That felt rather good.

[Whathappend]

I was already sitting alone on a double seat on the train when a man got on at a later station. He sat down next to me and immediately put the armrest between us down. I don't like hard train arm rests, so I immediately put it back up.

He glared at me. I smiled and positioned my arm so he couldn't put it back down

He didn't seem to know what to do with that, so looked away.

He seemed shocked that someone (a woman?) would do that. I couldn't believe his gall that he thought it was ok to join me on the seat and immediately change the dynamic.

It felt a bit of a victory, hence this thread.

Please feel welcome to share any of your mini successes in this vein 😁

Is it really that deep?

You’re both rude people.

He wanted the armrest down to seperate your seats and you’d rather share. Weird and creepy.

I think yabu.... perhaps he wanted to make it clear he was giving you space despite sitting next to you

Sad. A couple of decades ago, we had the words "do you mind if I sit here" and "No of course not, but do you mind if I put the armrest up".

Now we are not speaking and celebrating social isolation and rudeness.

You've just been passive aggressive with a random stranger, fair enough to fight about arm rests if you want, but it's not a moral victory.

I would have taken him putting the armrest down as a polite thing to do - separating his space from yours.

Use your words.

This. That way he would not be touching an arm, for instance.

I always use the armrest if someone is sitting next to me. It’s considered the polite thing to do.

I would have thought your behaviour was rather odd and rude tbh.

I think what you did was odd. I would have thought he was putting the armrest down to be polite.

A very clear difference of opinion then.

I consider it the height of rudeness to sit down and immediately change the existing dynamic without asking.

I think it's more polite to have the arm rest down so you don't touch.

You don’t own the seats OP. He has just as much rights as you do and I would have seen you as being very rude

You're rude and weird- at least you were in this situation. You dont own the seat or have the final say because you were there first.
Maybe you are usually quite normal but you certainly won't today.

I would put the arm rest down on a train because I like a physical boundary when sitting next to a stranger.

Maybe he should have said something to you but your reaction was really strange, what is even stranger is that you seem to think this was a personal victory.

I can’t get my head round this. Rude would usually be someone putting their arm on the armrest while yours was already on it.

I would reflexively put the armrest down to avoid arms touching

Exactly, its sad that neither of you spoke.

Weird.

It’s polite to put the arm rest down to keep a distance between you as you don’t know each other. You were rude, and frankly odd.

I’d be pretty happy he was separating himself off from me. ‘Changing the existing dynamic’ would be more like reaching over me and pulling the blind over the window I wanted to look through.

A difference of opinion between you and everyone else, yes!

No one was making you put your arm on the arm rest. The only way the arm rest being down could have inconvenienced you is if you wanted to spill over into his seat, which is obviously completely unreasonable on your part...

The arm rest down, and staying within your own seat is the correct etiquette for seat sharing on a train. You were really, really rude, and I'm cringing in embarassement for you.

I agree he should have asked or at least have spoken about it.

But you don’t have a high horse here because you did exactly the same.

Which is fairly immature.

I'm sure the arm rests only go up for access...if i am at a window seat it goes down as soon as I'm seated. You didn't need to touch the (hard!) arm rest...

@Whathappend Why is it uncomfortable for you for the arm rest to be down? Do you struggle on planes?

If the arm rest needs to be up for you to be comfortable then you are taking up more than your fair share of the seat. That makes you more rude than him. I'd actually be a bit creeped out if an unknown man did that to me- like they think they are entitled to my space or to touch me...so I don't think it should be different for you because you are a woman.