Increasingly hate sitting next to people

[Woollypullover]

and I don't know why.

Is anyone else like this? I'm BU and should be comfortable sitting next to people, shouldn't I? I never used to be like this.

This coming week, I wish I could avoid a trip to the theatre and lunch with a group in a restaurant because I don't want to sit next to anyone.

I even make excuses and turn up late, so I can sit on the end.

I'm BU aren't I?

The circle seats at the Lyceum theatre in Sheffield have such a short pitch that I can't get my legs to fit and have to sit slightly sideways.

I'm not exceptionally tall at 5'7" either.

Our local cinema has plenty of legroom though.

What’s changed? People used to have manners, consideration and knew how to behave in public. Now so many smell or have other irritating personal habits, or be noisy with their phones or gadgets, or be drinking or eating noisily or smelly food, or coughing and sneezing making no attempt to use a tissue or handkerchief, or spread out with no respect to your personal space, or try to engage you with inane chat and incapable of reading the signals you’re not interested.

It's normal to choose a seat away from strangers, on a train say, or in a waiting room. But no, it doesn't bother me to have to sit next to someone in public. I don't give it any thought in advance. In a theatre, for example, I'd assume I had to sit next to a stranger if I was with only one companion. My sense of smell isn't what it once was though......

TammyBundleballs · Today 07:49

FatsiaJaponicaInTheGarden · Today 07:40
Ha yes I'm similar and will always buy an "end" at the cinema or theatre but I'm okay sitting next to my kids/husband.
I suspect this isn't that normal tbh and squeezed towards those of us that are ND /anxious/very introvert who might also be more likely to be posting on mumsnet... And on this thread...
I don’t think it’s anything to do with being ND.
I attend a lot of sporting events and in every single case the aisle seats are the always the ones sold first.
There was recently a satisfaction survey carried out by airlines looking at a range of factors including price, seat pitch, on board entertainment, food etc and they found out that the biggest single factor that impacted customer satisfaction was whether the adjacent seat was empty or not. If it was empty then people invariably scored their experience highly regardless of all other factors.

100% this.

Finding other people gross is really weird. There are a lot of strange people on here from people who don't answer their phone, compulsively clean their home, hide behind the sofa if an unexpected visitor calls and now sitting next to a stranger FFS.

It is abnormal to isolate one’s self. Little wonder that the mental health of young people is through the floor if parents won’t ride with their kids on a double decker bus or take them to group social events such as cinema or theatre.

Neurodiversity is not an excuse - I am neurodiverse and I find it hard but you have to get on with it, and if you can’t, maybe you shouldn’t have had children in the first place. And if it’s your mental health, sort it out.

I was looking at the MPs on the front benches in The House of Commons the other day, they sit so close together that both sides of their bodies are not just touching, but squeezed together. I wouldn't like that, but trains, planes, buses cinema etc..doesn't bother me, ( unless they're eating something noisily).

and they found out that the biggest single factor that impacted customer satisfaction was whether the adjacent seat was empty or not.

I'm surprised it wasn't legroom TBH. We always pay for extra legroom seats these days, but there aren't that many on a shorthaul flight.

I totally am like this. It's a follow-on from the pandemic for me. I'm aware it is but can't shift it.

Also the increasing number of people who are overweight or obese, so take up a lot of room.

When I go to the cinema I choose an end seat intentionally, or if the one with individual sofa style seats one of those.

40 UKs could fit in the US.

California is bigger than the UK.

Lss Vegas can have giant complexes because it's in a desert, with fuck all squared for miles. Its' hotels were also built generally no earlier than the 1950s and are redeveloped all the time.
The RAH was built in Victorian London, the then most populated city on the planet.

Maybe move to the US, if that's what's a priority.
(But just try not to get randomly shot due to the gun control situation).

Isn’t that because the RAH and many UK theatres were built when the average person was smaller?

Yep.

They're historical buildings.

I think the pandemic has had a lot to do with it. I'm autistic and have never liked sitting very close to people, even as a child. I dislike unexpected touch. Social distancing was great (although lots of other things about that time were not) but that has meant for many people it was harder to go back to being packed in like sardines in places.

I'm actually on a train right now and people SMELL. Like BO, sweaty, wet dog kind of smell. It's vile.

If we're going to talk about previous generations, let's think about all the overstimulating things they DIDN'T have to put up with. All the things my late Nanny used to moan about "not in my day"! The population is bigger, for a start. There's just more of us. Everywhere.

People eat CONSTANTLY. Everyone on this goddamn train seems to be eating something. Packets rattling, competing smells everywhere. Snacking was not part of the culture until probably the 1970s. My Polish grandparents especially considered it unforgivably rude to eat on public transport and people don't do it there now unless they're tourists. Nowadays, people are constantly stuffing their faces, because they can. Which also means that people are bigger, and the size of seats hasn't kept up with the size of people. It's not in companies' interests to make seats larger, so you get "spilled on" if someone much bigger does sit next to you. Severe obesity was extremely rare back then.

