Rudeness

[pegkerr]

I have been thinking about an incident which happened on New Year's Day. I can't believe that I have thought about it as much as I have!

The four of us went to see a movie. Rob and the girls stopped at the concession stand, so I went into the theater alone to find seats for us. The girls always like to sit in the back row, so I looked there, first. The first five rows were pretty open, but otherwise the theater was rather full, with only single seats scattered here and there. But in the back row, there were two women seated together in the exact center. On each side of them, there were three open seats.

So I went up to that row and asked one of them whether they would mind moving down by just one seat so that our party of four could sit there. The woman glanced at me and then looked away. "No," she said. "We won't. We were here first."

My jaw dropped at her rudeness. I just couldn't believe it. I felt a sudden boil of anger and I knew I had to get away fast before I said something I really regretted. "Thank you so much," I muttered with exaggerated politeness--absurdly--and I hurried away to the third row of the theater and got seats for us there.

Why am I still thinking about it four days later?

Comments

[musicbearmn.livejournal.com]

Common courtesy seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur. My partner and I have seen more cases of poor service at restaurants, people rude at stores, and at the movie theatres, among others. It seems that people only care about themselves and the golden rule has gone away. It's sad, really.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

There's just no REASON for people to act like that, and it really really makes me mad. I wonder what they'd have done if you brought your family up there anyway, sat on both sides of them, and talked and passed your popcorn over their heads? They'd have deserved it.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

You know, the idea to do this very thing occurred to me for the first time this morning. I have to laugh, and I find it obscurely comforting to realize that it just doesn't come naturally to me to think of the rude response. It took me four days to think of it!

That says something nice about my own character.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does.

I almost certainly wouldn't have thought of it at the time, and never would have had the nerve (or the rudeness, if you want to put it more nicely) to do it -- but I would have been daydreaming about it afterwards. :)

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

OH. MY. GOD.

I heard someone else bitching about this in a movie theater the last time I went to a show. Someone asked them to budge up one measly seat, and they were audibly complaining about having to lose their "choice" of seats.

I think it's because people are, more and more, thinking of the movie theatre as their own private showing. Instead of it being a collaborative entertainment vehicle, people are treating it like an extension of their own living room. Crying kids? Why not! Claiming "best" seats? Sure! Requiring a buffer between people for your poky elbows? Required!

It's getting so I won't go to a movie anymore. It has to look really freaking spectacular before I'll go. Not only are they outrageously expensive, but people are starting to act like complete entitlement bitches, and I just can't handle it.

*joins you in disgust of those women's rudeness*

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, sorry, this was in a big stadium theatre, and they were in quite generic seats. And the source of their complaint wasn't their vision, but that by arriving early, they believed that they had somehow secured their particular (not all that great) seats and didn't want to move one single seat over and shift their coats to their laps like nearly everyone else in the theatre.

I totally understand the focus issue--I get motion sickness in theatres if I'm too far forward or back--that's different.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm willing to grant other people as much attachment to their favorite seats as I have to mine, even if their seats don't look especially good to me.

But shifting *one seat*? I have a hard time seeing that as a significant loss, and left-right position is the most important part of my own favorite seat placement. I'd shift one seat for strangers, and I would kinda hope most other people would too.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Only one of the people would have had to move, which makes it both easier and harder to understand.

K.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I heard someone else bitching about this in a movie theater the last time I went to a show. Someone asked them to budge up one measly seat, and they were audibly complaining about having to lose their "choice" of seats.

Without meaning in any way to support such obnoxious behaviour as that of the women Peg post about, it's possible, particularly in fairly small cinemas, for people with particular kinds of bad eyesight to only be comfortably able to see the film from a relatively small range of seats, and there are cinemas in town where I personally might well not be able to move a single seat - particulary a single seat back - without no longer being able to focus on the screen for the length of a movie without getting a headache. I do my best not to be rude about this, but I think it's legitimate for me to be firm in refusing to move if asked. Particularly because I usually make the effort to be fifteen or twenty minutes early in order to get the specific seat in question.

[aome.livejournal.com]

But I'm also sure you would explain your reasoning, not simply "I was here first (so nyah!)" but "I have a vision impairment and this is the only location that will work for me - I'm sorry.". I know I would accept someone's refusal to move for disability reasons.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Useful data point. That's a mighty narrow tolerance zone, must be kind of a pain going to movies, especially newer popular ones.

