When the metro came, I hopped in to an open cab and was happy to easily find a seat. The station was rather busy – reminiscent of pre-Covid times. The seats are arranged in fours and three men came to fill the unoccupied spaces.

I could immediately tell that they were deaf since they were using sign language. One of the guys, who was smaller than the other two was not sure about seating there. He was reassured by another, a buff guy who I found a little domineering of the other two. So, they settled. I was seated by the window and the third guy sat next to me – he was very good looking.

They were in continuous active conversation and I was fascinated. The rapid hand motions and small sounds that one of them made to emphasize his speech carried me away. I wondered if he was aware of making those sounds. I wondered at the fact that they had to be looking at each other to communicate, something that the hearing world doesn’t do too much.

At some point, I got interested in the actual conversation. They seemed to be arguing about where to get drinks later in the day. The smaller guy proposed somewhere that the buff guy rejected instantly. It was then that I realized that that was a conversation I could also easily be having with my own friends. I now saw them as just another group of friends making their way in the world. They had their limitations as we all did, and were making it work.

I realized that my interest in trying to follow their hand gestures must have been obvious, and rude. I was openly eaves dropping! I turned to look out the window, into the passing dark tunnels and told myself to stop looking. It was then that the smaller one in the group who was seated across from me said hello. A simple wave that is universally understood as a greeting. He had a kind smile and I smiled back as I returned the greeting. He said that I was beautiful – a gesture that I immediately understood – and we somehow, all tumbled into conversation.

As it turned out, all of us were headed to the same destination: Stockholm Pride Parade. They were a group of eight in total. There were another four on the same metro and they would meet up with the last guy in the city. I explained that I was on my way to meet up with a friend of mine and that the two of us would head off to the Parade together.

The smaller guy and the buff guy were visiting the cute guy from Gothenburg, and the cute guy was, like me, based out of Stockholm. They were originally from Iraq and had been in Sweden for about eight years. Their jobs were more of the manual sort, such as truck driving and construction work. I explained that I had a desk job and their feedback was to throw their arms in the air in mock exasperation at the simplicity of my sitting calmly behind a desk and sipping tea, while they had to suffer the strain of heavy physical work. I laughed a lot, especially at the dainty little finger sticking out as the buff guy demonstrated how I must sip my cup of tea!

The phone came out to help in the more specific items like names of location, but beyond that, we managed to communicate with signs. It called for me to dig into the resources of my imagination to come up with signs to communicate a lot of these things, and I’m guessing that that was the same for them, since they had to step out of their language and create something new. At times it didn’t work and certain threads of conversation had to be abandoned, or pursued through the phone.

Another thing I found interesting is that when the phone came out, it was set to Swedish. I don’t speak Swedish so did not understand the meaning when the phone was turned to me with a question. I did not know how to sign that I did not speak Swedish and was at a loss on how to proceed. Probably struck by the bemused expression on my face, the cute guy, who had presented the phone to me, somehow understood. He moved to Google Translate for a translation of Swedish to English. I wondered at how he had known that I didn’t understand Swedish, and why it was English that he had turned to. I figured it was an obvious go-to, since the vast majority of people in Stockholm speak English. Still cool, I thought.

That metro ride was very entertaining and interesting. I remember I kept laughing and thought that we must have made an interesting sight to the rest of the people around us. It did leave a warm feeling in my heart to find that it is possible to transcend language barriers in seeking out conversation. That’s the essence of human connection – when we find that we’re all connected to each other in a way larger than all the divisions we create amongst ourselves.