annoyed woman wont move seats on train

[PrettyPleaseXo]

Currently on the train with my 5 year old. There’s loads of individual seats but none together so I’m stood next to my daughter who’s sat down next to another woman.
AIBU to be a bit annoyed she’s turned her back on my daughter to avoid eye contact and hasn’t moved to another seat so I can sit next to my daughter?

if there were no other seats I’d completely get it but there’s loads of individual ones

Not quite sure what her age has to do with it?

Is 'Use your words' a new thing?

Most people would say 'Ask'. Or 'use your tongue'.

It's what people say to whining, unreasonable toddlers these days and presumably that phrase was used because some posters feel OP is behaving like a whining, unreasonable toddler.

Did you ask him to swap seats and he said no?

😆

OP thinks in the hierarchy of who deserves a seat on the train, women younger than her are less of a priority compared to her

If I were her, I'd have been much more receptive if you'd approached me with a smile and said, "Excuse me, I'm so sorry but would you mind moving seats so my young daughter and I can sit together?" It's a little annoying that you've zeroed in on only me in a half-empty train carriage, and that you won't just find two seats across from each other and wait for two seats together to become available. However, I'd recognise your child is indeed young and social etiquette would make it harder for me to say no.

If you plonked your young child beside me without checking the seat was free or asking me to move, then proceeded to loom over me passive-aggressively with your expectant gaze boring into the side of my skull, I would think you were rude and entitled and wouldn't want to engage with you.

Also, if your daughter is now sitting in the aisle seat and you are standing in the aisle, the pair of you are essentially blocking me in. This places the onus on me to ask you to please move so that I can move for your benefit - when you haven't openly expressed that this is what you want me to do. And as PP have said, sometimes you put yourself out for a stranger, they turn out to be an ungrateful tool, and you're left feeling like the idiot for volunteering to inconvenience yourself.

You'll probably have more luck if you go to another stranger in a different carriage, turn on the charm and ask them directly.

Who said that adults were standing? You made that up. The OP clearly said that there were plenty of single state, just not two together.

Why does this woman have to move? I dont get it? Put your daughter in a seat next to a man and see if he offers to move?

And she probably hasn't even noticed if she's on the phone and turned away.

As long as the child was seated safely I wouldn't even bat an eyelid if a parent was then choosing to stand next to that seated child. If they asked me if I'd mind moving to an equivalent seat then I prob would but it wouldnt occur to me that it was necessary.

Can't you sit near your child in another single seat if it's bothering you standing?

The OP isn’t saying that the young person shouldn’t have a seat. She would like her to swap to another so she can sit down next to her child.

Exactly what I thought

Exactly.

I took it that the OP comes from the privileged position that "young" automatically means "fit, healthy and mobile" and is ignorant to the fact that young people can suffer from invisible disabilities, or just be a bit under the weather and not feel up to searching for a seat when they already have one.

Did you? OP said:

There’s loads of individual seats but none together so I’m stood next to my daughter who’s sat down next to another woman.

She’s clearly only standing because there aren’t two seats together.

The OP said SHE was standing!

Most normal decent people do!

No, I did not make that up.

Yes, because there weren’t two seats together. So she was standing next to her daughter. Come on, it’s not that difficult to understand. She would have liked the other person to move so that she could sit down. She wasn’t expecting anyone else to stand and no one else needed to because there were plenty of single seats. Just read the OP.

@Ooooooooy · Today 13:41

OP thinks in the hierarchy of who deserves a seat on the train, women younger than her are less of a priority compared to her

Yeah this. ^ The OP thinks she is more deserving of a seat because that other woman is younger ... (Apparently!)

And with a 5 year old I can't imagine the OP being hugely old either! I know in the parallel world of mumsnet, women have babies at 46, but in real life, most will have had their last child by 32-34. The OP is very likely only in her thirties!

There might have been 20 other seats, but the OP was still standing. I am not on the OP's side here, you just said no-one was standing, and there clearly was.

Or the woman could say 'no, sorry'.
Why should she take responsibility for OPs child?

You shouldn't single out one person but I do find it sad that not one person has offered, particularly as they aren't reserved seats. Disappointing to see that so many posters clearly wouldn't move either.

You can't always reserve seats on every train - and sometime you have to find reservation are't working or your train got cancelled.

I wouldn't be happy to leave 5 year old and sit elsewhere - my teens can be odd about sitting next to strangers at times.

There may be a reason she doesn't want to move - maybe she sat there so she can see her luggage or it's the first seat she grabbed in a long journey - but first step instead of getting upset is probably to ask.

Also I have on occasions manged two kids on lap at that age even on modern trains - though does depend on seat configuration.

No one else but the OP. You’re just trying to be clever. The OP’s post was quite clear. She couldn’t just move to one of the other seats because her daughter is five. That was why she was standing. Nothing to do with seats not being available, it was because there weren’t two together.

Shock horror !! Leave it dirty on the draining board with a note attached for him to wash it. Then take bets on how much mould will have grown on it before he does !!

Where does it say in OPs post that she was expecting others to stand so she could sit down?!