Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Bus weirdo! Should I have moved?

353 replies

Baternburg · 12/09/2020 17:48

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?

OP posts:
Baternburg · 12/09/2020 18:52

@Lugubelenus I mean, I didn’t have a measuring tape, but like I said he had to reach up out his seat to reach over to tap me. I wasn’t unreasonably close to him. And I’m pretty sure on the buses here it’s 1m space. People sit on each row behind one another so that wouldn’t be 2m

OP posts:
ancientgran · 12/09/2020 18:54

I don't know who was being unreasonable but I think we were all superwomen back in the 70s when it was considered normal to fold your buggy, hold baby under your arm, with shopping bag hanging off it and sometimes a well trained toddler in front of you. We didn't have covid though.

TeachesOfPeaches · 12/09/2020 18:54

I cannot believe these answers. The man could sit anywhere on the bus. OP is restricted as she has a pram, baby and bags. I would have told him to move somewhere else if he felt uncomfortable.

ancientgran · 12/09/2020 18:54

Shopping bag hanging off your arm not your baby. Babies would have had to be superbabies for that.

Walkaround · 12/09/2020 18:55

Yes, he was a weirdo - if he had actually been worried about social distancing, he would not have been tapping the OP on the shoulder and folding up her chair whilst she sat on it. Also, facing away from him so that the OP couldn’t even see him unless she turned around means he was more of a danger to her, as he was breathing over her, but she was facing away from him. All in all, OP, everyone would have been safer if he had respected the fact you were already well distanced from him and he had not gone out of his way to get close enough to touch you. However, yes you should have moved, as you did, when the bus driver pointed out the alternative seat.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 12/09/2020 18:55

[quote Baternburg]@RafaIsTheKingOfClay
Yes that’s it. It’s kind of tucked in. I didn’t know it was a chair to be honest.
Yes I do look quite young, I still get ID’d. I’m also pretty soft spoken and hate confrontation haha[/quote]
I thought so because of the seat folding up. In which case, I’d just put this down to him being one of the small bunch of weirdos on buses who seem to feel the need to tell young women where they can sit/stand and then manhandling them if they don’t do as they are told.

I’d just forget it, you don’t find too many of them, most people are reasonable.

Baternburg · 12/09/2020 18:55

@ancientgran haha yep that does sound like superwoman material!

OP posts:
DioneTheDiabolist · 12/09/2020 18:56

Are people reading the posts ?
Probably not. Some posters just see the words bus and buggy and automatically think the OP is U. Even putting a buggy into a buggy space is unreasonable here now.Shock

TheSeedsOfADream · 12/09/2020 18:56

How do you know he could sit anywhere? Do you know him? And can confirm he doesn't have a disability?

Baternburg · 12/09/2020 18:58

@DioneTheDiabolist is that a thing on mumsnet? Does everyone have a car haha?

OP posts:
Baternburg · 12/09/2020 18:58

@TheSeedsOfADream I don’t. But I didn’t ask him to move.

OP posts:
TeachesOfPeaches · 12/09/2020 19:00

If he was able to physically manhandle OP in her seat then he could move seats.

User3627290 · 12/09/2020 19:01

@Baternburg it is a very prevalent attitude on here! I think it must be that most posters have cars and just have a total failure of imagination / empathy when it comes to prams and buses. I’ve literately never seen a thread about using a pram on a bus where the OP doesn’t get torn a new one, regardless of the situation or how reasonable they’ve actually been.

Don’t take it to heart! This is a weird old place sometimes.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 12/09/2020 19:01

@TeachesOfPeaches

If he was able to physically manhandle OP in her seat then he could move seats.
Same for walking up to the front of the bus to complain. It would have been a lot less effort to just do that.
Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 12/09/2020 19:02

Well your first crime here OP is taking a child AND a buggy on a bus. That is a crime in itself on MN, they hate people on busses with prams so you are automatically unreasonable.

User3627290 · 12/09/2020 19:02

How do you know he could sit anywhere? Do you know him? And can confirm he doesn't have a disability?

I think we can safely assume that if he was sufficiently able-bodied to try and fold up OP’s seat while she was still on it and then go and complain to the bus driver about her, he could have moved one seat back for his own comfort.

TheSeedsOfADream · 12/09/2020 19:02

@Baternburg, my comment was to the person who said he could have moved, not you.

ancientgran · 12/09/2020 19:03

Baternburg it was a nightmare but I have to say that sometimes an old lady (ha like me) would offer to hold the toddlers hand or someone younger who would take the buggy for you. Maybe life being a bit more awkward made people more helpful and people more willing to offer to help. I'm usually in a car but I must confess sometimes it feels a bit of a risk to offer to help people now as they can be a bit off about it.

FishPalace · 12/09/2020 19:03

Honestly, OP, don't get involved in altercations on public transport with maskless drunks in the middle of a pandemic when you have a small baby with you, regardless of whether you were one metre or two away from him.

Assuming you and the baby weren't shopping for birthday cake ingredients late at night, did it not occur to you that someone detectably drunk in the middle of the day may have MH issues and not be the best person to get shirty with about the difference between one metre and two?

This isn't a matter of who's right or wrong, more a matter of what's safest all round.

TeachesOfPeaches · 12/09/2020 19:06

You were in the designated pram area so no, just no. wonder if he would have tried that with a dad.

Baternburg · 12/09/2020 19:07

@FishPalace haha plenty of drunk folk at all hours of the day in my city. Which I’d rather not disclose but it’s pretty known for this 😂 and yes you’re probably right, that’s the stubborn in me haha. Next time I shall remove my baby from pram and stagger to the other end of the bus away from strange folk

OP posts:
Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 12/09/2020 19:07

If you were a decent distance away from him, you had no reason to move, and he was being a fucking duck to try and physically move you.

Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 12/09/2020 19:08

Dick 😂 (new phone. Its not picked up all the swear word yet)

MiriamMargo · 12/09/2020 19:08

why is it that as soon as some people become mothers, they think it comes with some sort of entitlement . You were in the wrong completely !

Baternburg · 12/09/2020 19:09

@User3627290 haha whyyy though? Are we expected just to stay home when it’s outwith walking distance. We do actually have a car but hubby takes it to work.

OP posts: