I went to an appointment at the women's centre at the hospital yesterday. After booking in I was asked to go round to the waiting room which was packed. I'm currently 4 and a half months pregnant and have a bit of a bump. There were plenty of men in the waiting room along with lots of pregnant women. A few of the men near me looked at my bump but didn't offer me a seat. I was fine with that as im not heavily pregnant, I do faint if I stand up too long but they don't know that.
A little while later I managed to get a seat and was waiting for my name to be called. I then saw the most painfully pregnant looking woman (tiny tiny frame and a bump the size of a planet) walk in and I thought surely someone will offer this woman a seat. Nope, not one of the men stood up. As soon as I realised this I gave her mine and had a chat with her. Turns out she is two weeks from being induced with twins and had just walked to the hospital, no wonder she looked exhausted!!!
I'm really cross that not one person in the room cared enough about another human being to offer this lady a seat, it just makes me so sad :(
AIBU?
To be disapointed in the human race :(
HeffalumpTheFlump · 03/05/2013 09:31
Bystander apathy. Everyone else in the room will have been thinking the same as you "Someone should give that lady a seat" but no-one believes it is upto them 
Once you'd given her your seat if another elderly or pregnant woman came in another person would have offered up their seat.
One of my favourite sayings is "I always thought 'someone should do something about, then I realised I am someone'" I teach my children to live by that. They always offer up their seats to elderly or pregnant women or children younger and less stable than themselves.
I can remember being on a bus when pregnant with DS1, it was fairly busy with a few empty seats right at the back. Fwiw I was happy to stand at the front. After 2mins or so, this dear little old man stood up and said (rather loudly) 'it doesn't look like anyone else is going to offer you their seat my dear, would you like mine?' Cue a lot of people looking rather ashamed of themselves 
I declined the offer of the seat, I think the old gent needed it more than I did!
But one person DID care enough to give up their seat
This does remind me of a story my sister related about being heavily pregnant on the tube and being exhausted. No-one would meet her eye and in the end someone got up to leave right next to where she was standing. She lowered herself to the seat only to find herself pretty much sitting in the lap of some fella who had sneaked in underneath her! Her colleague shamed the hell out of him and he moved in the end!
There are plenty of people who do give their seat though. A couple of years ago we went for the weekend to London with our DDs (one was in a buggy) and my late FIL - who didn't consider himself 'old' (early sixties) but had snow white hair.
LOADS of people offered him their seat on the tube. And when we had to carry the buggy up and down steps at tube stations, we would often get offers of help from people, even city chaps (I worried about the dirty wheels on their smart suits).
Showed a lovely caring attitude from Londoners you seldom hear about.
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