Ignorant people

[Patatopotato]

What is with people having no manners or spatial awareness these days?

Just out of work and walking along the road (busy city centre with traffic so not option to just walk into road) approach 4 men in suits taking up the whole footpath.

Not one attempt to make a gap for me (or anyone else to get past) so I, quite rightly in my opinion, bang my elbow right off him, wish I'd of done it harder tbh!!

Aibu to have wished it had of had such force it would have knocked the phone right out of his hand!! (He was holding phone in front showing his equally ignorant mates something)

Could you not just have said excuse me? Elbowing someone hardly makes you any less ignorant imo.

I think that deliberately hurting someone with the hope they damage an item likely worth £1000+ is far worse than inadvertently taking up too much pavement.

YABU. The phrase you were looking for is “excuse me”

I don't think you understand what ignorant means

Someone that is so preoccupied with themselves isn't going to register excuse me, that's the issue.

As for the £1000 phone, I'd hope he had insurance...I'll admit that was harsh.

How ironic - your behaviour is far worse than theirs.

Ignorant can also mean discourteous or rude so OP is well aware what ut means and has used it correctly.

Yes whilst my elbowing could also be deemed ignorant, if others had some common courtesy for others around them then I wouldn't need to force myself through rather than walk into traffic. Given excuse me would have fell on deaf ears, how would you navigate the scenario?

“Excuse me”.

Drama over.

Unless you walk around behaving perfectly, you will have an issue with spatial awareness occasionally. Do you deserve to be elbowed by someone too proud to say excuse me?

I give these people a light elbowing too. It doesn't happen very often as most move at the last minute when they realise that I'm not sacrificing myself to the traffic. We can be unreasonable together OP 😅. They deserve it.

Manners go both ways. You could have easily stepped aside and let them pass as a group as that would have been seen as polite by them. They could have stepped aside for you. A lot of things could have happened, all of which only took 2 seconds of consideration from both sides.

But you lost all moral standings when you intentionally elbowed someone

No, elbowing him deliberately is assault, not ignorance.

how would you navigate the scenario?

Stand still and brace for impact. It really does throw them when they realise they've actually walked into somebody stationary as opposed to bumping into someone moving. It also means you get to scream twat in their face and everybody stares at him in disgust 😂

So basically you admit to purposely assaulting someone because they didn't move but also didn't move yourself.

In a situation where it was 4 of them and one of me I would move for them. But I guess I also wouldn't be elbowing someone however hard.

I was saying this exact thing to my mother at the weekend.

I was taught to be aware of other people around me and not get in the way as such/not be rude.

I don't understand how so many other people lack this basic spatial awareness.

Trying to get past a middle aged (like me!) man standing in the middle of the supermarket isle. I went to go behind and he decided at that moment to step back to look better. So I stopped abruptly and went to go in front, at that same moment he decided to step forward into my space meaning I had to stop short again. He acknowledged me in no single way as I eventually managed to get past.

I have been known to bellow “excuse me” before colliding with someone who isn’t looking where they’re going. 99% of the time they look up and say ‘oh sorry’. No harm no foul and all that.

In a situation where it was 4 of them and one of me I would move for them.
If they were in a row across a normal pavement width where do you expect to move to? On to the road into moving traffic? Float?

You physically hit him with your elbow for daring to be where you wanted to be and you think he's in the wrong.

How do you know that saying excuse me would have fallen on death ears? I would have been surprised if they heard you say that and still didn’t move. Most people avoid confrontation

Lol I didn't hit him, I walked past with my elbow out so he would bang off it.

Happy to be unreasonable this occasion, case closed.

I would have stood my ground and let them manoevre around me. Tempting as it is to bump someone out of the way it is bad manners, regardless of provocation.

You have no idea if 'excuse me' would have fallen on deaf ears - you didn't bother to try!

You were unreasonable barging into them and for wishing he had dropped his phone

Were you having a particularly bad day and just took it out on them?

Recently, 3 men were walking towards me on a narrow town centre path.
The obvious thing would have been for one of them to walk behind the others for a moment while we passed each other.
They were too entitled to do that. I think I was supposed to step into the road to get out of their way.

I just stood still, on the pavement, and looked at them. One of them had to move out of the way but was clearly pissed off about it.

He waited until he had walked past and put a bit of distance between us before turning around and giving me a mouthful of abuse.

I just say, 'Excuse me,' very loudly. And sometimes, "Tuck in!" If people are walking in a line totally blocking the entire pavement, so there's nowhere i can go except into the line of traffic, then I just keep moving in a straight line and let them break off either side, but if there's a small gap I try to move to one side so we can all pass politely.