[annieways.livejournal.com]

Because they were being jackasses.

New Year's Eve afternoon we had sort of a similar situation--at least a situation of rude movie theater behavior. Doug, Jenna and I were seated on the side of a very full theater, with one empty seat next to Jenna against the wall. A family of two parents and two teenage boys sat down behind us. The youngest boy sat behind the empty seat and proceeded to put his smelly feet on the back of the seat--the entire movie. He got up three times during the movie, each time rocking Jenna's and my seat. His phone rang once and he chatted a while. Meanwhile, his parents had brought in their own Chex mix and canned pop and munched and slurped the entire movie. Jenna and I glared at both the boy and his parents several times during the movie, but they didn't stop their annoying behavior. I wanted to say something to them, but I'm sure they would have responded rudely, like the women to whom you spoke. And then I probably would have thrown my Coke at them. The theater was too crowded to move to a new spot.

I sometimes wish there were still theater ushers that walked up and down the aisles. They would have booted their asses out.

[darkthirty.livejournal.com]

The comments here are not quite what I was thinking, they amount to, yunno, people are just ruder, but make no attempt to explain why.

It has to do rather with the fact that the residential unit, for example, is becoming more and more self-sufficient, and more and more the only percieved freedom is priviledge and pecadillo, what type of toothpaste one buys, for example. Plus, television since the inception of Survivor type shows has more and more promulgated the basest selfishness as the only so-called REAL human expression. THe philosophical is removed from public dialogue, and replaced with self-interest as the only marker of wisdom or sense. See the Washington Post on the war, for example. Anything that isn't self-interest just doesn't exist. Ayn Rand has become the model of all truth, incipiently.

That's the lie, and falling for it is an ugly ugly business. Since 9/11, there's been a war mentality without, of course, rationing, but sustained by a vast, and yet subtle propaganda, that, in spite of it's apparent fairness and so-called objectivity, is simple fear and hate of Islam.

Our shared fandom is all about not falling for the lie, in some sense, and Rowling has stated as much.

[darkthirty.livejournal.com]

I mean, of course, since you're thinking of it 4 days later, it must resonate with something more than "people are rude these days" is all.

And, to join the dots, if self-interest is the only REAL thing, then anything is justified. (Re: war and so forth)

[aome.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was rude.

Of course, if you don't mind paying back rudeness with rudeness, you could always have split your party two-and-two on either side of them (or one-and-three) and talked over them/around them until they gave up and moved over so you could be together. :P (Not that I'm honestly advocating rudeness - only wishful thinking.)

[windelina.livejournal.com]

Ahh, this isn't a bad idea (if you go in for this sort of reactive behavior - which I sometimes do).
Especially if you make sure to sit right next to them with no "buffer seats".
I don't think you'd even need to talk over them - just sitting all around them would probably make them cave.

[daharyn.livejournal.com]

This is ruder than the original behavior, by far.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

You know, the idea to do this very thing occurred to me for the first time this morning. I have to laugh, and I find it obscurely comforting to realize that it just doesn't come naturally to me to think of the rude response. It took me four days to think of it!

That says something nice about my own character.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

aome's version might be ruder, but your response is to windelina's comment--how is simply sitting in the available seats ruder than refusing to move?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of the provocative talking and deliberate popcorn-passing, actually.

[windelina.livejournal.com]

How is it rude?
They refuse to move, so you accommodate an interrupted seating arrangement. No argument, no fuss.
You've in fact played by their rules.

But if they refuse to move, why is it wrong to then decide not to leave "buffer seats" as is normal??

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

While there are no longer ushers as such, there are theater personnel who will come into the theater and ask people to move, when the seats are needed. Sometimes it's best to just go get one of them, rather than approach the seated patrons yourself.

[shakespearechic.livejournal.com]

Agreed. On the other hand, as someone who worked in a movie theatre for 6.5 years I can say that people don't always listen to us either. All we can do is ask, so if they are being stubbornly rude that's really all we can do (since they paid too, "got there first", etc.) It just sucks that some people can't be bothered to move over one or two seats - it is not like they are being asked to move to a different row, etc. away from their desired seating location.

