I was travelling home from work on the tube yesterday. A woman had a baby in a large buggy on the tube. She appeared to be with a friend. It was fairly busy, but not heaving. After a minute or two of this baby crying, she picked him up and gave him a cuddle. Little one carried on moaning. After another few minutes, a man got up and offered her his seat, which she accepted. And he then started on a long and quite loud tirade against all the other passengers who did not get up and give her a seat. He was saying to another passenger, "Just look at all these women who wouldn't give up their seat. I bet most of them have children of their own. They are ABSOLUTELY USELESS". And so on, repeating several times, very irate. He looked in my direction several times. Now, I confess, I was sitting in my seat and had not really had the thought of getting up to offer my seat. It wasn't that I thought "I'm not giving mine up". The thought just never entered my head that they were in need of a seat. I felt a bit bad, maybe I was being thoughtless.
A few stops later, I got up to get off the tube, and the angry man was blocking the door and looking at me and sighing and tutting, as I tried to shimmy past him. Was he unbelievably rude and inappropriate or was I being unreasonable to not give up my seat? Or maybe both?