Whenever I meet up with friends, I’m usually comfortable meeting them anywhere that’s convenient for them (within limits, of course; I don’t like travelling much). But if they suggest a train station in central London, my usual reaction is “HELL NO.” To explain why I’m so adverse to this idea, I’ll have to tell the story of what I like to call “the Emma situation.” …This story always fills me with a tiny amount of rage whenever I tell it, so bear with me.

The “Emma” is of course, another one of my friends. She’s one of the best people I know to go shopping with (as most of my other friends get annoyed with my attraction to shiny objects), and is normally one of the few friends I don’t want to bitchslap after a few minutes – my friends and I usually have a love/hate relationship.

Now, a couple of months ago, we planned to meet up to do some shopping (or window shopping in my case; I wasn’t working then and was therefore broke). As I was going to be in central London for another reason, I thought I might as well meet her there, as that’s where we were planning to go anyway. And so, at the designated time, I sauntered up to Piccadilly Circus station and waited.

If you’re not familiar with the London Underground system, certain Tube lines are completely underground (meaning you can’t get a phone signal at all), some are completely overground and you can use phones freely, and some are a mix between the two – on certain parts of the line, the train is overground, and you can quickly call someone, but the train soon goes into a tunnel and you lose your final connection with the world when that happens. Dun dun dun.

The line she was travelling on was one of those mixed ones; the Piccadilly Line loses all phone signal after a certain station (Barons Court, for those in the know). I phoned her and found out she was only a few stops from going underground.

Knowing she was going to be slightly late, I went to Starbucks nearby and got myself a drink.
As the shop was full and I couldn’t sit down inside, I decided to walk down the road to Leicester Square instead and sit on one of the benches. I thought I could sit down for at least 15 minutes without interruption. When she got off the train, she could ring me, I thought.

I opened up The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I started reading.

100 pages flew by. “Where could she be?” I wondered. “Surely it doesn’t take half an hour to go 6 stops on the Tube?” I rang her just to make sure. Yep, went straight to voicemail. “Maybe the train got stuck somewhere in between. It sometimes does that.” I gave her the benefit of the doubt, and carried on reading.

Another 50 pages, and still no Emma. By then, my patience had gone, and I was getting really, really pissed off. I rang her phone. “This phone is currently unavailable”, the message said, which suggested she was still underground.

20 minutes after that, and I found out she had been waiting on a platform in the station for me the entire time.

Piccadilly Circus, the station, is served by two lines/services. This means four platforms! AND NO WAY OF COMMUNICATING WITH PERSON WHO IS ON A DIFFERENT PLATFORM TO YOU/OUTSIDE BECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE A BLOODY PHONE SIGNAL. Two lines/services also means I could have come to Piccadilly Circus from any direction, and used any of the other three platforms, not just the one she was standing on. Oh, and did I mention the size of the platforms and how easy it is to get to an exit without walking the entire length and breadth of the damn thing?
Besides, she already knew that I had arrived a while ago. What angered me the most is that after a few minutes of no one had turning up, she hadn’t gone upstairs, out of the gates, and outside where she could actually USE HER PHONE. What a fucking waste of an hour of my life.

I saw a major common sense fail there. And then proceeded to turn into my mother and scream and shout at her in the manner of a very angry Thai lady. Even though it’s been a while, writing this now to tell you guys why I won’t meet you at a train station – and don’t even talk about platforms to me – still brings back a large amount of the annoyance and frustration felt on the day.

So whenever someone (maybe even you) tells me they want to meet at a train station; a train station that has several platforms and is buried underground, I will usually say no. Or if there really is no other way, I will find a café or something similar outside (e.g. Platform 9 and 3/4 at King’s Cross), specify that I want them to wait there and only there, and keep on mentioning the word “outside” to them. Not on the platform. OUTSIDE, DAMN IT, OUTSIDE, WHERE I CAN PHONE YOU IF YOU’RE STUPIDLY LATE.

Neurotic and paranoid and controlling? Yes. But I’m not having a repeat of that situation again. Ever.