sitting in costa coffee

[IveGotToGoToMeDads]

Went to costa coffee ordered drinks, sandwiches & cake. Myself & partner said we will eat in rather than take away. Place was full most seats were taken apart from a four seater table where some woman was sat. I asked if the seats on her table were taken and she said we can not sit on her table as she is with her DS.
In the end a chinese couple offered their seats and we eventually got a seat.
AIBU expecting a seat on womans table for me and my partner as no one was sat in them?

Have you seen the tables in Costa? They are tiny.

Cheeky fucker? At what point does your need for an entire table to yourself trump someone else’s need for a single seat to enable them to sit down to drink their coffee?
If you’re gate keeping the only free seats in the house, then you’re the cheeky fucker, I’m afraid.

It is cheeky to ask about sitting down and when told no, to do so anyway.
I tell people they can not sit with me. In some cases, I am waiting for someone anyway, so I tell them that.
And from experience, people that have sat with me also want to talk to me... which I can not deal with at all. And having a stranger sat opposite me means I wont be able to eat (which even eating out in public is something I have had to build up to).
If a cafe is busy, and there is no where to sit, then I get a takeaway or go elsewhere. That is common sense to me.

Anyway, the tables in Costa are tiny and barely enough for one tray, let alone two.

People “ask” as a courtesy, they really don’t need your permission to sit in an unused seat; you do understand this?

If someone says they'd prefer not to share their table, then you ask someone else.

It doesn't always need to be the solitary woman who accommodates everyone else.

Try asking a solitary man next time. But you won't.

No, they don't. But it makes them a cheeker fucker if they then proceed to sit down. They should accept the no, and look elsewhere.
I am sure I get targeted as I look nervous and am a lone female.

If you are a lone woman on a bus with few passengers, do you feel comfortable with a man sitting next to you?

Wouldn't anyone?

The point is, would you flatly refuse to let another person sit the table if there wasn't one free for them?

You actually are. If you are at a table for 4, then it's 75% unoccupied.

Do you think your insistence to sit solo trumps 3 people's need to sit down?

Why do you go to such cafes if it's such a huge issue? Why not go somewhere with table service? It's much less likely that someone else will be seated with you?

@wigsonthegreenandhatsforthelifting I'd say no, personally. If I'm out myself it's for me time. I don't want to be bombarded by them.

If it's that busy I wouldn't dawdle, but I'd also not let them interrupt my peace.

Why insist on going to bloody Costa then? There's plenty of other options!

Yes why ever not???

However, if there's few passengers, it's staggeringly unlikely that you'd need to sit next to your theoretical man!

How is someone sitting across the table from you "bombarding" you?!

We went to a cafe and had 6 of us crowded round a small table. There were 2 big tables being guarded by a woman in her 50s so I assumed her family were about to come… nope, they were ice skating so didn’t show up the whole time and she reserved those tables presumably until they came off the ice, so for a whole hour where people could have come and gone. The entitlement was astounding.

@wigsonthegreenandhatsforthelifting because the tables are small and I don't want to be surrounded by people chatting.

And they don't want to have to stand.

Why are you more important??

Plus you're in a cafe. You are literally surrounded by people chatting!

@wigsonthegreenandhatsforthelifting they don't have to do drink in.

Like I said, I'll move as quickly as I can. But I also matter.

You don’t have to drink in either, if you think you need a entire table to yourself!
You are literally incapable of seeing any viewpoint other than your own.

@SilverChampagne but you want me to fit into the view you have?

I go to Costa because the staff have got to know me, and I feel safe there. I have never had an issue there with people trying to sit with me, although I have in other places.

I am not sure how my sitting alone at a larger table is costing the cafe money. People tend to sit elsewhere, or pull up chairs from empty tables if a larger table is not free. There is a group of 6 lads that frequent where I go, and they take chairs from other tables.

That you can’t colonise an entire cafe table for one person because you don’t want to sit beside anyone else?
It’s a perfectly reasonable point of view.

Neither do you and it doesn't matter how quickly you go, you are still occupying a table that others could share with you.

Everyone else matters just as much as you do.

They probably wouldn't dare!

A PP said that they go with their anxious teen to cafes, and their teen tends to open a bit about what is bothering them. A stranger asking to sit with them, then refusing a no, is going to set that teen back so much. It changes the dynamic. I have had a man sit with me and a friend, and he said he would not talk. She wanted to talk about her struggles. Instead, we sat there in stony silence.
But yet anyone who struggles with social anxiety/ED/MH/ND is pretty much told to either suck it up or stay at home.

If I go in a cafe, and see someone sat a table, that table is off limits to me. It is taken.

I don't know what you mean.

If there were only a few passengers on a bus, presumably there would be lots of empty seats, so yes, I personally would feel uncomfortable if a man chose to sit next to me rather than sit where there was plenty of space.