Strangers on a train

Last Friday night, part two.

So, my friend B's birthday party. We went out to a club, after much deliberation of where to actually go. A rather cool place called The Ritz, in Manchester. It looked like a converted theatre inside, or perhaps the atrium of a particularly posh hotel (hence the name? I'm not sure; I could look it up, but where's the fun in that?). Tall, square space inside, with a bouncy castle off to one side. As you do.

I had a go, of course.

Other than that, the club was big on heavy, heavy metal music and I promptly got a headache.

I'd checked train times before I headed out, and knew that I could either get the 00.53 out, or wait until 4.30 am.

I looked at the clock, it was 00.22, and I checked the pre-downloaded portion of Googlemaps that I had on my handy little iPod Touch thingy. (Which I'd downloaded to direct me from the station to meeting with B.) I found that the club happened to fall within that tiny section of map, and was clearly about ten minutes walk from the station...

So I left.

When I got to the station, and found my platform, there was a man lying facedown on the floor. Nobody seemed to notice. So I asked, to the waiting travellers in general, if he was okay. A young lady with faded blue streaks in her blonde hair told me he was just asleep and had asked her to wake him when the train arrived.

The young lady in question had two large suitcases and was travelling alone. I offered to help her put them on the train when it arrived, and we started talking. Turned out she was a student, heading home with practically her entire wardrobe - I sympathised, we swapped tales of similar journeys, we ended up sitting together on the train.

She turned out to be a Doctor Who fan. And Being Human, Torchwood, etc etc etc...

Her ongoing train, from my stop, wasn't until 6.40 in the morning. She was planning on waiting in the station for four hours.

I offered to let her come back to mine for a few hours, since it would be warmer. I expected her to refuse - after all, we'd just met, and while I'd been helpful and you and I know I'm sweet and innocent and harmless, she had no way of knowing - and she did, sensibly.

So instead, since we'd also discussed food and the like and I'd discovered she'd hardly eaten and wouldn't have much time to do so later today, as she was heading straight on almost as soon as she'd got home, I went back to mine, grabbed a variety of chocolate and biscuits and drinks, and took them back to her in the station.

We swapped first names and nothing else. I don't have her number, I don't have her on Facebook, nothing.

I appreciate this sounds very strange, on my part, and that's what I'm wondering.

Why is it weird for someone to help a stranger out?

If I'd been travelling that late and with all that hassle ahead of me, and someone had randomly presented me with an upoened box of chocolate fingers, I'd be pleased. But I'd find it weird too.

I don't know, maybe I'm just a freak. But harmless. Honest.