I'm not sure if they still do this, but I recall going to the movie theatre in London a few times when we lived there in the 90s and we were sold assigned seats (like going to see a play!) and I have often wished for something like that, although impractical on the scale of the American 30-screen megaplex).

[aome.livejournal.com]

Yep, they still do this - or they did, when we went to see CoS in 2002.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

I was actually considering people's manners when I was on my walk last night. It seems to me that people aren't teaching proper manners to their children anymore. It might be fussy and stupid to some people, but a little courtesy goes a long way.

[ailbhe]

In my less generous moments, I wonder if it's because mommy and daddy aren't constantly in junior's company; bad manners are really no fun to live with.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

Just be glad you don't actually know them. Such people would be a nightmare to work with or live next-door to. They are the only people on the planet, clearly, and the "principle" of first-come, first-serve is more important than being nice. (We're not even talking about being polite here, which is something you often do for good form whether you want to or not, but genuinely doing something for someone else when there's nothing in it for you, which, I would guess, those two women have never, ever done once in their lives.)

I don't, however, think they are the only sort of people on the planet. When Rachel and I were taking the train both to and from NYC for Harry, Carrie and Garp, we boarded at a time when all of the pairs of seats in every car already had one person sitting in them, either on the aisle or by the window. BOTH TIMES, after we chose aisle seats close together, one of the people we were sitting with said, "Oh, would you like to sit together?" without our asking anyone at all to move. They just saw a mother and daughter who would have been forced to sit separately and felt like doing the nice thing, the decent thing.

There really are people out there who aren't as self-centered and rude as those two.

[irielle.livejournal.com]

It was rude of them, but you asked "Why am I still thinking about it four days later?" and I don't think that was a rhetorical question. Then again I was just released from the hospital this week and am still on narcotic painkillers so please take anything I type with a grain of salt. It's just that I can sympathize. When my depression is on a downswing because I haven't been taking my Lexapro faithfully I find myself stuck in loops where I keep dwelling on rude things like you describe, and the anger & frustration which come with them. It's been one of the reasons why I'm so glad I finally sought medical care for depression because not being able to let go of negativity like that isn't good for you.

Maybe it's like this for you because things are already more difficult for you during the winter and the SAD you've described to us?

Since as mentioned, I'm on drugs, and the wicked part of me that gets out like this imagines sitting one of the girls on either side of these women, with plenty of allowances for clumsiness. Oops, did I just elbow you or spill something? So sorry. Life's tough isn't it?

Oog, now you're going to think I'm really really mean.

[ironymaiden]

when you make a request, it is completely reasonable for the other person to turn you down. were you upset by the tone, or by being refused?

Selfish.

[butterflydrming.livejournal.com]

That's shitty, and brings down all women as a gender. Crying to be manipulative. Could you really not stand to be away from your husband for 5 hours? You essentially punished the man for being polite, for being a gentleman.

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

That's really really obnoxious. If you can't stand to be separated from your husband by five feet for five hours you have bigger problems than sitting in the window seat. People with long legs book aisle seats Well in advance deliberately to accomodate this. I'm short and I show up early to movies so that I can avoid sitting behind tall people. Talk about entitlement. Jesus.

[snippy]

I don't think they were rude. They could have been rude: they could have pointed out that you had no right to ask them to move, since they put in the time to get to the theater early enough to sit together, in the location they wanted; and that they had no obligation to address your group's problem of getting there too late to sit together.

I am often annoyed by people who think it's my problem to mitigate their bad judgment, like letting in the bozos who zoom up in the lane that is clearly marked as merging into mine, when you can tell they did it to avoid the long line of traffic that already merged. They're trying to take cuts, and I feel no obligation to let them in.

I don't think your asking was either wrong or rude, and I understand your feelings of frustration, but my sympathies are with the people you are calling rude.

[butterflydrming.livejournal.com]

I agree with your comment.

[jeanineers.livejournal.com]

I had much the same reaction. I try to make sure I get to the theatre in time for my group to sit together. If we happen to get to the theatre too late to be seated together, it's incentive to plan better next time.

It would have been nice if the people you asked to move had been kinder with their response, but I don't agree that they are wrong to refuse to move.

