Beach etiquette in Spain

[baggies]

Lying on Lo Pagan beach in Spain. Huge huge beach. Using sunloungers we have hired. Family after family, old couples, young couples are now surrounding us. Why? They've got the whole bloody beach to choose!
Paid 10 euros for the privilege of looking at brollies, deckchairs and baguettes! Just waiting for the kids to play bat and ball directly in front of us and we've got a full house. Grrr😡

Same behaviour as when you park in a completely empty car park and then someone parks right next to you.

Or when people choose a crowded restaurant over an empty one, even though the people in the full one have only gone in there because other people have. No rational assessment of the quality of the restaurant has been made by anyone, they've just copied everyone else.

Non rational herd behaviour is what it is called. The people surrounding you have subconsiously assumed that the part of the beach you are on is the nicest so have joined you there, even though you may have picked it completely at random, or just set down your stuff when you got tired of carrying it.

Or it could be that they think that it is a tidier, more efficient use of space to line up all together, rather than randomly scattering all over the place? Or that if they set up far away from you, that you'd be insulted that you've made a crap location choice or they're trying to avoid you.

It might be because you're so incredibly sexy/enigmatic, that all people gravitate towards you...you simply can't help that magnetic attraction "baggies" !

You rented the lounger, you didn't buy the beach,.

Are you near the toilets and/or shops? I've found those beds always get busy quickly.

Maybe you are in a prime position?

Ha! I remember this happening once when I was younger - made even worse when they started barbecuing sardines!

I don't know why people do this OP, but I sympathise.

We spend a lot of time in Spain and most Spanish people dont have the same ideas about personal space as we Brits.
They would probably feel that they were being anti social and rude to sit miles away even if they never speak to you or acknowledge your existence.

The same people that on entering an empty ish cinema with hundreds of seats available will sit directly in front of you !! Then talk loudly or play with their phone the whole time !

Oh you poor soul, my heart is breaking for you lying on a beach with people nearby 😤

You pick vey busy beach during busy summer month.
images.app.goo.gl/iGsgBu47mthUC6o6A

lol its like when we go camping ,huge field pick were you like.So we pick a nice empty part of the field and were do others choose to pitch.Directly next to us ,whats even funnier.Is when a single person decides to park it next to us i mean what single person wants to park it next to a family tent .

YANBU.

I got really annoyed when people did this to me. We were sitting in a spot and these people rocked up and practically sat on our blanket. Then their kids started playing all around us. I got up an moved. But then I used to tell people to move if they sat next to me on the bus or tube and there were loads of other seats.

Fuck knows why they do it but its out of order.

“Paid 10 euros for the privilege of looking at brollies, deckchairs and baguettes!”

No, you paid for the use of those items.

The simple answer is, some people are just twits.

It’s a really interesting phenomenon and it’s seen all over the animal kingdom when choosing anything from nesting sites to feeding stations to who to mate with.

Basically if member of your species has chosen something that you also need to choose, you will default to what they’ve chosen - assuming that THEY have put the time and effort (and accompanying calorie burn and energy expenditure) into checking it all out and choosing the best thing.

Just imagine David Attenborough narrating it all, that should help. OR go and get a few cocktails until you no longer care.

Cant you just move?

Yes it's herd mentality. Same reason bars and restaurants do better if they're near other bars and restaurants.

You didn't hire the beach?! Just the sun lounger! That's totally the norm, to sit near each other.

OH GOD OTHER HUMANS EXIST ON EARTH!!!!

Come off it OP. If you wanted a holiday of splendid isolation from the common herd then you should have hired a private island, or gone camping in your own back garden.

Or you go into public toilets and every cunical is empty but the person who comes in after you either goes in the one right next to you or goes into the one you come out of. Weird.

But those sunloungers for hire are always beside other loungers. If you want peace and quiet you need to take a beach mat and lay away from the loungers surely.

No one else were on the hired sunloungers.

If we had gone there with our own stuff I wouldn't choose to sit in close proximity to another family.

But those sunloungers for hire are always beside other loungers.

But if there is a whole row with only one group of people, why would you sit right by them? Surely you'd sit at the other end to them.

This is a cultural thing. Please don't go to Spain and then moan about Spanish people acting like Spanish people! British tourists like that give the rest a bad name. YANBVU

Sorry-should have said YABVU