To Find this Woman in the Cinema Rude

[LessMissAbs]

Me and my friend were watching a film in the cinema tonight. She doesn't wear a watch and must have been checking her phone for the time - its a habit of hers to do this, or to ask people the time. I was sitting next to her and I didn't notice it.

There was an empty seat to her other side between her and a woman. The woman suddenly boomed out in the middle of the film, "If you want to play your phone, you can go outside and do it instead of in here".

It was mortifying, and she interrupted the film for me. I was really embarrassed for my friend, but we didn't say anything.

At the end of the film, as we were standing up to leave, I said to the woman "I don't really care if you were disturbed by a light during the film or not, I don't want to have to the film interrupted by your booming voice". She then started arguing back (she said something like "Oh you'd like to be a cheeky one, wouldn't you, and some other stuff) but we turned our backs towards her and her husband so that she was talking to ourselves, put on our coats and left.

Kind of ruined the film for both of us. Normally I find going to the cinema relaxing!

bruffin

I think we're essentially agreeing here. It's perfectly possible to check bag in phone, so that's what I think people should do if they have to check something. I agree people shouldn't get phones out.

Or use vibrate if phone not on hard surface.

It's not people just being tetchy OP, you're not SUPPOSED to be fiddling about with a phone in the cinema. I'd suggest that anyone suffering in silence about selfish people doing this speaks to management next time, as they throw them out if they won't stop.

I went to the cinema a few weeks back and sat behind two twenty-something blokes, one of whom turned on his phone every 15 minutes or so to send a text. It was incredibly bright, and when you're in a dark room looking at a cinema screen, another lit screen much nearer to you catches your attention instantly. It was so clear, in fact, and he was holding it so high, that you could even read his texts...

The cinema was full and the people in the rows behind them were tutting and clearly irritated. After a while someone asked them to stop, which I think gave them a shock and made them put the bloody thing away momentarily. When it started again, my friend went out to the lobby to speak to the cinema staff, who came in to chuck them out the next time they turned the phone on. Amazingly, the two men clearly thought it wasn't worth the bother, gathered up their stuff and left!

If you're not interested in watching a film, go somewhere else! And if you're finding a film boring, you're not going to get more out of it by playing about with a phone every few minutes. If you're expecting an urgent message, put the thing on vibrate and go to the foyer to deal with it.

OP, you came here for an opinion and you found that the majority of posters think you and your friend ABU. But I have a feeling you're not interested in the feedback... Reverse AIBU, at all?

I know you haven't experienced what I have because of te simplistic way you dismissed my explanation.

More often than not I have found signal to be dodgy. Therefore I need to check it. His checking is, I believe, less disruptive if it is a quick check of te phone signal, rather than walking out every half an hour or so.

Not really sure what is so difficult to understand about that, tbh.

Any sorting out that needs to be done then I go out to sort it out, including regaining a signal if necessary. I do not sit there fiddling endlessly.

Needless to say I don't go to te cinema often. Te last time was over 2 years ago. I suspect, though, that I have been the source of endless mutters and sighs as it would appear that many people find it incredibly difficult to realise that there are, sometimes, bloody good reasons for checking a phone!

The issue here, and on the other cinema thread, is that both people using their phones had no real need to do so. If you have children with SN it is totally understandable that you would want to be reachable, and could either do as done here and check occasionally or have your phone on vibrate and get up to check it if it goes off. Either one of these things will puss somebody off, you will never please everyone.

However checking the time during a film less than 2 hours long is unnecessary. Checking that your teenagers with no particular needs are ok at home for a few hours is unnecessary. Texting someone with a pickup time could be done before the film or outside so is unnecessary.

The thing is, nobody knows anyone else's circumstances so in an ideal world would we would all give the benefit of the doubt. But until people stop using their phones for selfish reasons during a show, including not wanting to get up, go outside and miss anything, or playing games, texting or taking calls, people will become more and more impatient.

Very few people have a genuine need to be in contact at all times. The rest of the self important people who 'feel' they need to be contactable at all times ruin people's patience for the minority for whom being able to use a phone mean the difference between a night out or never going out at all.

Check the time the film finishes before you go in. You don't need to keep checking the time.
Put phone on vibrate for emergencies, and sit on end of aisle in case you need to go out to answer.

Somebody mentioned moral high ground. You're not supposed to be 'checking' the phone during the film, you're asked to switch it off before. Why do mobile phone users think the rules don't apply to them?

I forgot to say before , but YABVU

Woman on other mobile phone thread said she was checking under her fleece coat (if I remember correctly). She still disturbed people, though they waited until the end to tell her off.
Perhaps the so-called 'rude' woman mentioned in the OP should also have waited until the end to tell your friend about her behaviour, but maybe they wanted it to stop before the end of the film...

