>>838 I have to say I felt very sorry for him after reading this. It's so incredibly intrusive. I'll set aside for a moment the coincidence of commuting from the same platform (is living near him a thing again for the fandom?). Maybe it is the fact that I am British, but the whole encounter to me read like someone who hated every moment of it but was far too polite to make a break for it (and not at all that he stayed willingly because he is such a great guy and loved the chat). I know it is a stereotype but many Brits would I think find it difficult to walk off after the initial hello and sit in a different carriage or behave in any way that signalled that they wanted to end the encounter. My workplace once held a fancy client party at the Gherkin and before we went a "mingling tips" list was handed out which said among other things how to escape from a conversation with a client that went on too long. These were mostly Oxbridge educated lawyers and they had to be taught how to walk off because they were terrified of appearing rude. Says a lot about the British mentality I think. "He didn't seem overly cheerful" - that's the clue, right there.

The other thing that made me sad for him was that on the same day another fan said in an anon on tumblr that they had spotted him on the tube and been too shy to approach him. All the nannies were saying "way to go, at least the other fan got her encounter." There seemed to be no sense at all that if they had each approached him he would have had all this twice in one day.