Respect the rule of the headphones

Sometimes polite conversation is just awkward. Sometimes people really are purposely trying to avoid interacting. But no matter how obvious the signals they are projecting, it would appear that the urge to engage with another human being is just too powerful to resist, and you breach one of the self-executing rules of the highest order: When you encounter a person wearing headphones, the chances are good that they don't want to talk, so you should just move on. Or maybe this is just a self-executing rule in my world. If that is the case, I would really appreciate it if people would stop wandering into that world without first committing to obey the rules. I graduated from law school last week, go me. But just as that comment seems random and out of place, so does the fact that even though I am officially a law grad, each and every day I come back to this life force incinerator to attend perfectly mind numbing lectures and practice exams in preparation for the bar. After class is over, I make my way down to the student lounge, where there are couches next to a series of large windows where a person can at least feel the warmth from the sun, even though going out into it is not an option. I proceed to sit on said couches for about 4 hours while I do homework for the following day, and basically grapple with the fact that during the course of the last three years, I have managed to purge everything I've been taught. Wonderful. As I sit and study, people stream out of the building, mainly because it's summer, and who wants to spend their summer imprisoned in the law school? I don't have much of a choice because studying at home is not an option for me. Thank you, super loud unemployed neighbors. So I sit, and I study in the ever-increasingly empty building. Unfortunately for me, my favored study spot just happens to be by one of the entrances to the law school, so as people vacate, some are unable to resist the urge to comment on my inherent loser-ness. Or perhaps they want to offer me little affirmations in hopes of...what? Encouraging me to persevere? Former professors smile and tell me I'll pass the bar for sure if I keep studying this hard. The dean tells me I shouldn't stay here so late. The office manager at student services shakes her head and reassures me that it will all be over soon. I'm not sure what it is about me that projects to these people an aura of welcoming such unsolicited intrusions. I don't look up when people leave the building. I'm dutifully reviewing outlines and taking mental notes of concepts that I'm pretty sure I knew at one point. I'm staring lifelessly at my computer screen furiously taking notes while listening to a taped lecture on some obscure point of law that I'll probably never encounter in my life outside of the bar exam. I'm wearing headphones, for crying out loud!!!! HEADPHONES!!! Why don't people respect the rule of the headphones? If you try to say something to someone wearing headphones, it is entirely likely they don't hear what you say. This then leads to the awkward fumbling and the inevitable, "I'm sorry, what?" This is then followed by a repeat of the comment that didn't really need to be made in the first place, an exchange of courtesy laughter and polite smiles, and a completely derailed train of thought. If the headphones can't deter this kind of occurrence, then what can???