Bloody men on trains- manspreading!!!

[Plankingplanks]

I have twice been given the rage today by men on the train manspreading!! Get on train first thing, got an urgent piece of work to do. Take one of the only seats on the train at a table. Guy opposite me is on his laptop taking up 3/4 of the width of the table. I get my laptop out, put it on the edge of the table about 50% on and can't bloody we'll use it because his is taking up most of the room and the lid of it is tipped back across half the rest of the table. I ask him to move it back a bit. He looks at me and moves his maybe an inch, so I'm forced to work at a strange angle whilst surreptitiously using my lid to push his back while he is on his bloody phone, not even using the goddamned laptop!!

Then I get on the train home. Men and women everywhere with their bags nicely seated on the seat next to them whilst people are having to stand!!

Spot an empty seat. Make my way to it to find a man seated diagonally across two seats with his leg (only one) across the footwell of the empty seat. He looks at me as I go to sit down, and doesn't move his legs at all!! I sit down, and say excuse me, and he moved his foot back slightly! He is still taking up nearly half my foot space.
So I move my feet and ask him to move again. He moves slightly again and now my leg is touching his leg pushing him back into his space. Still he doesn't ducking get in his own chair!!

Eventually, I turned to him and said "do you have a disability that required you to sit taking up two spaces? Because this is the third time I've asked you to move your legs out of my space and they are still there!" His response was to move his leg to the exact edge of his seat and then spend the rest of the journey, pushing his leg into mine!

Wtf is it with these men? Do they get turned on by it?

Also why are people giving their bloody bags seats and making people stand? The fuck I'd stand and let someone have their bag on the bloody seat, but more fool them for standing!!

Yes, this. It’s a dominance display.

@AppleCinnamonBagel Manspreading: being over 50, post menopause I've no qualms about telling a man to get medical help if he needs that much space for his bollocks. Man invariably immediately smacks his legs back together.

Love it! 🙂

It is a wonderful kind of magic. I had a right go at a man at a bus stop recently. He thought I was pushing in. I wasn't. I just didn't back down. I would have at 20 but I'm not going to let some arsehole push me around now.

As for manspreading, bags with sharp corners are your friend. Gone are the days when we could smoke everywhere and 'accidentally' burn men who encroached. I was very good at that.

I'm allergic to manspreading, conveniently they learn how to give me space when I sneeze at them

ugh I never use public transport luckily, these are the reasons why. I also prefer standing on packed trains if I can’t sit alone.

I don’t really recall men manspreading whilst sat next to me. I do recall men sat either behind me or opposite me accidentally kicking my legs cause they’ve outstretched their legs underneath my seat. I tend to just kick them back, they adjust and it doesn’t happen again. Or if I need to walk through an aisle and their legs are outstretched in the aisle, I happily barge into them or step on them “accidentally”. They usually apologise without realising I’ve intentionally hit them haha. I guess I just have an innocent or bumbling demeanour

I'd have a problem with that. Not that I put my bag on seats while people are standing, I don't.

I'm quite simply not tall enough to use the overhead luggage racks. I'm barely over 5 feet tall. If someone officiously put it up there for me I just wouldn't be able to reach it down when I needed something from it or to get off.

Sometimes there are other floor level luggage racks on trains and I use them where available, but on sometimes there aren't. I then have to try and squeeze it in at my feet but then have no legroom and it doesn't often fit.

Trains aren't that well designed for people with overnight luggage, especially if you are short. Some of the newer ones are better though.

I applaud you, this is what I hate about travel.

Probably my worst one was splurging on a business class upgrade on a flight to the US. The guy sitting next to me was downing one glass of wine after another. His glass of red wine on my side of the shared table between us. Come turbulence and of course his freaking wine ended up in my lap!! I started crying (was actually traveling for a funeral), the idiot was too drunk to even care.

I’ve snapped at a manspreader “Put your legs together, no-one’s penis needs that much space.” He got up and left!

Ask people politely to move their bags. I've never had anyone say no and if they did, I'd just move it myself.

The amount of space people take up on trains is ridiculous. Every time I use the train for work it’s the same: men spread out in the seats and women crammed standing up unable to use the seats as the men take up a seat and a half.

The over spilling is often because they ARE bigger and make no attempt to keep to their side of the seats.

what’s the solution? The trains are too small for those using them. Short of redoing the interior I don’t know how it can get better.

Oh god I have to travel a lot for work and it’s always men, always spreading into my space or touching me and it’s horrible. Hate it.

Also why do they also have to be THE FIRST to get on any mode of transport? Standing so close to the doors that no one can get off first, pushing their way into queues and standing at airport gates for ages before the flight even gets called.

