I’m almost 30 and I still don’t know how to act like an adult person

Last Sunday night I tried to bike home from the countryside. But it was $§%&ing cold, the wind was in my face, and my new bike has this really annoying thing that I haven’t fixed yet, that the saddle keeps slipping down into a lower position. So about one quarter down the road I caught the train anyway.

There was me and my bike, a guy about my age and his bike, and an 11 year old boy in the wagon. The train hung around on the platform for a bit before leaving, and an older man in a stupid skipper hat (popular among older German men) who reeked of alcohol also came on. He started asking us when the train was leaving, and if we were “okay”, and “joked” that he was from the police. “Ookay”, I said, and the young man tried to ignore him. Then the old guy started asking about what trains he should transfer to, since the U2 line is not in service right now and for some reason he couldn’t ride the buses that cover the route in the meantime. I explained to him how to get to his destination, but apparently my information wasn’t good enough, as he asked the guy the same thing again, and then the boy.

The boy got up to show him what route to take on the subway map above the doors, and the old guy realised that he was just a little boy, all alone on the train late at night, and for some reason he had a problem with that, and started asking him where he was going, how old he was and where his parents were. The kid gave him very smart answers – that he didn’t have to tell him that, etc. He went back to his seat, and the old guy went back to bothering me and the young guy instead. After a while he turned to the boy again and demanded to know where he was going again, claiming to be from the police (which didn’t impress the boy the least). The old guy really pissed me off, and I wanted to tell him to stop it and leave the boy alone, but at some point he stopped anyway. I still hated myself because I didn’t say anything while he was still bothering the boy.

I once more told the old guy what transfers he needed to make, and this time it seemed like he actually got it. Then my stop came, and I got up to get off. The young man also got up to leave, and something was scratching at my brain at that moment, but I didn’t get it. While I waited for the elevator on the platform I saw that the boy, of course, also had gotten off the train. It clearly wasn’t his stop, but obviously he didn’t want to be alone in the car with that drunk old man. And I again kicked myself mentally, because when I saw that the young man was getting off, too, I should of course have stayed with the boy for another stop until the old guy got off.

I don’t know if the young man ever even got that far in his thought process (he was a man, after all), so maybe I should be glad that I actually happened to be on that particular train to begin with, and could at least distract the old guy much more than the young man would have. It still makes me really angry at myself that I didn’t stand up for the boy more. But since he was riding the train late at night all alone at his age, he probably already knows that all adults are assholes and that the only one he can rely on is himself.