reading the cafe seat "grabbing" thread while in a vaguely similar situation so thought I'd post live!
On a longish bus journey (national express/flixbus coach type rather than local, so everyone has pre-booked and is guaranteed a seat, just not their choice of one unless they've paid to reserve it). I got on it quite early and sat down when coach was almost empty. Gradually filled up a bit (although still only just over half full, so lots of seats free, just not any double ones together) until shortly before we were due to depart a group of about 5-6 people climbed on.
One woman was giving a running passive aggressive commentary as she walked up the aisle, "Oh mum there's no seats left next to each other. Loads of people are just sitting on their own so there aren't any seats together. I hate it when people do that. We'll just have to sit separately. It's so annoying when people take a seat each..."
AIBU to think that she was BU? If a coach/train/bus/table etc isn't full, sitting next to someone when there are multiple empty double seats available would be weird, right? Surely normal etiquette is that everybody goes for their own double seat first, and it's only once those are all taken you sit next to someone?
Obviously if it gets busier you accept that someone might then come and sit next to you and can't hog a double seat, but surely nobody pre-emptively chooses to sit next to a stranger and be less comfortable for several hours, on the off chance that more people might turn up and want to sit together?
Even then, you need to accept it's first come, first served? If you want to sit together, make the effort to get there early!
If one of their party had sat next to me but asked if I'd move so they could sit together, I would have. In fact I might even have offered, as by then it's a choice between sitting by one random or another, so no skin off my nose, in fact sitting by another lone traveller would probably have been quieter than sitting next to someone craning over the aisle to chat to their mate.
However, because they didn't, WIBU to ignore the passive aggressive moaning and just sit tight in my double seat, rather than offering it to them?
(also if it makes a difference, all of the group were adults, again I'm not completely heartless and would have offered the seat to a small child and parent rather than expecting them to sit separately).