis, and this rider has thoughts. Kareem meets someone who's clearly spent too much time thinking about the awkwardness of being trapped in a tiny room, propelled up into the sky with strangers, all facing the same direction in what they describe as "a really emotionally repressed orgy." It gets meta. Sometimes they start laughing in elevators just thinking about how everyone else is also thinking about being in the elevator, which makes it worse. The proposed solution? Put seats in elevators like the subway, because standing together is always awkward. Or take the escalator. Twenty-five floors though? No.
Full Transcript
So, what's your take? Elevators are one of the weirdest intimate experience strangers have on a daily basis that no one's talking about. 100% agree. It is weird. It's weird. You're trapped in a tiny room, the tiny thing. You're propelled up into the sky, down below, breathing the same stale air, shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of strangers, and then the doors open and you're released. You're released and nothing ever happened. It's weird. They've been around for a long time and they've never gotten less awkward. It's always and everyone faces the same direction and you all pretend that you're not in an elevator. An existential closeness that we've all signed up to like a social contract. That's weird.
It is weird. And there's variations of this. You could be alone with one other person that you don't very awkward. Could be a big group. We're all really tight. Very, very strange. It's like really emotionally repressed orgy. Sometimes when I'm in the elevator and I start thinking about how I'm in the elevator and that everyone else is thinking that they're in the elevator at the same time that I'm thinking about that I'm in the elevator, I start laughing. I start laughing and then it makes it even worse.
I know. You know, I know you know. I know. I know. You know, I know. And then I start laughing though because I'm like, "Yeah." And then other people are like, "Why is that guy laughing? He's such a weirdo." And they're right. I am a weirdo. But I'm like, "Hey, we're all in. I think we need to make this elevator more like the subway. Put the seats in. Sitting is less awkward than standing. If you're all standing together, standing together is always awkward.
I don't know. I didn't know we were supposed to find like a solution. Take the escalator. Is there a solution? Take the escalator. 25 floors. No.