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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Sharing tables in cafés

963 replies

Athenaviolet · 01/06/2015 18:48

I'm genuinely not sure if IABU here.

I was in a cafe today. It was quite busy. Tbh if I'd known it was going to be busy I'd have gone elsewhere. My reason for going wasn't for the food & drink but for somewhere to sit to look up jobs on my phone, take notes etc. I wanted to sit for a couple of hours and it cost £6 for the privilege which I could do with not spending. There's tension in the house atm so don't feel comfortable there.

After I'd finished my sandwich but was still drinking my juice (in a transparent bottle so was obviously not finished) an older man came over to my table and asked if anyone was using the spare seats. I said no because that was the truth but it made me extremely uncomfortable him sitting next to me. I found it really hard to concentrate and left before I otherwise would have. (I have autistic traits so find 'social' situations difficult) I spent the next hour driving about in the rain.

Was he being unreasonable 'invading' my space? I was in his situation the other day and I just stood and waited for a free table. I think this is the polite thing to do.

Could I have said "please don't sit there while I'm still having my order"?

I'm very uncertain in these sort of social dilemmas. Imo when I'm paying (the extra) for a sit in meal part of what I'm paying for is 'the experience' of a table to sit in peace at. If I was just hungry I'd just go to a drive through.

OP posts:

hazeyjane · 01/06/2015 19:45

Of course the man couldn't know, but lots of people have told the op that she is being unreasonable to expect not to share, without being as rude and insensitive as some of the posters on here.

Sighhhh · 01/06/2015 19:46

I don't think yabu.
I remember when my dc were both quite young and were able to play at soft play without me running along beside them. It was a rainy Sunday and dh and I had ordered coffee and a yummy cake from the soft play cafe and we're looking forward to an uninterrupted chat when this woman just came and sat at the table with us. Awkward. I asked her to leave and had no qualms about it whatsoever.

toffeeboffin · 01/06/2015 19:47

I feel your pain, OP.

I bloody hate it when strangers come and sit next to me - most of the time I end up leaving if that happens, then I feel pissed off for the rest of the day because I didn't stand up for myself! I sometimes say 'no, I'm waiting for someone' but then people tend to stare at you, waiting for the fictitious person to arrive!

And surely the guy wasn't comfortable either, sharing your table?

ahbollocks · 01/06/2015 19:48

Yabu sorry
I think you need to try to manage your traits a but better, you know you dont do well in busy settings so dont do it!
Why notoget a drive thru mcdonalds and sit in the car with a coffee and some chips to get some peace? My mum does this all the time (she's shy and anxious too).

WhereYouLeftIt · 01/06/2015 19:49

"At the cafés I usually go to I see lots of people like me who order a coffee and sit for hours on their laptops."

"I usually go to quiet ones but lots have closed recently ..."

There's a definite link between these two statements.

"I'm very uncertain in these sort of social dilemmas. Imo when I'm paying (the extra) for a sit in meal part of what I'm paying for is 'the experience' of a table to sit in peace at. If I was just hungry I'd just go to a drive through."

OP, I would say you've identified the difference between a cafe and a restaurant. For the extra you pay in a cafe over take-out, you can take a seat. For the bigger extra you pay in a restaurant, you can take a table.

Cafe etiquette is that people can ask to share the table at which you are seated because it is your seat but not your table. Most people would prefer not to share but to have the table to themselves; but in a busy cafe there will come a point when it is share or stand, and it is unreasonable to expect other people (who have also paid the extra for a sit-in 'experience') to not look for a free seat at a partially-occupied table.

Andrewofgg · 01/06/2015 19:49

And if it was the last seat and the OP said I'd rather you didn't with or without an explanation of her state of mind?

I try to be easy-going but if it was me standing there with my paid-for coffee and wanted to drink it hot I would, I think, say There is nowhere else, I am going to sit here at least until there is another free seat and do so. And if I moved and somebody else sat next to the OP - JTB. And if she drank up and left - that's her privilege but I would not feel guilty.

Pipbin · 01/06/2015 19:49

£6 for 2 hours isn't bad for me! I've been known to make one cup of tea last 4!

Really? You honestly can't see why this not on?

guineawigs · 01/06/2015 19:51

Andrewofgg Mon 01-Jun-15 19:42:39
guineawigs Whatever may be the OP's state of health and mind - what has it got to do with the random customer who has bought a coffee and wanted to sit down and drink it? Is that customer expected to ask everyone in the place about their state of neurological health before deciding where to sit?

Did I say it had anything to do with him? I don't believe I did. What's your point exactly?

Gilrack · 01/06/2015 19:53

What's the matter with everyone today?!

Cafes are well able to evict customers they don't want. If they haven't evicted OP yet, she's clearly not causing them any problems.

Cafes don't like being empty. It puts people off coming in. This is why most of them welcome people working there.

Any of you Harry Potter fans? You know where the first book was written, don't you?

AntiHop · 01/06/2015 19:55

I wonder if a restaurant might be better for a place for you to sit under these circumstances? If it's after the lunch time rush you might find a restaurant that's not too busy.

