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

[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.