Hostile and entitled man hijacking my table

I just don't really get why people are quite so anti- another person sitting at the same table as them on a busy train or in a busy food hall.

No. Just plain old antisocial.

yeah…I am free to prefer no one sat there but I am aware that I cannot stop them and neither would I try to 😵‍💫 That’s the point.

Why 'Of course'? It's a busy train. People need to sit somewhere.

'I would do anything f to avoid occupying a table of 4 on my own' does sound a bit like you're terrified of your own shadow, in fact.

It’s not. Not at all. No way a server will take you to a table that is already occupied by a diner eating. Especially not in Nando’s/ Dishoom etc. No idea where you’ve dreamt that.

Did the whole cafe stand up and give you a round of applause?

Don’t be deliberately dim. Sharing a table with another lone woman is completely different from being kettled in by three strangers at a table you were at first midway meal. Especially when the expectation was that there were only going to be two and a third shows up and then one of them gets hostile.

Thankfully I worked in a male dominated field which was a contentious environment due to the nature of the work. I developed a no shit take policy a long time ago especially from bully boys.

Oh I was being facetious 🙄 I just mean I don’t want to sit with randoms. I’m not actually terrified of my own shadow.

Jeez. Some absolute personality vacuums on here.

If this is the UK, then routinely we do not share tables with strangers in a place where we are eating evening if it is crowded and there are no other tables (it's not like a Lion's Corner House in 1930!). Sometimes OK to join a pub table if the tables are large - but one asks!
Again, I think some people live in a different UK to me.
In a market/food hall set-up it is totally 'routine' to expect to share tables at busy times.
And they did ask.

OP, I was on a train with my two kids last week. We had a table of four. The train suddenly became very busy. A man asked if he could have the unoccupied seat at our table. Of course I did not wish random man to sit with us, but you just have to suck it up 🤷🏻‍♀️

Would you have told him no??

I don't expect random people to join my table in a restaurant/eating place. And though 2 is probably ok, OP found herself sitting next to a stranger, and an obnoxious one at that, who told her to move. This is poor behaviour.
If this is the UK, then routinely we do not share tables with strangers in a place where we are eating evening if it is crowded and there are no other tables (it's not like a Lion's Corner House in 1930!). Sometimes OK to join a pub table if the tables are large - but one asks!

I wouldnt mind 3 people joining me on a normal table with chairs but would feel uncomfortable with a stranger sitting next to me in a booth where they would need to get up to let me out.

Good, because I don't care at all about your opinion on my factual comment.

But I do care about not letting people (who in real life would never have the courage to say anything they say on these threads) attempt to hijack the last word and have never denied that :)

So we can keep going for as long as you like 😇

Nobody should be sitting down at an already occupied table unlessthe occupant is 100 per cent happy. It is not the social norm in the UK to share tables and in this case it was first come first served.

Glad you stood your ground OP.

I was always going to say YANBU because this man got very aggressive and you were right to stand up to him.

I’m a bit less sure re the right to share / decline to share the tables because I get that it was crowded and people needed somewhere to sit. However, I can understand why you felt encircled and not comfortable with all of them sitting there.

Half way through the thread you’ve introduced the idea that the tables were “booth-like” which you didn’t mention at first. I think that tips it in your favour and explains why you indicated that two people were welcome to sit opposite you, but not a third person. Did that person then sit on the “outside” of you, between you and the “exit” from the table? I can see that that makes a difference and explains why you use the word “surrounded”. I would not want to be hemmed into a corner like that by a group.

I apologise for not @ing you or quoting you @Anotherbeeloudglade . Since no one else seems to be on the thread at the moment I assumed you'd know I was responding to you - there was no intention to slide under the radar.

Yes, I will feel free to have a different opinion. It's of no consequence to me whether you care or not.

She wasn't assertive : she was rude and confrontational in my view. You think she was in the right, but there's no "of course" about it. Opinions vary, as this thread demonstrates.

I may not own it but I was there first and the table was in use. I stood my ground after he took the piss and got hostile because I’m not people pleaser. If you wish to be a doormat in your life then that’s your prerogative.

I find it interesting that everyone is commenting with such strong opinions on whether OP was perfectly right, or badly in the wrong, because I don't think we can tell from what she has written.

To see how reasonable the table request was, we would need to see exactly how busy the venue was. If they had other seating options, it was rude (and bizarre) for them to sit on OP's table. If there were no, or very few, spaces for 3 people, it was fine of them to do so and OP was wrong to attempt to prevent it, and 8n their situation I might have spoken to the cafe owner about it and asked them to intervene.

As for the fracas, again, without hearing the tones of voice employed by the participants, it's impossible to judge. If OP spoke politely and kindly when refusing them the seats (hard to imagine in a way, but possible) then man was wrong to be rebarbative. If she spoke rudley, then I suppose he was simply fighting fire with fire.

I have an image on my head of how it went, certainly, but I don't think there is enough information in OP's posts (not blaming her for this) to know for sure. Tone of voice can make SUCH a difference to the rights and wrongs of social interactions.