Increasingly hate sitting next to people

Modern technology actually makes it easy to do most stuff remotely now

Indeed.
Although it makes it even easier for people to isolate themselves and live a hermit like existence.

By working from home, ordering stuff online instead of going to the shops, socialising online, going for walks outdoors, away from crowded places. Modern technology actually makes it easy to do most stuff remotely now, so there is no need to go near anyone else.

Nobody made it about sex. Stop trying to pretend you don’t understand the point that was being made.
Nobody is disputing that you (and sone others) find it unpleasant to sit by people either. Just that it’s a level of anxiety which is unhealthy and which you should perhaps seek to deal with. Humans are social creatures. Isolating yourself isn’t healthy.

My point was how people like you function in the real world.

No, it wasn't about sex at all, until someone started trying to make it about sex. But it also isn't about whether a random person is nice or not - it's about whether someone would want to sit right next to them. And to you it may seem odd, but to me (and perhaps some others on this thread) the idea of having to be in close proximity to other people is unpleasant. For me, it's the knowledge that I am breathing in whatever they have just breathed out. Air may look like ' just air' but it's really not - it contains all kinds of microscopic particles and gunk, and I don't want the contents of some random person's lungs in mine. If it weren't true, there would be no such thing as airborne diseases for a start.

You’ve either completely misunderstood or are being deliberately obtuse. It wasn’t about sex as I’m pretty sure you well know. It was about random people being as likely to be nice as not. More likely to be nice in my experience. And not wanting to breathe air someone else has breathed is completely odd.

I think I said that I didn't want to breathe in air that had just come out of a random strangers mouth. And someone then started asking about sex. I pointed out that I didn't want to have sex with any of the random strangers either. Or any other intimate contact, up to and including inhaling their dirty breath!

Nobody is asking you to have intimate contact with anyone. You’re deliberately misrepresenting the analogy.

Well, if I took a random selection of people from most public places, 99.999% of them I would not want any intimate contact with, regardless of how 'nice' they may seem.

Yes, no one’s disputing that. My point is only that a random selection of people in your vicinity in either case is as likely to yield nice, interesting, personable people as grotesquely badly-behaved ones.

She is hoping for validation, which she won't get from posters who thinks that her phobia about other people needs addressing (I do too TBH).

FFS what do you want from this thread OP?

You're bristling and being rude for no reason.

Go and see a GP and stop picking an argument with strangers on the internet.

@WarmFrogPond

Likewise the people you could potentially sleep with are just a cross-section of the population which is available and in your vicinity when you’re single and looking.

You have a choice as to who you sleep with. You don't have a choice as to which random stranger sits next to you.

It really isn’t. It’s just…air

I went to "Ballet Shoes" on Saturday alone. ( No one I know was keen and DH is away). It was one of my favorite childhood books. I was next to a little girl and her parents. We talked about how fantastic the performance was, and how it had been updated. She wasn't smelly or gross or rude or anything. Neither were her parents.
It was a magical evening, and it was lovely to connect with other people who enjoyed the book as much as I did. That really is what makes us humans, not hiding at home worrying about germs.

But random strangers sitting close to you at the at the theatre are just a cross-section of the population who have bought a ticket to the same show as you. Likewise the people you could potentially sleep with are just a cross-section of the population which is available and in your vicinity when you’re single and looking.

These were the person sitting immediately beside me and the person immediately behind me last time I was at the NT, for instance. In neither case smelly, noisy or troublesome. And both seemed like very acceptable potential sexual partners. (I say this not because I’m obsessed with Anya Taylor Joy (I’m the only person in the world who thought The Queen’s Gambit was meh) or Joseph Coleman (of whom I had never heard), but because normally, we don’t know the identities of people sitting around us at a play, and in this case I did.)

I think we are all agreed that everyone else has poor hygiene, no manners and are inconsiderate/gross/smelly, including our own friends ( The OP clearly mentioned going with friends).

Our own family and sexual partners are of course fragrant flowers, with the etiquette of Emily Post and the sweet breaths of new born babies.

This is so peak MN with "I only like my little family" and " my husband is my best and only friend" energy.

@Mercurial123

I'm amazed that some people on here actually have sex. What do you do, disinfect your partner beforehand?!

Don't know about you, but I don't have sex with anyone who has poor personal hygiene, or no manners/respect, or who is generally obnoxious in any other way.

Do you have sex with all the random strangers you happen to be seated next to at the theatre?

@WarmFrogPond

Wear full body biohazard suits with little trapdoors you can unzip at the crotch?

*Howmanymoredays

Yes, if you are sitting there for a while, all the air you are breathing in has just come straight out of their mouth. Seems equally as disgusting as sharing a toothbrush with them*

Just when you think people couldn't get weirder, one comes along.

I'm amazed that some people on here actually have sex. What do you do, disinfect your partner beforehand?!

I can.

Once you think it, you can't 'unthink' it!
And it really is quite grim

This is just a weird perspective. I’m not even going to try to argue against it.