People wouldn't have drunk alcohol on public transport or got very drunk in restaurants, cinemas, etc - again, would have been considered rude/unacceptable and they'd have got chucked out. But you get groups of loud, lairy, drunk people (men in particular) in all kinds of places now, they're no longer confined to the pub or social club.

Previous generations didn't have smartphones. People play their music, videos, phone calls on loudspeaker all the time, which I think is rude and intrusive. I don't go to the cinema any more because people don't turn their damn phones off, screens are lighting up the whole time, and they're sat there chomping the whole way through the film. Just on this train journey there are at least three people in one carriage doing it. The competing, clashing noises - ugh. Even NC headphones don't totally block it.

A young man on the Tube the other day was so absorbed in scrolling he didn't notice an older lady with a walking stick had got on. He had to be told by another passenger that she needed the priority seat he was sat in, and he looked absolutely outraged at the interruption to his scrolling. More so than having to give up his seat. He didn't acknowledge the older lady at all, got up with his head still buried in his phone.

Shops and restaurants now play loud music, punctuated by lots of different announcements, which they didn't do in my grandparents' day.

Everyone is chronically overstimulated, and at the same time chronically bored, hence why we can't cope without a screen, a snack, etc.

My grandparents' generation had to deal with a tiny fraction of the inputsvand cognitive load we now do in modern society. It's simply not comparable and I would argue many of the behaviours people display now are not "normal" and many people have lost all sense of consideration for those around them. And because of some of those behaviours, and the level of environmental stimulation we are all subject to, we have probably become less tolerant of the normal ones.

YANBU OP I feel the same. It’s all the noise they make especially the bodily noises. The smells too 🤢
It’s not a fear for me as such more of an extreme dislike and annoyance.
Similarly, I don’t like visiting other peoples homes. I just feel uncomfortable and over-stimulated by being there in someone else’s very personal space and so I avoid it whenever possible.

@CrazyGoatLady

Very well put, especially the stimulation. On trains in particular, there’s never ending announcements, particularly bad where there are many stops as they’re constantly announcing a long list of stations, in between general safety announcements etc. Then when there’s an actual important announcement by the guard, it’s usually garbled and quiet and only said once so easy to miss yet far more important than all the other announcements you’ve heard several times.

And people are so loud. Whether talking to travel companions, or on the phone, they can’t talk quietly, it’s all shouting, laughing, at full volume. Just no consideration at all- it’s all me me me.

That's why a lot of people put their bags on the seat next to them on the train and then look outraged if you ask to sit there. I don't ask people to move their bags unless there are no other seats. I pay £6200 a year for the train and so have learned to put up with most things. I put my loops in and crochet or write or daydream that I am somewhere else. On occasions I chat, usually to older people who want to engage and are day trippers or tourists. Commuters never chat unless they are travelling together. It's not my favourite thing but I put up with it as a necessity.

I agree @CrazyGoatLady but I don't come across the number of smelly people that so many mumsnetters do.

It's the 21st century. We have more access to washing, washing clothes, deodorants etc, so I don't understand the increasing numbers of the great unwashed talked about on here.

To be fair I don't use public transport to commute and tend to use the train for longer distances or for leisure purposes only.

There have been cities for as long as there has been civilisation.

I’ve been reminded of a short story by the dystopian writer J G Ballard called The Intensive Care Unit, about a future where physical contact has become taboo and everything is done online, remotely or via VR. An article about it here. Sometimes I feel we are already halfway there!

interestingliterature.com/2023/04/jg-ballard-intensive-care-unit-summary-analysis/#:~:text='The%20Intensive%20Care%20Unit'%20is,story%20in%20the%20late%201970s).

I'm the same. Whenever I sit on a bus with an empty seat next to me,I spend the entire journey hoping no one sits next to me. With good reason,I might add. Inevitably they start elbowing me,looking interminably for something in their pocket. Or watching something on their phone with the volume on full. Or having a conversation on their phone with it on speaker mode. Or they keep sniffing, coughing,constantly clearing their throat, breathing too loudly,humming,chewing gum with their mouth open,or start eating a bag of smelly crisps. Or it's a man who insists on man-spreading. Christ almighty,I find the human race so fucking annoying sometimes.

Maybe the people haters should learn to drive then?

I thought that we had reached the peak of MN misanthropy, but apparently not.

I think CrazyGoatLady has summed it up perfectly.

Completely agree with this. Spent a flight recently sitting next to someone who spent the whole 2.5 hours sniffing and sneezing, wiping her nose on her sleeve (I did give tissues), and giggling to herself looking at hundreds of photos of her selfies.

People have also become much more aggressive/entitled over the last few years, especially since Covid e.g someone got attacked for asking another passenger to move their bag off a tube seat in London recently.

Ah,I wondered how long it would be before a comment like this appeared! What is this Mumsnet obsession with driving?!