To expect to sit on an empty train seat?

[NellieTheElephant1]

Travelling on a busy train to London, lady wearing a mask sitting on a window seat with her bags next to her on the aisle seat. No other seats available nearby. Asked her politely 'excuse me please' indicating that I wanted to sit there. She mumbled 'sorry no I need to distance'. Surely if you're that worried about Covid don't travel on public transport at busy times?

Away from London and Glasgow, most trains do have guards.

She should not be hogging 2 seats and make you stand for 40 minutes. It is possible she has covid and didn’t want to give it to anyone else. I don’t think masks should be forced, but earlier this year Inhad to pick up my son from school, I was sick and didn’t want him catching it so I put on a mask just before he came out. The young woman sitting in the car beside me smirked at me wearing a mask alone in my car, I think if she understood what I was doing, she wouldn’t have smirked.

I'm very sorry you're the kind of person who would refuse to let someone past at airport security even though it was four hours before your flight time because 'they should have planned better', but I have more empathy and compassion and awareness of others, and thankfully, so do most people.

You have absolutely no idea what kind of person I am. You clearly have some issues though, please don't assume we are all the same.

You're the only person that needs to do that. Your involvement and projecting on this thread is disgusting.

Disabled Railcards are only £20 and apply the discount to a companion too. So you'd only need one journey per year with a standard fare of £30 each to break even.

Have you never travelled with Crosscountry?

Come on, OP. You must know that whenever someone gives a CF an inch, they'll be emboldened to take a mile.

Extraordinary what contortions people are going through to try to justify this woman. As has been pointed out, if she wanted to isolate a crowded train wasn't the place to do it, irrespective of whether someone was sitting next to her or not, because she could not distance from people sitting behind and in front of her and anyway in a crowded carriage you are breathing in everyone else's bugs. OP obviously couldn't sit elsewhere as she had to stand for 40 minutes, and it really is very selfish indeed to insist on keeping your bags on an empty seat whilst other passengers have to stand.

Extraordinary what contortions people are going through to try to justify this woman.

Par for the course with AIBU.

She literally just could not stand the idea that someone was 'pushing in'

Maybe she’d have been more reasonable if you’d just said you were going to be sick. Just a thought …

I generally find it best to go through life assuming that people aren’t paying too much attention to me, so if they get in my way and annoy me it’s probably through obliviousness rather than malice.

With that lady - I’d have probably said “please move I’m going to be sick”, rather than saying “excuse me” and then expecting her to pay enough attention to me to realise it was urgent.

@pixie5121

You should give it up now, you are embarrassing yourself.

Have you never actually been sick?

I’ve had hyperemesis three times.

But now that we have other passengers shouting at this woman that you were going to be sick? I see this is a fast-developing story so quite possibly I’ve missed things.

Seeing as there was no free seat nearby you were in the right. But people who demand to sit next to me when there are free seats nearby get a silent gesture towards a free seat and then ignored. Someone once sat on my bags. There was nothing breakable. It was quite difficult for him to balance and he looked like a tosser. It is very odd to demand to sit next to a stranger if there are other seats available whether you are male or female.

Other passengers were shouting at her that I was going to be sick...I must have been green

You’ve over egged it now.

It'd be very un-public-spirited, though...

i’m in two minds about this. I would prefer not to have someone sitting next to me and might put a bag next to me but
if the train fills us or anyone asked if they could sit there I would move my bag like a shot.

I do put my bag next to me on lightly-loaded trains. As soon as the carriage is half full (i.e. there are no pairs of seats free, there's someone in every row on both sides of the carriage) I remove my bag and either tuck it underneath my seat or put it on the rack. It wouldn't be fair to wait for someone to ask me to move it.

It would never occur to me in a million years to sit on someone's bag when there were other free seats. What is wrong with people?

its the person hogging an empty seat with their bag who is wrong. Put your bag on your lap. It’s just common sense (keeping it safe) and basic manners.

Why should they have to go searching for a seat when there is one right there, only with a bag acting like a towel on a sunlounger. Which everyone knows is the ultimate sign of being a prat.

mind you, I’d wouldn’t boak all over someone either. That’s a whole other level of wrongness.

Where does it say that OP wasn't wearing a mask? That clearly wasn't this lady's objection to taking her bags off that seat.