I know we’ve had these threads before but morbidly obese person on the train

[TrainWWYD]

I was at a meeting in London all day, train home at 5, so absolutely rammed by the time it got home.

I managed to get a seat (set of two) near the window. It was boiling hot on the train so I was already feeling hot and flustered. A woman got on the train and the seat next to me was the only one free.

In the nicest possibly way she was very very overweight, if she’d sat in the seats on her own she would easily have taken up most of the two seats. Instead she asked if she could sit down, obviously I said yes but she couldn’t fit on the seat facing forwards so she sat facing out into the aisle with her back towards me.

As soon as she sat down I squashed myself up against the wall to give her more room but she was pressed up against me with her back as people were trying to move past her in the aisle.

I suddenly got this horrible feeling of being trapped and started getting really panicky. Once the train left she couldn’t have got up even if I’d asked her to as there were people stood on either side of her legs in the aisle. The more the train moved the more she was pressing into me and the more hot and panicky I got and started feeling sick and then panicking about being sick and not being able to get up.

I tried moving more towards the wall but she just pushed up even more. I’m not big at all and she was easily taking up her seat and half of mine but was facing away from me.

In that situation would you said anything? Moved? I feel silly for sitting there feeling so panicky for an hour now. Spoke to my friend about it and she said I should have just asked her to move but I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of everyone in the train (quiet carriage too)

But what else was the fat woman supposed to do? If she was really that fat she'd probably have struggled to stand for an hour on a moving train.

@AiryFairyMum how patronising to fat people!

Is being fat a disability in itself? I don’t think it is.

@TrainWWYD you may have got there early to get a seat but as you were the person experiencing discomfort then the only way to solve it would be for you to move. It's the only thing you have control over. What you do and how you react to the situation. Everything/one else is outwith* your control.

not a typo - this is correct in Scottish Standard English!

My star next to outwith has disappeared! And the star next to the explanation.....ooooohhhhh it put the bold formatting in. 🤦🏼‍♀️

It can be the result of a disability, or it can cause problems that become a disability - things like difficulty moving around, joint problems, bowel and stomach problems, coronary heart disease. If it's as bad as the OP is saying, it's likely to be a struggle for this woman to stand for an hour on a moving train.

If have either asked her to move up and say she was taking up half my seat. Or I'd have asked her to move so I could get up. I am fairly assertive in thee situations though. Why should I sit there feeling hot and unwell and squashed so she doesn't feel embarrassed? My feelings are more important to me than hers.

Overweight people know their size, they know if the can fit into a normal sized seat or not.

oh so it’s a game of trumps is it? A fat person trumps a slim one and therefore must take up a seat and half of the slim person’s sitting next to them?!

"Normal" sized seats on public transport keep getting reduced in size, so that only Twiggy can get into them. All in the name of packing more in. The irony is, if they wanted to pack more in, just strip out the seats, especially on short journeys (the London Underground, I'm looking at you; what is the point of carriages stuffed with seats and barely any space for standing passengers on the Jubilee in rush hour?).

Even fatties like me have no problem standing 25 minutes on a train, so long as two-thirds of the floor space is not taken up with one-quarter of the passengers, who all happened to get on at West Ham and Canning Town.

SciFiScream have a laugh! By that logic OP you shouldn’t have even moved over a little bit, She would have got uncomfortable and moved eventually

I would have asked her, politely, if she could move forward a bit, because she was squashing me. I would be willing to say that to a slim person who was squashing me, so would have no qualms whatsoever saying the same thing to a fat person. Nobody is entitled to squash anybody else!

op YABU. You had a problem with someone enchroaching on your seat but you did nothing about it. You could have asked her to move back on to her seat, or you could have asked to get out of your seat. You did neither of these things.

YABU to complain about the consequences of putting up with something you could have chosen to deal with.

You are the proverbial corbyn sitting on the floor in the empty train.....

"Normal" sized seats on public transport keep getting reduced in size, so that only Twiggy can get into them.

That's really not true.

I travel on the underground regularly and you don't have to be 'Twiggy' to sit in them.

This is why I won't sit on window seats, if there is any choice.

I'd have said she was touching me, and asked her not to, OP. Once, when I was stuck in a window seat and a fatty didn't respond to the request not to touch me, I stuck an A4 file between us to stop the contact.

I wouldn't have squashed myself up in my seat. This happened to me on a recent train journey and I firmly occupied my seat, stuck my nose in my book and ignored what was going on around me.

This isn't about fat shaming anyone, btw. You can be what size you like. But on public transport, everyone gets the same amount of space allocated to them - if you need more, it's up to you to solve that, not me.

I suppose the most practical solution would be for the slim person to sit on the fat persons lap!

Now I should get up and stand for an hour because someone else is taking up more than one seat?

Presumably it would be preferable to spending that hour feeling sick and panicky?

She's probably a perfectly normal size, according to many on MN.

If this happens again, say in a loud voice, oh no I am going to be sick. You will get plenty of room fairly quickly.

I would have stood if I were you op.

Surely the fat woman should have paid for two seats, if she can’t fit into one and needs one and a half?
I thought this was policy on airlines, it really should be on trains too.
OP, you paid for your whole seat - why should you only get half what you paid for, and be expected to subsidise someone else’s use of your seat?
You shouldn’t have squashed yourself against the wall, and you should have politely told the woman that she was encroaching on your seat and crushing you, and would she please confine herself to her own seat.

Given the definition of fat shaming is
‘the action or practice of humiliating someone judged to be fat or overweight by making mocking or critical comments about their size’
I don’t think it’s fat shaming in this instance to ask a morbidly obese person (as the op described) to move over and stop encroaching on another passenger / passenger’s seat. That’s just bloody rude. No matter if you’re fat, thin, tall or short. I equally hate it when the elbowy blokes do it on planes and you battle over space on the arm rest.

The problem with that, Babdoc is you don’t pay for a seat on a train as such, as people can also stand and pay the same

sigh

Here we go again.

Let's play fat person in public spaces bingo.

Oh this happened to me a few weeks ago. An obese man sat next to me and I knew it was going to be a very uncomfortable 45 minutes, so I got up at the next station and moved down the carriage. I stood for about 20 minutes then someone got off and I got a different seat.

These things happen, it's how we handle them that matters. You felt more entitled to a seat than you felt the need to be comfortable, so you put up with this ridiculous situation for AN HOUR. Lesson learnt though?

Your mistake was squashing yourself against the wall. The person probably thought you were offering her more space. I think YABU to not have said anything, a quick polite ‘err you’re leaning on me’ would have done it.