Absolutely outraged! Train drama

[Halfull]

So my 16 year old daughter was on the train going to college, busy service so standing. She fainted (as in full on dramatic woke up on the floor fainted), we don’t really know why. A nice lady nearby stopped her hitting the floor and helped her. However, she says all the men on the train stayed in their seats and so she sat on the floor the rest of the way into the city. Not one man offered her a seat although one of them did comment that he hoped her journey home was quieter so she could sit down! She said there weren’t any women sitting down anyway and they all just… sat there.

In the general sense of human decency, what the actual hell?

When I was heavily pregnant on a crowded, delayed journey I had to ask a young man sat in a priority seat if I could please sit down as I was pregnant and uncomfortable. He rolled his eyes and said 'ugh, for god's sake', though did get up and let me sit down eventually. These people are selfish animals.

No it was more when she came too not one of them offered her their seat so despite her having just fainted & recovered she had to sit on the train floor

Did any woman stand up to allow her a seat? Not sure why it’s just men you’re pissed at tbh. But yes, horrific that an entire train full of people could have so little compassion for someone who has ended up unconscious

Aah, okay. Sorry.

I thought you were agreeing with @Hereyoume and my post was sort of aimed at both because no, men do NOT need to be constantly worried about false accusations.

I find the quite funny in the workplace too. Men saying, "oh, these days, no one knows what to say" and I always think, "strange, because I've worked with men my entire career and I can honestly say that the vast bulk of them absolutely DID know what they could and could not say. So it's not like all these "nice" men were just accidentally making sexist, sexual comments to women in the workplace. "

Interesting how we all have different experiences. In my commuting days when pregnant, and when I had babies in prams etc, it was ALWAYS teenage and young men who helped me carry things up the stairs, or offer a seat.

That said, I grew up with two brothers and have a son, I know that the male of the species mostly can only thinking about one things at a time, and intently. So, I’d always ask, which is fair imo. Teenage boys and young men, once asked, were without exception eager and solicitous and very helpful. But it had to be pointed out to them.

Older women too, I find to be helpful. They notice and care. But generally they feel unable to help carrying a suitcase up a short flight of stairs, or (once) a tall and heavy yucca onto a bus!!

I remain convinced that people are inherently community-minded. We’ve just lost sight of what’s normal and acceptable, these days. Plus, generally speaking, people are stressed and harried and tired and worried. This isn’t a time of prosperity for most people, generosity is thin on the ground.

I was sat at the very back of a bus which gradually became rammed with passengers, and watched a teenage girl obliviously sitting at the front as more and more pensioners got on and had to stand up right next to her.

She gave me the rage. When I disembarked I asked her, "Excuse me do you have a disability?" She replied No and I said "I can't believe you're just sitting here letting all these older people stand".

Her grandma (I presume) who was sat next to her told me to shut up! Public lack of consideration for others is quite breathtaking.

I hope your dd is fine and this incident was an isolated one off.

I was standing on a fairly crowded train recently where a number of seated men were studiously ignoring the heavily pregnant standing woman. Then another standing man said to her, very loudly "Don't worry, love, I'm sure one of these men will offer you their seat when they realise you need it, WON'T THEY?" Cue the three nearest scrambling to their feet looking embarrassed, as they could hardly pretend they hadn't noticed that.

I duly noted that tactic for future use, I recommend it.

To be fair men do, on the whole, have less situational awareness than women (generalisation, exceptions apply) and worse peripheral vision. I prefer to think that in most cases when people don't give up their seats/react to stuff its because they are in their own world/don't notice rather than deliberate selfishness*. So that might explain the anecdotal differences in reaction. Although its only since having kids that the whole "teaching young men to let women go through doors first" made sense. Before I thought it was just out dated chivalry but without it you can get boys/teenagers barging everyone out of the way whilst completely oblivious to the fact they are doing that (see also patriarchy chicken). Boys sort of need more teaching to notice other people whereas girls pick it up more naturally.

*I was once daydreaming on a bus seat once and completely failed to see the person with crutches standing in front of me until they asked. It was mortifying but it wasn't deliberate.

I'm really sorry and surprised to hear all this. I had mostly women offer me their seats while I was pregnant but I did see a few men looking at me as if they were trying to work something out. I didn't look pregnant until I was past 7 months, just fat, so I suspect they were willing to give me their seats but were worried about offending me if it turned out I was just overweight. After each child was born, I never had a problem with men and women helping me with the buggy and so on.

I'm plain, so it definitely was not a looks privilege. Perhaps it's regional.

And teenagers of both sexes can be quite oblivious UNLESS its been drummed into them which is why I think people either have stories of enormous rudeness or teenagers being incredibly helpful.

Not minimising the experience at all, but I’d rather have someone on the floor in that situation as it’s less distance if she’s going to faint again.