I found this commuting in to London. I try pushing their legs with mine but sometimes I think they like that or see it as a challenge. Now I'm older I say 'please move your legs, I don't have enough space'. Sometimes they do, especially if I speak loudly and people look round. Sometimes they don't. I just can't stand it that men (and it is always men on my trains) are so entitled.

Definitely borrowing some of these for future journeys, especially liked the tube one and the suggestion of a bag with very sharp corners. I think part of it is that bigger people (and men are mostly much bigger than women) genuinely don't understand what it's like to be small (I'm five foot two and before lockdowns was very slight though my occasionally very sharp tones when I speak often make up for it).

The rest of it is that a lot of men in particular are selfish twats who think they're the only ones entitled to space...the fact that obesity has got much worse in the west also hasn't helped, most public vehicles are intended for people with a 1950s style physique. I also don't know what the answer is but it's one of the reasons I hate flying now and unless it's the daily commute on a non WFH day when I have no choice try to travel when it's as quiet as possible.

After suffering a few times I've mastered the art of taking my space back. They push, I move and poke them with an elbow. They use my table space, I move the laptop. They hog the arm rest, I wait for the smallest movement and take all the space I want. The bastards who think the feet need to go where feet should be just get stood on.

I've just got on the bus and asked a lady to remove her bag. Packed bus. Another lady across the aisle was doing the same thing and a different passenger asked her to move it.

Normally I get a commuter train and, while there are sometimes bikes before they're allowed (after 10 up to 4pm), electric scooters, or groups of school kids sitting with loads of sports gear and school bags scattered, generally there isn't an issue with seats reserved by bags or feet up on them (in rush hour at least).

Sometimes I miss the separate women's carriages in other countries. They're really nice friendly spaces.

When I used to commute it was people with newspapers that used to annoy me, especially the full size papers. It was arm's and elbows everywhere as they tried to turn a page and fold it to read.

Someone mentioned the stale booze can I add in perfume/aftershave. There were a couple of women regulars on our commute who must have applied it by the gallon. Probably not but in an enclosed area it certainly seemed like it. Didn't seem to be quite the same issue with aftershave but I'm sure it could be.

Being a regular commuter I got into a little group, 4 men 2 women, who'd sit together regularly. Made for a more sociable journey. Only issue really was a couple of the men were fairly tall and you could get a bit of manspreading as they tried to fit their legs in into the space.

I couldn't agree more! I recently had to endure a 3.5hr bus journey 9pm - 12.30am, and 30mins into the journey a man sat in the seat next to me & proceeded to spread his legs & plonked his arm fully on the shared arm rest sort of trapping my arm behind his because I was typing a message on my phone so my elbow was tucked in beside me.

He then closed his eyes & acted as though he was asleep. I elbowed him fairly hard as i was 'moving' my trapped arm but he never budged.

I spent 3 v uncomfortable hours on that bus constantly pushing his leg back with mine & bashing my elbow against him as every single time I had to move. Which I made sure was v v frequently.

However the reality is I was cramped into an awkward position which gave me a spasm in my back that night/ next day because I was repulsed by 'having to touch up against some random stranger. It really raises my blood pressure. And makes my skin crawl.

That fucker sat with his rucksack on his knee with his legs WIDE open.

Men are such ASSHOLES

A story to cheer your day. And mine, too, considering @TastesLikeStrawberriesOnASummerEvening's image has given me full-scale rage.

I was on one of those uncomfortable new Azuma trains whose seats feel like travelling on an ironing board. I was in the window seat and had ensured, as always, that the armrest between the seats was down. ManSpreader gets on and moves it up. I say 'excuse me' and move it back down again. I promptly take the armrest.

He pushes against me, trying to shove my arm off the armrest and encroach his legs into my space. I locked all my muscles rigid and refused to give a solitary inch. This meant I had to endure the physical contact from his leg, which I found repulsive. I still focused on my book and wouldn't move.

After reaching the first stop on the route from London he got up and moved to the window seat on the opposite side of the aisle. Both these seats were vacant. At the same station a hugely obese male got on and set next to him, stuffing him right up next to the window seat with his bulk.

Oh, how I smirked ...

I’ve met plenty of women who are just as bad as men. Taking shoes off and putting their feet on the seats or curling up across 2 chairs to sleep and makeup strewn across whilst they sort their face. Some people are just rude.

As a pretty much daily user of trains and/or buses I would say this isn't just a man thing. Plenty of women are just as bad. Teenage girls in particular sprawl themselves all over the seats.

If someone is asleep they can't really know they're invading your space.
And of course you'd ask them to move over.

Did you speak to him and ask him to move?

Why the fuck would you be polite to someone who is doing something extraordinarily rude?

It's not always men. Last week we were on a very crowded train and the summarised the aisle had her bags on The seat next to her and despite the fact people were standing she left it there.

I wish I called out that there was a seat available there.