To ask older lady to wear headphones in cafe

No, not unreasonable. Just like all other generations there can be incredibly rude entitled people. They use inconsideration like weapon. I'd get urself a great pair of noise cancelling headphones to block out the vacuous tiktocker.

It's fascinating to get an insight into this kind of person. How do you reach adulthood without having any consideration for other people or without learning that most people don't want to listen to your TikToks in public? Even if your parents were too ignorant to teach you, how do you not learn appropriate behaviour from others?

Your post is obsessed with her age.

No.

And in mine.

Interesting, ours still has staff cruising about glaring at people making too much noise, shushing if necessary. Huge signs about no phone calls, switching phones to silent etc. Definitely reminded me of the library’s of my youth, not antiquated but definitely enforced etiquette.

Gosh! In my experience it’s a young male whose appearance would , I suspect, deter most of us from challenging the behaviour.

So you think it’s fine to blast tik tok videos in public places? I often wonder who these antisocial cretins are, do you teach your children that’s it is ok to do this too?

I think we all get fed up of idiots that think everyone in the room needs to hear, the screech tinny cartoons on devices fir kids that aren't taught to sit and eat food properly, the people that when in a group have to force our the loudest over the top laugh and that a nothing hand slapping everytime they laugh.

Is there some bloody rule on tik too that all these shorts have to have the most loud and annoying background noise.

I think that's why most people can relate. On the same token though, my partner and I walked straight back out of a coffee shop overseas once because it was like a morgue with people all buried silently in laptops and there was a sign I think telling us that if we were none workers we had to sit in a basement level room!

Just adding here - although not specifically relevant to the cafe's old lady - that equivalent twattery on a train is actually against the law, at least in UK.

Railway Byelaw 7.1.2 reads, "except with written permission from an operator no person on the railway shall, to the annoyance of any person: ... use any instrument, article or equipment for the production or reproduction of sound".

Not many people - including those who work on trains (!) - are aware of this byelaw. But I've used it a few times to get people (old and young) to stop using their phones or ipads etc in a way others (me, particularly) can hear. (Ask to see their "written permission", which of course they don't have.)

Keep fighting back against selfish noise-polluting twats! We have both morality and (often) legality on our side.

On public transport I have sometimes been tempted to order a large packet of cheap headphones from Amazon and hand them out to offenders. Unfortunately now because they are mostly Bluetooth it would be too expensive to do that. Do people - including some on this thread - really not understand that the tinny whine from a phone is very different from actual human conversation?

I am menopausal and seem to be extremely sensitive to certain noises, of which phone/ipad is one. Faced with the circumstances of the OP, I would probably have to leave the cafe as I couldn’t cope with the ghastly racket.

Urgh. Hate people like that.

I would play Rage Against the Machine on full blast until they stopped ("Fuck you - I won't do what you tell me" would be a nice PA twist to the lyrics). If the cafe staff say anything to you then they are beholden to speak to the others, since they are disturbing you in the same way.

YADNBU
I honestly find that 9 times out of 10 when someone is playing their phone on full volume in public places, it’s a middle/older aged woman. It’s definitely not what I would have expected, but it’s almost always that way. SO annoying & inconsiderate.

Totally been derailed by age and working in a cafe. If they said I was chilling by myself or catching up with a friend I expect there would be totally different replies.

The OP has said that they like the vibe of cafe. If they had headphones, what would be the point. They like a bit of chatter.

Think I might be inclined to get TikTok up. Finding the most annoying ones. If lady moans I would say I have decide to embrace your philosophy and share with the cafe. Only for a short time to get the point otherwise would be just as bad.

Completely unreasonable statement. I bet she's annoying most other non-working customers also.

I’ve twice asked teenagers on buses either to put in their ear pods or turn off the noise as no one wants to listen to their racket. Shockingly, they’ve complied! 🤣

She sounds like an utter twat

Not the point. Why doesn't the lady use headphones instead of subjecting everyone else to her TikTok shite?

Why don’t you work from an office or home?

@recore I would have suggested the 1812 overture, but probably not in the current political climate.

The reading comprehension on this site really is poor!

YANBU, OP. I have a solution for you, and others in like circumstances:

Get yourself a decent portable Bluetooth speaker - it's easy to get one much more powerful than any phone speaker. Charge it and take to the cafe; use your PC (or phone, indeed) to play to this speaker.

... Play something you enjoy. (I have used the final chorale from Bach's cantata 'Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme ...', 'Gloria sie dir gesungen ...' - several excellent performances of this are available.)

Play your music loudly, again and again. After a few iterations, sing along, as loudly as you can.

This makes the point. Although the music may be startlingly beautiful (and actually, if it's Wachet auf..., a supreme human achievement), still maybe not everyone wants to be forced to listen to it over and over in a cafe (or railway carriage etc). But, anyway, it'll easily drown out TikTok, or anything else, on someone's phone or PC speakers.

Why should you be able to impose your choice of listening on others? - You shouldn't. Likewise, then, they shouldn't impose on you. Huh, old lady in OP's favourite cafe? (I'm old, by the way, probably older than her. But you young people can also win against thoughtless noise polluters in this fashion.)

Good luck!

OP, you are my new hero. I hope as I grow older I also develop the stones to tell strangers, calmly and politely, that the way they are behaving in public is unacceptably thoughtless.

I totally get this!
D.P and I went out for a meal recently in a lovely steak place which is a real treat for us.
At first all was good. Where we were sat was quiet and then a family came in made up of a woman in her 50s with her (old) parents and they were sat at the next table.
Next thing the woman takes her phone out and phones a relative who isn't there and proceeded to have a loud speaker phone call between the 3 of them. They were so loud and the call went on until their food came out. It totally ruined our meal as we couldn't hear ourselves over them all talking loudly into the phone.
We didn't like to say anything as they were old but it was so rude! And it could of waited.

No to both questions