Bus weirdo! Should I have moved?

[Baternburg]

Was on the bus home from town with my DS, almost 1 year. We’d gone in to buy supplies for his birthday cake. On the bus there is a space for wheelchairs/buggies so I put the buggy there as usual and sat down on the little fold down seat next to it, and started to give baby a bottle as he was getting hungry.
I get a tap on the shoulder and turn round to see a man, no mask on, smelling of booze, telling me I can’t sit there as I’m sitting too close to him. Now, there were perhaps 6 other people on the bus and it was a double decker, so plenty of space where he could have moved. I said to him ‘no, I’m feeding my baby’ and turned around back to face pram. Get another tap and turned round, said ‘can you stop touching me’ and turned back around. Man then says again I need to move, 2 metres distance etc. Again without a mask on. I say ‘I’m not moving at the moment as I’m feeding my baby’. He then attempts to fold up my chair WHILE I’m sitting on it. I said again ‘don’t touch me’ and turned away again because I could see him getting agitated and I didn’t want a scene or want things to escalate, even though I wanted to call him a miserable bastard. He then says he’s going to tell the driver, and gets up and over to the driver. Old lady across from us has a go at him as well. The driver tells me there is another seat on the other side of the buggy so I can turn the buggy around. I didn’t realise this seat was there as it’s also a fold up one and it’s kind of folded into a wheelchair pad thing so looks like it’s just part of that. So I do go and sit there l, again I’m not wanting to make a scene or stoop to the weirdo’s level. As I’m leaving the bus the bus driver thanks me for moving and apologises, says if someone spoke to his wife like that he’d give them a swift punch.

So my question is should I have moved in this situation and was I being unreasonable for sitting closer to the man in order that I could sit next to the buggy to give baby a bottle?

@Sanitisethat

I’m also surprised you’d feed a baby on the bus, it’s not overly clean and also going over bumps.

The good news is you can just explain this to a hungry baby and they’ll go ‘oh right you are mum, I’ll just hold on til we get home then.’

Omg I should have told my twins this when I'm hanging onto a bar trying to feed two of them 🤣🤣 you dudes, you're not hungry, MN said you can wait

@Tink2007

It sounds like you expected him to move because you have a baby and a pram. It’s that entitled attitude that gives mothers on public transport a bad name. I’ve just had my third baby and this sort of thing drives me mad.

You got on the bus and this man was already there. He had no reason to move. You created the scene.

Op didn't expect anyone to move. She told the aggressive guy who kept poking her that if he was unhappy having someone sit on an adjacent seat, which was fully permissable, then he could choose to move.

You weren't considerate enough to ask the passenger if he minded you invading his space. How much space does he want?? Op was on a totally separate seat from him. She didn't perch on his knee, she didn't even sit beside him. She sat on a separate and available seat but she should ask the drunk man where would be acceptable for her to sit??

canigooutyet

But OP didn't know that he was vulnerable. None of us do. And it's her job primarily to protect herself and her son. His vulnerability - if it existed - doesn't give him a free pass to touch other people.

And around here, bus drivers make basically no concessions for people with buggies. Just because you've seen bus drivers being nice, it doesn't mean all of them behave like that.

OP had far fewer options than CDM for her seating. CDM's mental health status is not OP's problem. He could easily have gone elsewhere, which OP couldn't.

@canigooutyet it's lovely you live somewhere where the driver will patiently sit there and wait whilst a Mom folds down her buggy and manhandles that bad her 1 yo to one of the many empty seats on your sparsely populated bus where people don't have to sit in adjacent seats, and where the driver shouts out to tell everyone there's a bump coming up. It sounds amazing. It doesn't sound like any bus company I've ever travelled with.

This isn't 2m but if the person in the empty seat aka the pokey man sits back he's definitely 1 m from where I am. I'm sitting in the pull down seat it sounds like op was in. I'm side on but if op was feeding her son, she'd have had her back to the man. That's the same space as if she'd sat in the seat behind him. If people can't sit on the seats in front or behind someone else, the buses need to tape them off. I've got on buses on the last month where you've had no choice.

@KitMarlowesCodpieceOfthigh a person without a mask will be vulnerable in someway if they are legit exempt. No it doesn't give him a free pass to touch her.

@SleepingStandingUp She was sitting close enough that he could touch her seat to try and push it up with her still sitting in it. Yes some will shout out especially when it's quiet as they are more aware of what is happening behind them, I never said all. I never said that they would stop and wait patiently for the op to move so she could fold up the buggy.

