To be upset and annoyed at how this very large man ruined our trip to the theatre?

[QueenBean]

It was my birthday a few weeks ago and my boyfriend bought me really good tickets to a show I've been wanting to see. The show is interactive and so he picked seats at the end of the row, about 3 rows from the stage. He booked these about 4 months ago to ensure they were good seats and paid £80 per ticket (I know this because it was printed on the ticket).

When we arrived, there was a morbidly obese man sitting in the seat next to mine. Except he was also taking up part of my seat, arm right over the armrest etc. I was then wedged in my seat, squeezed up to my boyfriend for the whole show. I asked the box office if they had any spare seats but they only had them in row T, far back from our seats and the next price bracket down. They also had some in a box but we wouldn't have been able to join in with the show. They said they wouldn't be able to refund and offer tickets for another day.

I felt really sorry for this man, he was clearly uncomfortable in his chair and kept moving to sort of move away from my seat. I didn't make it in any way obvious that I was uncomfortable or anything.

But I am pretty annoyed about it, and was upset last night about having our lovely trip to the theatre impacted so much by someone else. We booked our seats so far in advance to get suitable ones - why couldn't this man have booked a more suitable seat for himself? The boxes were the same price seats and had free seating (ie, they aren't fixed to the floor so can be moved), I am not sure why he couldn't have booked one of those when one was still free last night.

I am going to get flamed for not being more understanding, but what was meant to be an expensive birthday treat was greatly impacted by this man and I think he could have considered his size more when booking his own seat.

Aibu to feel annoyed at this?

Why is it "bleeding heart" to think "oh that was uncomfy but what a shame for the poor guy" and not bitch about it. Incidentally the OP came round to that way of thinking ages ago.

It is hard, but obesity is not an addiction or a disability. People need to take responsibility for their eating habits before they become disabled.

My sister has been having treatment for nearly three years at an Eating Disorder clinic for binge eating which was triggered after a violent sexual assault.

As someone else said, while her weight is obvious the reasons for it aren't printed on her forehead so as you sit there being all righteous about someone else's choices and lack of self-control your space just consider that you don't have one tiny clue about why ANY person who is obese is obese. They could well have a disability, an addiction or be on heavy doses of life saving steroids, they could just have a penchant for deep fried Mars Bars - but how exactly would you know?

duplodon, yes you're right, they could have, but unfortunately, everyone pays for 1 seat. you don't have the right to take up 1.25 seats, or be forced to give away 0.25 of the seat that you have paid for!

if you want someone to be accommodating, then it should be the theatre (or airline, etc), not the person who was paid for a whole seat but is only getting 75% of it!

I took my children to the Colston Hall in Bristol a few months ago. DS1 is 6'3 and quite a big build. I am also tall with very long legs. There is no leg room. I was pretty uncomfortable and DS was in agonies after about 30 mins. He was trying to sit still and not fidget but he had to move from time to time to stop getting cramp and the only way he could sit comfortably was to stick his legs out to the side. if it had been anyone other than his sister in that seat he would have been seriously inconveniencing them. I don't think I'll manage to persuade him to go again inspite of the fact that he enjoyed the concert.

It never occurred to me that this would be an issue - last time I took him he was still child-sized! Perhaps it was the same for this man - he didn't think it through and was therefore embarrassed and uncomfortable. Poor bugger! I am sure it was unpleasant for the OP but I'd be willing to bet it was more so for him!

In the majority of public places there is simply not enough room for anyone who isn't standard sized. That is the issue IMO. It shouldn't be neccessary for anyone who isn't 'normal' to pay a load more just to see what other people pay a normal price for. It isn't just the obese that have the problem.

Why is it "bleeding heart" to think "oh that was uncomfy but what a shame for the poor guy" and not bitch about it.

It's "Bleeding Heart" to assume that his discomfort outweighs the comfort of other people - especially when it's a physical encroachment.

My heart does in fact bleed for obese posters on here who read these threads though.

Why on earth should someone give up half of their seat on a plane so someone fat can have the other half? Ridiculous.

I'm going to come in on a different tack here as I can see there is a lot of ignorance about obesity.

There are many and varied causes of obesity but a significant number will be due to eating disorders.

I had an eating disorder for many years, indeed I still have it on a low level but I am a normal weight now.

People with eating disorders have no control. That includes a great many obese people as well as those who are underweight.

People think it is a choice. In very few cases is it a choice to be obese. In fact I would like to suggest that having control over our eating is a very difficult thing to achieve for nearly everyone.

Food and diet are very closely linked to mood and when I see someone very overweight, judging them is far from my mind. I would probably feel rather sorry for them because I don't think anyone would actively choose to be obese, and it must be awful to feel judged by people because of it.

Btw my own eating disorder caused me to be very thin instead which I was judged for too. I knew I was thin, had no desire to be as thin as that, yet found it extremely difficult to eat enough to stop losing weight.

It had a psychological cause - it was nothing much to do with food, or my body shape.

There was no way I could do anything about it - well, I didn't think I could. I was terrified.

