To have asked him to choose a different sandwich

[Medsy]

Don't know if it's because it's Easter or what but my local co-ops sandwich section was totally barren, only meat sandwiches left (I'm vegetarian). I saw a man go for the last cheese one there was, so I asked him if he was vegetarian and if not, would he mind if I had it? A woman (wife?) appeared and went batshit at me and called me rude.
It made me quite pissed off actually. I wouldn't have a problem with say a gluten free person asking me if they could have the last gluten free sandwich.
WIBU?

I'd have voted remain, and I still wouldn't give you the sandwich I chose.

I'd say the sort if person who thinks they have a right to know if someone is as worthy as they are of a sandwich is just the type who voted for Brexit tbh

Society functions far better if we adhere to the unwritten social rules and niceties. Most people learn those as they get older and develop emotional intelligence; for example forming a civilised queue without being asked.

One of those is not walking up to people in supermarkets and asking politely if you can have an item from their basket.

Our local Tescos often runs out of stock. It’d be chaos if all the shoppers thought they were entitled to approach the shopper who’d grabbed the last pack of toilet rolls (or whatever) just because they have “greater need” 🤨

If you want polite “innocuous” conversations with fellow shoppers then crack on- make some cheerful small talk in the queue or something .

I genuinely cannot fathom what any of the above has to do with Brexit. The Brexiteers voted to leave the EU, it wasn’t a vote against joining the EU in the first place!

You still haven’t told us what you wished him luck with.

I have many conversations in supermarkets, in queues, in shops on trains etc. None of them have made me feel entitled to ask them personal questions or for something they'd already selected.

If they've taken the thing I fancied then for me it's tough shit. It doesn't make me afraid of strangers or whatever.

We also have and use the phrase "shy bairns get no sweeties" but it's not intended to mean that you can break the norms of society.

What? 😂😂😂😂😂

This is really reaching!

You were rude but the wife shouldn't have gone off on you. Get over it.

Good grief. What's going on in this thread?

OP - I wouldn't have had your confidence to ask but if someone asked me (I'm not veggie) I wouldn't have minded at all & neither me nor my DH would have leapt to one another's defence because we're not psychotic

There are a lot of Absolutely batshit replies on this thread. It's like posters are in a competition to reply with the nastiest most frothing reply possible.

OP, I think I might have said something aloud like "oh darn, are there no more vegetarian sandwiches" and hoped he might offer to switch but I don't think I'd have directly asked. I don't think asking is anything like as outrageous as lots of posters are suggesting though.

I wouldn't have minded if you had asked me but I would have felt a little awkward if there wasn't another type of sandwich I'd wanted.

The cheek that you even asked him.

OP, you were in a supermarket. A ready made cheese sandwich was not your only option, even if you were getting on a train - there is so much food you could choose from! You were incredibly rude and entitled to ask this.

Why is OP entitled to ask for someone else's sandwich - nobody has answered that yet?

He's picked it up because he wants it, for whatever reason, and he got there first.

It's incredibly rude to then make him feel pressured into giving it up - especially when you're in a bloody supermarket surrounded by numerous other food options!!

It's not like OP would not be able to eat if she didn't get that cheese sandwich. She was in a shop full of food.

It is rude to lead with a gatekeeping question that implies you are more worthy of it.

I think this is the nub of it. OP sees herself as more morally deserving, no matter what the man's circumstances may have been. And that kind of assumed superiority complex pisses folk off. Including me.

Veggie is a choice, nothing like being coeliac which is a medical condition.

Why is the op more entitled than the sandwich 'stealer'

No i don't think the sandwich was stolen but I am not insane

. So philosophically, you're equally complicit if you get him to buy it.

Excellent point. You animal murderer OP!!

Yes and tbh, even if he only wants it because he prefers cheese, that's fine as well - he got there first.

It would be different if it was a shop in the middle of nowhere that only sold sandwiches and OP would otherwise be forced to eat meat or go hungry. Then it would of course be OK to ask. But in this circumstance, in a supermarket, there are so many other options!

OP’s replies are more batshit than the people responding to her. First that nonsense where she seemed to claim that others thought she was a monster now the bs about Brexit.

Also Sandwich Man’s wife was hardly “psychotic”. It appears that all she did was say that OP was rude. Now my standards for what qualifies as batshit may be too high but I really don’t think that counts as going batshit as the OP originally claimed that she did.

I don't know on what planet anyone in a supermarket would think they are more entitled to the sandwich than the person who already picked it up. Why does he have to discuss his dietary requirements with you?

because the alternative was for you to go hungry

Eh?

She was in a shop which would have had other veggie things she could eat. She just felt entitled to the sandwich.

Quite. More entitled than the person who already had it. Which shows a staggering arrogance.

A shop in the middle of nowhere, with giving a vegetarian my cheese sandwich, I'd be forced to choose between eating processed meat that I think is unhealthy and that I'm medically advised not to eat by a medical specialist, or eating nothing in this situation. And I don't owe OP that explanation. This is also why I'd carry my own food with me, because it's rare I find something like that I can eat.

Of course there's just the small detail that cheese isn't vegetarian anyway 😂

Sure. And I don't think either of these dietary restrictions is more or less valid than the other. But I think in that situation, if you were in the middle of nowhere and it's the only option, it's OK to ask.

In the supermarket I don't think it's OK to ask, because there are hundreds of options available which aren't ready made sandwiches.

why wouldn't they be?