Although a 1 year old, I would have wheeled the pushchair to the nearest SD seat. Taken child out of buggy, sat them on the seat whilst quickly folding up the buggy.

@SleepingStandingUp

This isn't 2m but if the person in the empty seat aka the pokey man sits back he's definitely 1 m from where I am. I'm sitting in the pull down seat it sounds like op was in. I'm side on but if op was feeding her son, she'd have had her back to the man. That's the same space as if she'd sat in the seat behind him. If people can't sit on the seats in front or behind someone else, the buses need to tape them off. I've got on buses on the last month where you've had no choice.

That looks a lot less than 1 metre.

I don't think you were unreasonable. So much easier for him to move to another seat. Not only that but if he was that worried why did he come closer to you and touch you?

@Gamechange He remained sitting until he went to talk to the driver.
Moving his arm and maybe leaning forward a bit is too close isn't it?

She was sitting close enough that he could touch her seat my having his bum on the end and leaning forward. As op said. I'm not overly tall and I could stretch a good distance doing that.

Taken child out of buggy, sat them on the seat whilst quickly folding up the buggy. Haha at which point 1 year old decides to look what Mommy is doing and falls off seat. If op isn't allowed anywhere the man deems to close to him because it's apparently his choice who sits where on the bus, op may not have been anywhere close enough to grab him if he did fall off. Because the man decided no one should sit on the empty seats around him despite the bus company clearly permitting it.

Moving his arm and maybe leaning forward a bit is too close isn't it? Pp said closer not too close. He was so worriedxa woman sat in a permitted seat with her back to him was too close he leant forward, engaged her in conversation and repeatedly touched her. Bit that's ok cos op should have got on the bus and asked all the other passengers where she was allowed to sit.

You invaded the space of someone already sitting in the priority seating. You created the situation when you clearly saw he didn't wear a mask. This also implies that he has some "vulnerability"

He wasn’t sitting in the priority seating. He was sitting behind it. OP sat in the priority seating, as she was completely entitled to do because of her buggy, and he took umbrage with this.

One might ask why, if he was so concerned about social distancing, he deliberately sat right behind the priority seating instead of any of the other many free seats. Hard to see why he should be allowed to render the priority seating area unusable despite not needing to use it himself, but if we acknowledge that we can’t berate a mother for daring to use a section of the bus specifically designed for... mothers

Now I understand why this site has such an obsession with diagrams. Half the posters are clearly incapable of understanding written information

@Sanitisethat

Now I understand why this site has such an obsession with diagrams. Half the posters are clearly incapable of understanding written information

Hence my photo 😂😂

Gosh this post has gotten a lot of replies haha. Well you lucky lot I’ve done a diagram @Sanitisethat I was sitting in little seat next to pram. All the blue seats were occupied. Rest of the bottom deck was empty as was most of the top deck I imagine.

@Baternburg many thanks let’s see how the vipers manage to twist this into a further tale of infamy.

Oh Christ OP, you come across as one of those typical mothers who thinks just because you have a child everyone else should work around/bow down to you.

@SleepingStandingUp yep your photo is correct! And I was sitting with my back to the seats behind so facing the front of the bus

@JalapenoDave
I seem to have been presented as that in this thread haven’t I.
I’m definitely not.

”Stop making your misandry think that a woman can never be wrong.”

Alright “mate” I think you might be on the wrong site for such a line.

Not read the full thread but are people honestly saying the OP shouldn’t have put the buggy in the buggy space or put the buggy in the space and left baby there whilst she sat somewhere else . I know people are flowers but it definitely isn’t the op

@JalapenoDave

Oh Christ OP, you come across as one of those typical mothers who thinks just because you have a child everyone else should work around/bow down to you.

What because she didn't do as she was told by an out of line drunk man?

@MedicalMystery1

Not read the full thread but are people honestly saying the OP shouldn’t have put the buggy in the buggy space or put the buggy in the space and left baby there whilst she sat somewhere else . I know people are flowers but it definitely isn’t the op

And you just know people would go crazed if op said I put the buggy in the buggy bit with baby in it and say at the back, aibu? or the bus waited whilst I folded it down whilst holding the 1 yo so it took a while and people moaned, aibu?

@Baternburg
A double buggy can’t fit in the space with another so would you take your child out and fold so I could stay on the bus as well?

Hia Karen?!
No someone who is already on a bus should not have to move because you decided to feed your baby when you could have done it before getting on bus.
You said plenty of other seats available so just leave buggy in the bay and go sit elsewhere?