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

I hate being asked to move in movie theatres because I'm very short and I often show up early just so I can make sure I don't have to sit behind someone tall. Moving One seat over can still do that. It often does. I'm not saying they couldn't have refused more tactfully, but I think they had every right to do so. If your group was so concerned about sitting together you could have come earlier or, upon seeing the crowd, waited for a later showing.

[arian1.livejournal.com]

I'd have split the family two and two and sat on either side of them. Then whisper loudly and pass the popcorn across them during the film until they leave or go insane.

[hamsterwoman]

I think the way in which they refused was, indeed, quite rude, but the refusal to move over -- not automatically so.

I'm 5'2", which means that if I'm sitting behind anything but an empty seat or a kid at the movies I have to crane my neck for two hours to see over somebody's shoulder -- not a huge deal, but a rather annoying contribution to an annual movie date. I've been in the situation of the two women you describe -- we'd gotten to the theater early, picked a spot in a row from which I could see and where I was sitting behind a child, and then had a family of three come up and ask we we could move over so they could sit together. The theater was quite full by then, and it was clear that there were no three seats together anywhere. So I moved -- and ended up watching Goblet of Fire through the keyhole between the shoulder and the baseball cap of the kid's rather tall father and the silhouette of whoever was sitting next to him.

In that case, I moved because the desire of a family to watch the movie together trumps, for me, the discomfort of craning my neck to see. But if there were other open seats, three together, in the theater, just in a different row? I probably would have said, sincerely, "Oh, I'm sorry -- I wish I could help, but I don't think I'd be able to see the screen if I moved. I think there are three seats together up at the front -- maybe you could try those?"

[wouldyoueva.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but, I suspect you explain your reasoning rather than "I was here first."

I would have seated my group anywhere we could find seats, and that might have been on either side of them. And, given I have a teeny weeny bladder, I would have made sure every bathroom break required me to walk in front of them. Can't help it if I have to go.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

You're still thinking about it because it's so far beyond the norm, is my guess. In my experience, people are usually pretty nice. This lady? Obviously her mama didn't raise her right.

[msavi.livejournal.com]

You might still be thinking about it because of any number of things: you would've liked to say/do something different than you said/did (that happens to me ALL of the time), you're angry for your daughters' sakes, you're finding it difficult (as I often do) to let go of things you can't change...or maybe none of these, who knows?

I think you can be proud that you handled it with class and maturity. And if it's any consolation, I would bet dollars to donuts that the rude woman regrets what she said or that someday, she will. Was she there first? Yes. Did she have to move? No. But let's get a little perspective here, right? It was ONE seat over. Unless freaking Chewbacca was sitting in front of the next seat over, she was being stupid and obstinate for no reason other than her over-inflated sense of entitlement and self-righteousness. Just my two cents.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lotuseater/]

God, I would be bothered by that too. Hey, we're Minnesotans--we're usually very nice to each other.

[nwl.livejournal.com]

Why am I still thinking about it four days later?

To be a bit different, I took this question as the main idea of your post.

I can't think of where, but I've read articles about that - why bad or annoying things stick in a person's mind more so than good or positive things. Consider the number of times people have been polite - opened doors, moved a seat, let you go first, etc. Do these stick in the mind as much as the times the opposite happened? Those who study human behavior say not. We tend to remember the bad over the good.

I wonder if this is a hold over from the hunter-gather days. If that berry you ate gave you a bad reaction, you remember it so you don't eat it again. If that tribe over the hill objects to anyone hunting there, it might be good to avoid them. Maybe we need to learn to let go of the bad unless it's something like "don't eat that."

[aerden.livejournal.com]

*blink* One of them couldn't move one measly seat over? I can imagine one person acting like that, but both? I'd be embarrassed to sit with someone who was that selfish.

God help them if they ever go to see one of the Harry Potter movies, because they will be required to move to make room for others, then. Sheesh!

Chantal

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

This has been an interesting entry which has drawn a lot of comments. There are some on my friends list who have agreed with you, and others who have said emphatically that the women had every right to refuse to move one seat. Some have suggested there might have been another reason, but really, the seats were raked enough that not being able to see the screen wasn't an issue, and there weren't any giants sitting in the next row. They just were unwilling to have one of the two of them move one seat over, to a seat that available. Just because.

I am still boggling over it, a week later.