I was assaulted by a man on a train once and all the other men put their heads down.

like @Naptrappedmummy says the general public are of a low quality

Last time I caught a train I was 8 and a half months pregnant and due to massive delays I couldn’t get a seat. I ended up sat on the floor with a stranger’s dog. The only person who offered me a seat was an older lady who looked to be in her eighties, and I refused her offer as I felt she needed it more than me. The train carriage was mostly men.

I can perhaps understand a man’s reluctance to lay hands on a female but reluctant to give up a seat? Pathetic.
Im a bossy old cow so I’d have told the nearest person to move and got your dd into that seat.

I’m going to stand up for the men of Surrey because they always gave up their seat for me when I was pregnant - or asked other people to if they were standing. But this idea that they can’t even look at a girl or woman because they’d be accused of grooming is absolute bollox. You can ask the question… do you need a seat? Do you need a tissue, snack, drink? Can I call someone for you? Etc All of that is demonstrating care for someone which doesn’t involve laying on of hands

Same someone is helping them so nobody else is needed. I have this all the time with my son and daughter. They have epilepsy always someone asks if their okay and do they need an ambulance. Most the time they don't I they have rescue meds to avoid an ambulance if it's over 5 minutes. Have had the odd one that insist on ringing an ambulance when not needed. It's me that has to apologise for wasting their time.

I had a similar experience one cold December evening in 2022. The person who principally came to my help was a lovely lady with a small child, but to be fair she was closely followed by an equally lovely man who had gone to the nearest shop and bought a box of tissues and a bottle of water to clean up my somewhat gore-ridden face - I wasn't as lucky as you were in that respect. I was quite overcome by how kind they both were.

In case either lovely New Malden inhabitant is on here, thank you SO much.

That's terrible. I'd have told them to move for her.

Please get her a GP appointment to check everything is OK - fainting out of the blue like this is always worth checking out.

How would giving up his seat for a sick women count as assault? Or offering any other normal assistance, in front of a carriageful of witnesses?

I don't know where you live but I can hand on heart say this wouldn't happen where I live. I'm in the Scottish Bordets and regularly commute by train to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen.

I had a similar experience back in the 90's when I was 11. I was on crutches full leg plaster I was going to have it taken off at the hospital. Got on bus all seats were taken we couldn't wait for next one or we would have been late for my appointment. So my mum said you'll have to stand. It was the famale bus driver who said is somebody going to let that little lass sit down. Someone did eventually.

When my dd was in a wheelchair for a few months though I never had any issues. Most let us on first never had to wait for another bus because of prams.

Was it not her choice to remain on the floor, seeing as she had been offered a seat? Was there a reason that the friend could not stand near her, whilst she sat down?

I had this on a train when heavily pregnant for work. I have a very assertive colleague with a wonderful loud, very authoritative heavy Welsh accent who basically said this and watching the scramble was brilliant!

In no way defending the men who did nor even said anything, I wonder how many were travelling to an office just because of a boss who wants them there for spurious reasons.

So sorry this happened to your daughter OP.

It happened to me repeatedly on my commute into work by train in the early 90’s. All smartly suited businessmen reading the Times/FT and me. I rarely got a seat, as they would push forward and dash to the seats so I had to stand for 99% of my commutes. Even though many of us all saw each other every morning, they would all hide behind their papers and ignore me when I fainted. Worst was when I fainted just as we pulled into the last station and they all stepped over me to get off the train. Another time I clipped my head on the wooden arm of a chair (ancient rolling stock, with the old fashioned seats and doors you had to open all along the carriages) and was bleeding quite badly, again no help whatsoever. I had to get off and walk 20 minutes to work, before I could get any help.

It really damaged my faith in people/society.

It took until my mid 40’s for me to be diagnosed with the, cardiac related, reason why I kept passing out as. Sadly, as is far too common, doctors assumed I was just an anxious, weak female, possibly with a bit of low BP and repeatedly dismissed me. I now have a young adult dc who has inherited the condition from me, but is more severely affected. They have been pretty much housebound for a few years, but if they manage to reach a point where they are able to be more independent I will be worried sick when they start going out and about on their own.

Dh travels to and from London, as well as using the underground regularly. He is always telling me how he’s helped someone out when they have been visibly upset or ill and everyone was ignoring them. The other week there was a young teenage girl, a similar age to our dd, crying hysterically on a bench. He was obviously concerned about approaching her, being a middle aged man, so he went and fetched a member of staff, who managed to calm her down and work out she had missed her train, lost her ticket, her phone was dead and she couldn’t call her parents or get home. Dh fetched her a drink and sandwich while the staff member helped her contact her parents. Poor girl had been sat there for hours, panicking, too scared to ask for help and had been ignored by hundreds of men and women.

In my experience these attitudes are nothing new, an awful lot of people prefer not to get involved.