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

[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.