"The thing is, nobody knows anyone else's circumstances so in an ideal world would we would all give the benefit of the doubt. But until people stop using their phones for selfish reasons during a show, including not wanting to get up, go outside and miss anything, or playing games, texting or taking calls, people will become more and more impatient"

Exactly

No, its not a reverse AIBU Dimittis. I think the majority of the posters just read the use of the phone and think automatically rude. I can see that. It is what the woman said and how she said it that was rude.

So minimal was my friend's supposed phone use that I, sitting right next to her, was totally unaware of it, until the woman bawled out her irritation. She was sitting 2 seats away and I don't know how she could have found it so deeply annoying that she had to create an argument with another person in the middle of the cinema, and be so damned rude about it, instead of simply asking my friend politely so stop.

This woman came across to me as lacking in finesse, as being full of hatred and contempt for other people and unable to cope with other people in a cinema.

As I said, my friend is a woman in her mid thirties who works for the EU and was over on a visit, she is not some kind of delinquent hooligan who needs to be told to stop playing with things.

Oh God please, never ever let me turn into one of those woman who bawls and rants in a loud voice in the middle of a cinema because someone else mildly irritates me.

Mark Kermode's 10 rules. I went to see The Hobbit with my DCs yesterday (FYI I thought the film was about half an hour too long, but that's another tale), and a man was checking his phone continually throughout the film - he was across the aisle, and about 2 rows down from us, and it was still very distracting whenever his phone lit up. My DCs mentioned it at the end of the film (as we followed the rules and didn't talk during the film!) so it must have been pretty noticeable for all 3 of us to pass comment.

As I said, my friend is a woman in her mid thirties who works for the EU and was over on a visit, she is not some kind of delinquent hooligan who needs to be told to stop playing with things.

Well clearly she actually is a delinquent hooligan who needs to be asked to stop playing with things, as illustrated by your OP.

Minimal? She shouldn't have been using the phone at all, or perhaps you think the rules don't apply to you or your friend?

Ooh, I like those rules, Cyber.

Ah well, if she's 30 AND works for the EU then that's entirely different. It probably wasn't annoying in that case.

Maybe she could have asked more politely, but your friend should not have been doing it and you should not have carried it on afterwards.

"lacking in finesse and full of hatred"
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
god that sounds twatty.

YABU.

I recently took DD and a small group of friends to the pictures and one of them started faffing with her phone during the film.

DD gave her a proper telling off...she's 9yo.

If a child that age knows it's unacceptable behaviour I think that says it all really.

^"lacking in finesse and full of hatred"
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
god that sounds twatty.^

How did I miss that gem! Comedy gold, this thread

There may be many reasons for checking a phone, but in this case it was only that the woman wanted to know what time it was.

So not a good reason for disturbing other people. Most films last about 90-120 minutes, you can check the listing to see how long it will be, or ask when you buy your ticket what time it will finish.

That way, if you are as obsessed with the time as the OP's friend is, and you've been told that the film finishes at 9pm or whatever, you will know that while the film is still on it's not 9pm yet.

Every cinema I have been to recently has big signs up asking people to turn off their phones as they enter the screen and then an advert played to remind them to do so.

I got the impression that the rude woman was irritated by other people sitting in the same row as us. I didn't notice until she bawled out and looked over to see where the noise was coming from, but my friend confirmed that she got up and moved to the next seat the moment we sat down (in our allocated seats).

It is my impression, what with having been there and done nothing wrong myself but sit and watch the film, but having had a bawling woman in same row as me, that she was pre-irritated by other people coming and sitting in the same row as her, possibly got further irritated by my friend eating popcorn and then took out her grumpiness on a blink of light from a quick check of a phone for the time as an excuse to have a go at her.

My friend is very small and slight, she possibly mistook her for being quite young.

My friend had a handbag with her and I think her phone was mainly in that, but as I say I didn't notice this supposedly bright phone light that lit up the entire cinema at all, nor did I notice her repeatedly using her phone or fumbling in her handbag for it.

My overriding impression was that we were stuck in a cinema row with a remarkably bad tempered woman who was in a bit of a mood. Her husband was noticeably silent except when she started going off on one at me after her gasp of horror that anyone dared to speak back to her at the end of the film, when he quietly attempted to mumble at her to be quiet.

As I say, please god never let me turn into a cinema-harridan.

Diddlediddledumpling only shouting as in loud enough to be heard over the film, not SHOUTING like that.

YABU - I was at the cinema last night and the guy next to me turned on his phone to check it a few times - it's really distracting.
I actually moved seats because of it, well that and the fact he was one of those people that like to spread themselves out, so he was practically sitting in my lap.

i prefer cinema harridans to cinema selfish inconsiderate twats

Op, you have extrapolated an awful lot about this women from one measured sentence she actually said. No matter what adjectives you use, I still say she was fine.

she was pre-irritated by other people coming and sitting in the same row as her

If someone is pre-irritated does that mean they mustn't challenge anti-social behaviour?