PomeralLights · 01/06/2015 19:55

If you need background noise could you try a child friendly library (could look up the ones that do baby story/rhyme type sessions). I'm not suggesting you sit in the kids corner just that a library that has lots of kiddy stuff on is likely to have some background noise even if you're at the computers.

AgentProvocateur · 01/06/2015 19:55

One cup of tea in four hours is really taking the piss.

AuntyMag10 · 01/06/2015 19:56

Antihop I think it would be a cheek to try this on at a restaurant.

Andrewofgg · 01/06/2015 19:56

Gilrack I am concerned for the other customer, not the cafe. He would not have wanted to share if there had been a free table. So he had to share and OP's table was a s good as any other.

No - where was Harry Potter written? Is there a blue plaque there?

Pipbin · 01/06/2015 19:59

Every cafe in london is filled with people working on laptops. Who would go to cafés in the daytime otherwise?
People who have days off in the week. People who work in education when it's the school holidays. People eating lunch. People who don't work 9 to 5.

Don't carry on like you are doing cafes a favour by nursing a cup for tea for four hours. How many people didn't bother eating there because they couldn't see a free table?

southeastdweller · 01/06/2015 20:04

Cafés deliberately make themselves attractive for people to come and work in

Some of them do, yes. And most of these people who're working use up the space on the table with their laptop, notebook etc. I can't be the only one who feels uncomfortable asking them to make space to the extent that I've never done it.

ginorwine · 01/06/2015 20:05

Op if you have kids etc then a cafe can feel like a precious sanctuary ! I get it .
I don't go to my local sonetimes as if I m after quiet I just know I will feel annoyed if someone joins me as they know me .i guess in another mood it Wd be fine so I chose an anonymous one if I'm in that Mindset .
One someone asked me and dh do you mind if I join you - I said I'm just being honest here we are discussing quite private stuff . So long as you don't mind hearing it - fine .
She scarpered ! I wasn't about to change the conversation - which o really had to have - in a limited time frame - so I let her choose .

hazeyjane · 01/06/2015 20:05

here is the cafe that Harry Potter was written in. Also used by Ian Rankin and Alexander macCall Smith when writing.

Cafes, pubs and restaurants have always been places where business is conducted and writers and artists meet and work (hence the whole cafe scene of Vienna and Paris) - good article here in the Independent.

prorsum · 01/06/2015 20:06

YABSU but I don't think it's black and white. I think you failed to read your environment on this particular day for understandable reasons.

I'm just wondering if in future you post this type of thing in one of the mental health threads. People would be honest with you but not in such a dickish way.

Pipbin · 01/06/2015 20:10

I have to say though that DH does go to a cafe to write. He needs the noise. That said he only does 30 minute stints at a time always accompanied by a coffee and pastry.

fourchetteoff · 01/06/2015 20:12

I often sit in a cafe to do my uni work, or write. I have the same thing where I need to be around background noise.

But I always make sure I buy a drink every hour I'm there or spend a good amount of money. I also tend to shift out of the way once it starts to get busy.

Conversely - I hate it when you get evil looks from laptop-workers when you are having a chat in the cafe, as if you'd violated the code at the British Library or something.

Gilrack · 01/06/2015 20:15

Quite impressed by your DH's lightning speed, Pip. Surely the consumption of his coffee & cake would take at least ten minutes out of the 30?

This thread's mad. The only rational explanation for it would be that none of the posters have ever been to a cafe that wasn't in a supermarket or service station. And that can't be right, so there's no rational explanation

JassyRadlett · 01/06/2015 20:16

Only if I wanted to read and it was at the only table well-lit enough for my rather poor eyes, and then I would explain.

Cool, and I'd move. And probably think you had a fair bit of front, and be irritated, but keep it inside.

But if there were no completely empty tables I would choose whichever part-occupied table I liked. The age and gender of the person sitting there would not enter into the equation.

Did I ever say it would or should?

That situation is entirely different from 'lots of tables, I just like that occupied one better' which is frankly pretty self-centred. As I said - busy cafe, you sit at mine, I'll leave as quickly as I can. My issue not yours - but equally I'd never do it to anyone else. If it's too busy, I either won't order in the first place, or I'll stand until someone leaves.

Pipbin · 01/06/2015 20:21

Quite impressed by your DH's lightning speed, Pip. Surely the consumption of his coffee & cake would take at least ten minutes out of the 30?
He writes a comic, much more drawing than writing.

Andrewofgg · 01/06/2015 20:22

Jassy, you did not mention age or gender, but the OP told us it was an "older man".

To be clear: if there is one empty table, well-lit or not, I will take it. And lave somebody else to go and share a part-taken one. But if all the tables are part-occupied I will choose whichever suits me best. Somebody may be pissed off whichever I choose so I may as well suit myself.

Incidentally if I am the part-occupier it would not occur to me to expect to keep it. And if I showed any resentment it would be bloody rude of me.

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