A little whinge

I think people are still a bit anxious about being that close to another person since Covid and some have to be very careful. Also Im quite wide in the beam and theres not enough room on the bus seat for anyone but a small one!

I have no problem with anyone sitting next to me public transport but find it very irksome if all they wish to talk about are themselves with barely a nod when you try to chip in with something about yourself

When I was working I took the same bus daily. There was a seat at the bottom of the stairs that an older business man always sat on. He then spent the journey looking up girls skirts as they went upstairs.

Patsy70

I know exactly how you feel. What about in a car park, where there are loads of spaces and the very large 4x4 parks next to you?

Once travelling from Leicester back home on Boxing Day we stopped at some services hoping at least the toilets were open . We were the only car in the huge car park. When we got back from the loos a car was parked right next to us.
My bug bare is when in a Supermarket often M&S you put your food on the conveyer belt and the bar across the back of them. Someone comes along usually catches you with their trolley pushes the bar up and all your food piles up.
They then stand right beside you at the checkout and when we used to put a code in they watched where your fingers were going. If they are with someone else they comment on what you buy. I feel like saying "Don't be so bl...y nosey.

Our local coffee shop is quite small and doesn't have a lot of seating. So why do people arrive with laptops etc and take over a double table with four chairs to put their coats and bags on. They are completely oblivious (or so it seems) to people wandering around with trays looking for a seat. They then hold long and loud conversations at the same time. Selfish, self important and totally lacking in spatial awareness.

I moan regularly about drivers who don’t signal until they’re virtually turning a corner, or worse, they don’t signal at all!

Yogitree I found the "communal" aspect in Portuguese eateries lovely. Even though difficukties with language meals turned into social events. Children were very well behaved, no running about, shouting, having temper strops, all sat engaged or observing what was going on. Oh for that in UK.

I wonder if the lady wanted an aisle seat because she needed room for her trolley. If she had sat elsewhere she would have had to get up and let someone into the window seat in order to be by the aisle.

Whether you occupy one of the double seats empty in the bus, or sit on the other half of a double seat already occuppied is a cultural thing.

In Denmark, as in Britain it is considered slightly odd if you sit down beside a strange when there are empty seats available elsewhere.

However, and American colleague told me that where she comes from women especially always choose to sit beside someone already occuppying a seat, on the grounds that that way she gets to choose who she sits beside, whereas if she sits on a completely empty seat, she has no say in who sits down beside her later.

Her mother had apparently drilled the principle into her when she was young.

In India, too, a woman boarding a bus on her own will always try to find a seat beside another woman, to avoid having to sit beside a completely strange man.

My whinge of late, minor as it is, is this. I go swimming around three times a week. Being a strange person, and I'm not alone I'm thankfully in the majority, when I'm in the pool, I just swim that's why I go. However, I can't help noticing that some people go, get in the pool, usually before they amble off to the jacuzzi and spend their time chatting to a friend, there is a bar/coffee lounge for socialising. The problem is, the talkers, will stay at the end of the pool, the bit where we the swimmers do our turn around and because some of the width is taken up, swimmers wishing to avoid them, get corralled into half a section of the pool because there are inactive people just hanging around talking at the end. I've started to swim at them now, depending on how many of us are doing lane swimming, one woman looked a bit shocked with an "oh" as I approached the end as if I wasn't observing the protocol of the "lets just stand here and get wet people". I mean I don't see the point grrr!

I had just moved to Glasgow in the 1970s and was sitting at one end of a bench in Sauchiehall St and there was a woman at the other end. A third woman turned up and said to me "move yer bum, hen" indicating I should move up towards the middle of the bench and let her sit at the end. I was so flabberghasted at the time that I immediately obeyed. I soon learned that this was par for the course in Glasgow and quickly came to love the friendly outgoing nature of Glaswegians. Sad to leave 15 years later.

Tall people with huge backpacks are potentially lethal on tube platforms!

If they do that to me, before I've even turned on the ignition, I gety phone out and have a browse

Back packs on public transport and those individuals on a train who need to use the whole table .....it drives me insane!

On a recent trip, someone in front of me boarded the train wearing a back pack, as they moved up the carriage, they kept catching people sitting in aisle seats, one lady across the side of her head! I appreciate they can be heavy but at least have some spacial awareness.

Haha. Like being on a deserted beach and people have to sit themselves right next to you.

Alverstone25

Calendargirl

I would feel annoyed if someone sat next to me if there were plenty of other seats available. Completely different if the bus were nearly full.

I don’t think this makes me ‘standoffish’, just don’t want to sit next to strangers if not necessary.

And please, before anyone says ‘A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet’ or similar….

Agreed...

At bus stops, at the checkout or any other places where you have to stand or sit alongside someone then I would always happily chat, but to sit next to me on an empty bus would really annoy me

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one...

I don't believe it has anything to do with not being civil or kind to "strangers" as some on here seem to imply. I think most people will strike up a conversation with strangers when the situation calls for it.

It's about personal space (studies indicate it's 18 inches) the invasion of which by strangers makes us feel uncomfortable. Sometimes - like on a packed underground trains, it's unavoidable and therefore accepted. When I had to travel on the rush hour tube, I would always try to make eye contact with the person who was rammed up against me and give a wry smile to acknowledge the fact that we were both forced to endure the 'intimacy' of close contact.

Calendargirl

I would feel annoyed if someone sat next to me if there were plenty of other seats available. Completely different if the bus were nearly full.

I don’t think this makes me ‘standoffish’, just don’t want to sit next to strangers if not necessary.

And please, before anyone says ‘A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet’ or similar….

Agreed...

At bus stops, at the checkout or any other places where you have to stand or sit alongside someone then I would always happily chat, but to sit next to me on an empty bus would really annoy me

... and don't get me started on who sits where at choir practice!

Shantygirly

I go regularly to aqua aerobics and every woman has her 'spot' woe betide if you should encroach on someone else's!! A deliberate kick during exercise has been known, and some of those women are really scary!

That’s the same at our aqua. I always get in quickly to get ‘my’ spot, but if I was in later, I would just accept it.

Really annoying if someone stands too close, you can’t do the exercises properly. Some people are very blinkered, and just hope you will be the one to move.

I go regularly to aqua aerobics and every woman has her 'spot' woe betide if you should encroach on someone else's!! A deliberate kick during exercise has been known, and some of those women are really scary!

I was swimming in a waterhole once and these big eels were swimming in and out round my legs. I was the only one in there but lots of people were watching me and when I got out they commented on the snakes following me around. I had no idea-- just as well! And I just thought they were being nosy ...

overthehill

Mogsmaw I was way down the bus next to the exit not near the front at all. Also regarding the wheelchair area once the bus fills up it appears everyone for themselves as rarely do you actually see a wheelchair user and if one gets on, then people do move out the way.

I was wanting you to see “it’s not about you” .
People can have lots of reasons for choosing a particular seat and just because you don’t know them that doesn’t mean they are not important. It might not be just bloody mindedness.

I remember when I was about 20 my friend and I were in a pub in East Grinstead when a 40 ish man began to talk to us. He asked if we would like a go at driving his car so we did.Thinking back that was rather odd wasn't it but we were very naive and no harm was done.

The herd instinct is still with us! Safety in numbers is the reason. We all belong to the same huge `tribe` now, or so our instinct tells us.

One morning I looked out and saw about 10 Japanese tourists walking round and admiring my garden.