I think people assumed I just liked being thin and didn't realise how bad it looked. As I said, a lot of ignorance, sadly. It's not their fault, they just have no idea.

sophie we've established in the minority of cases there may be a medical cause or a disorder.

How have you established that? I don't think you can possibly have a CLUE how many people around you have MH or physical problems.

You're talking bollocks.

are you presuming this, as others have presumed he had a medical condition?

Oh and FYI being morbidly obese is both a disability and a medical condition in itself.

Being obese can disable somebody nobody has actually disputed that nobody has really disputed that people are overweight because of x y z what some posters are disputing is they dont want an obese person getting in their space (which they paid for) and squashing them why is a fat persons comfort more important

I didn't call everyone else ignorant. I said there seems to be a lot of ignorance. There didn't seem to be any recent posts disputing what Liquorice and some others stated and I felt it might help to add a reminder.

I have not said anything about it making it Ok to cause other people discomfort.

Saying that I'll bugger off as clearly I'm just pissing people off whatever I say.

They have MrsJayy.

Just to stop copping out with the 'medical/addiction' excuse and eat less.

Or has everyone else hidden Licquorice?

There are lots of overweight and people who meet the criteria for obesity, yes - but when you are talking about someone being morbidly obese to the extent they can't use regular seats without touching off someone else? I'd wager a high degree of people as heavy as that are likely to have issues contributing to their obesity they did not choose and may be struggling to control.

CactusAnnie, no matter what the reason? So someone who really has no choice but to be morbidly obese should not go anywhere that someone who isn't does because they might cause someone else discomfort? Pain, fair enough - but discomfort? That doesn't seem OK to me either.

The mistake in comparing eating disorders and who is "making enough effort" is that functionally anorexia and binge eating are opposite ends of the spectrum. So to stay well with anorexia, really you need to loosen your grip on control and for binge eating you need to regain it - but you can't assume that because someone is obese they're just not trying hard enough, which is what some of these posts read as.

Mrsjayy
what some posters are disputing is they dont want an obese person getting in their space (which they paid for)

Where are these theatres where people pay for 'space' and not 'seats'?

OP... you have my sympathies because you didn't shame the guy, you made the best of it, you tried to get different seats. All those who say it's part of life's rich tapestry are barking.

I had a horrible experience like this and I defy anyone to say it was OK. 3 hour flight, (felt like 30), me being met at destination airport by a long lost member of my family I hadn't seen for a long time, I had new outfit on etc. A morbidly obese guy came and sat next to me, he had on a vest and shorts, his legs had weeping sores possibly insect bites dont know, he was literally dripping with sweat, every time he moved I was showered in a fine spray. I am not petite, just ordinary sized and I did my best to shrink into my seat as much as I could and made the best of it. I asked if there was any spare seats when I went to the loo, there wasn't.

When the flight was over I got off and I was literally damp in places and soaking wet in others from this guy's sweat, it was the most godawful experience ever, I could have cried.

For whatever reason, this man on the plane should have booked two seats and not subjected anyone to that. Sometimes it is just not acceptable whatever the reason for the obesity.

p.s. I have never seen anyone eat so much on a shortish flight in my life as this man did so something tells me there is choice involved in this man's life and his weight problems.

" In the theatre, you generally pay for a seat/location, rather than a space allocation "

Fascicle when I first mentioned providing larger seats upthread, I said how it was paid for would be a vexed issue. In the theatre you pay for a seat, which is a particular size. You don't pay to have .75 seats whilst your neighbour gets 1.25 seats for the same cost. Thus you're actually paying for both a seat AND a fixed amount of space.

Since, increasingly, this space isn't adequate for some people, it could be changed. In older buildings this would be expensive but it's not, by and large, impossible. So if we switch to a system of regular and large seats, how does the pricing system work? Do you pay per person, in which case the charge is the same, or for the space, in which case the charge is more? It's not an easy thing to discuss but I think as people get larger it is something we will have to discuss more. Of course public venues, airlines etc would rather seats were smaller and they could put more people in to make profits but increasingly that isn't going to work. And I for one am fully prepared to be awkward, let my halo slip to somewhere around ankle level, and say that no, I'm not putting the armrest up or whatever and sharing my seat.

As for the separate issue that various PP have mentioned about the causes of obesity, the fact is that in the western world, more and more people are getting larger and larger. Not only do the stats back this up, but watch films from the 1970s and look at the cast - often people are really quite different in body shape from how we are now. So are we increasingly experiencing illnesses that cause obesity? Or is it that we live in environments that discourage movement and encourage over-eating? Whilst I do sympathise with anyone who is overweight for whatever reason, the fact is that not every case of obesity is caused by illness and that many, with varying degrees of effort, could lose weight. Personally I think that in order to make this easier for everyone, we need to re-engineer our environment so that we move more and eat less.

It's disgusting! I was on a 9 hour flight to Miami a year ago sat next to a very rude, very obese man.
He huffed and puffed when I needed to get up for the toilet or to stretch my legs even after I offered to swap seats
It was awful having his damp flab pressed up against me .
You have my sympathies OP!