Annoying man on train

[Weeeheee]

A couple joined DD(20) and I at our table.

I prefer the aisle seat, so moved to let the man onto the window seat. "You expect ME to sit in there?" I nodded and smiled. He didn't seem happy.

He then joined in with DD and I's crossword clue discussion. He then had the gall to start telling DD the answers to clues he read in the puzzle book that she hadn't even got to.

He wouldn't stop talking at DD, and I was figuring out how to politely tell him to butt out, when his wife/partner said "This is like your dream (to him). I bet he's annoying the heck out of you though. (To me)"

I smiled and said " yes, it is annoying".

I thought that should be enough, but no, the man carried on dominating DDs attention. I sat back, told DD to ask me when she got stuck, and thinking about how to phrase "STFU" when DD said "I thought we were having a lovely time doing this together"

I replied " So did I, but this man won't stop interfering"

He finally got the hint, well his partner did, shoved his own crossword at him, and told him to be quiet.

5 minutes. That's all he could keep quiet for. He just couldn't stop looking at DDs puzzle book, telling her the answers, inserting himself into our conversation.

I asked him directly if he could please stop. Again, 5 minutes of quiet, then leaning over to read the clues, and tell DD the answers. His partner kept telling him to stop, which gave brief respite, but he couldn't help himself getting stuck into our conversation.

We couldn't move away from him, as the train was full. DD didn't want to stop puzzling, so we put up with him, but oh my word!

How on earth would you have dealt with him?

Just to add - you then expected to be able to talk across him and fellow traveller for whole journey. When you could easily have avoided the whole fiasco by (another ) seat swap.

Nobody can ever know 100% what someone else would have done in a different situation.

If you notice when you first posted most people agreed with you no problem. Then when people realised the weird seating configuration people started to question the reasons it may have happened.

As I and others have said many times, it is very very hard to converse with someone diagonally when the other diagonal couple are already talking! You’d need to start talking louder over the other couple and quite frankly it’s very distracting. So yes maybe he was a man with terrible social boundaries who loved to chat but was made worse by the fact he was unable to chat to his companion. It IS possible despite the fact you say it isn’t that had he sat next to or opposite his partner they would have just chatted between themselves. You say his wife gave him his crossword to do. Maybe she would have been better at distracting him if she’d have been able to do it with him. Like a “come on dear what’s this clue here? while waving it under his face” But she couldn’t because she was diagonally across the table! It would have been farcical with your daughter reading out her clues and showing you her crossword while the other couple did the same all passing crosswords back and forth! The only configuration where you cannot see your companions reading material easily is diagonally. Next to, easy to see because you hold it in the middle or one person turns their head slightly. Opposite, you can turn the book sideways on the table so you can both see. Diagonally? You cannot both see the crossword unless you start passing it back and forth! So the wife was pretty much unable to distract him due to the seating configuration.

Teach your daughter it’s ok to be rude when someone is not taking the polite hint.
Appreciate it doesn’t come naturally to young people but they need to have a bit of “piss off” in their toolkit.

Exactly this but there is no telling this OP. She can’t see how the unusual seating arrangement contributed to the situation.

OP, if you had more awareness and care for others you’d have noticed arriving at a busy station, lots of people boarding and then moved next to your daughter.
Which would likely have prevented the situation, as it would have allowed his wife to chat with him easier and keep him occupied, and would have allowed you and your daughter to talk quietly amongst yourselves. And to shutdown the man if he was bothering you.

But I think there is no self reflection and that you will go on and do the same mistake next time also. People might not interrupt your puzzle as they may have more boundaries, but they will be peeved at the talking across, even if social politeness stops them from saying anything.

I find it really sad that "his wife wasn't able to distract him" is the conclusion you've reached.

It's not her job to control his inappropriate behaviour.

Not a conclusion. I specifically wrote the words maybe and possible in there a lot. Literally no one knows. Even you don’t know. MAYBE the man was just a tosser. MAYBE he was autistic with a special interest in crosswords and struggles to keep it to himself. MAYBE he just loves to chat and would happily have chatted endlessly to his wife IF he was sat next to her. No one knows.

Had you been sitting next to each other and looking at the crossword together, Mr Interfering would not have been able to see your crossword. So you could have avoided his interference, he would not have had reason or opportunity to interfere, and you would not have had to rudely talk across him to your daughter.

See how easily the use of standard train etiquette would have stopped your problem before it started?

I don’t believe that you don’t understand that people are not saying don’t sit diagonally if the train is empty. The thread, and comments are about people sitting diagonally when there are other people at the table. But* you know *this. So are being disingenuous here.

I also don’t believe that you sit diagonally across from your DH in a restaurant if there are two of you at a table for 4, if this is what you were claiming.

You are misrepresenting people’s opinions here. Saying “you did x wrong and as a result the other person did y” does not imply thinking that the other person’s behaviour was okay or socially acceptable. It’s just stating reality. If you act in an antisocial manner, people are likely to act in sn antisocial manner towards you. Stating this rather obvious fact does not imply believing antisocial behaviour is okay.

In any case many posters have said explicitly that they think you were rude and the man was rude.

You really are having to twist things here, aren’t you? Which should tell you something.

So move if it bothered you that much? Or swap seats? He talks to his wife instead, the end.

Your latest update says he wasn't even annoyed at you, so he wasn’t even passive aggressive as has been suggested. Not sure why you still care enough to argue with posters here.

You’ve already proven that you’re incapable of understanding less direct forms of communication, both in relation to his original comment on being asked to take the window and on this thread in it’s entirety.

there’s no way anyone could have any faith in your ability to interpret his mood.

Believe what you want my dear.

I find it interesting that you don't believe me, yet you insist I should believe you about these made up MN train rules.

Ah well. I've realised there's no point trying to discuss things with people who make up rules.

Yet, you're replying...

I never said he was annoyed or passive aggressive. That was other posters who have wrongly presumed he behaved that way due to the made up seating conventions that MN adhere to.

He was annoying. There's a difference.

As aforesaid, no point swapping seats, as the seats weren't the problem. His annoying nature was. And his inability to stick to his own crossword and his repeated insertion into DDs, despite being told to stop and that he was being irritating.

If you spoke to him the way you've spoken to people on here he was definitely winding you up. I would be.

Spot on.

Funny that it can be so very hard to imagine he was annoyed. Would have been nigh on impossible for him to have a normal conversation with his fellow traveller, having to put up with first couple yacking across them and the daughter might have seemed to appreciate the puzzle help.

You keep saying that if they wanted you to move all they had to do was ask.
But they did ask. Ok not in so many words, but the inference of the incredulous response you got from him initially was quite clear.
You just seem to take pleasure in being deliberately obtuse.

You also seem to be of the misguided opinion that you're the only person on this thread who takes the train. All those 100s of responses explaining that it's not normal for 2 sets of strangers to sit diagonally opposite each other are all just making it up are they? How could they possibly know?!