Should we always be kind?

[Goatinthegarden]

I got on a bus home today. I hardly ever take the bus, but I have an injured knee and had a massive backpack with me.

The bus was busy, people were standing downstairs, I went upstairs and there was one seat, right at the front, next to a woman. She was sat on her seat and a portion of the seat next to her. She had a backpack and a small canvas shopping bag on the seat too. She had huge headphones on, so I leant forward and asked politely if I could sit in the seat.

She made huge sighs, but moved the bags aggressively, she muttered ‘fuck sake’ a couple of times. I sat gingerly on the edge of the seat she had freed up, with my massive bag on my knee and tried to think charitable thoughts. Maybe she’s had some terrible news, maybe she has social challenges and can’t cope with someone next to her, maybe she has a medical condition that causes her pain if she moves. Then I thought, maybe I should just stand, I have a sore knee, but it’s not unmanageable - I could stand.

She continued to huff and mutter. The more she did so, the more my charitable thoughts faded and the more I considered confronting her. I’m no shrinking violet, but I bit my tongue because I’d hate to be unkind to someone. But FFS, she was being really unpleasant to me!

So, should we always be kind and tolerant or other people’s needs, or should we call out bad behaviour? What would you have done?

Fuck that shit!

you clambered upstairs with an injured leg - who was occupying the priority seats downstairs?

I really can't say how I'd react. It would depend on how likely I'd judged her to kick off.

I don't think there's a right way to tackle it, within reason. I'd quickly run out of steam taking every stranger who irritates me to task, especially in an enclosed environment like public transport. Probably not worth the bother in a lot of cases. I've been in a lot worse in a moshpit!

In this situation I would have allowed myself an obvious and bemused like laugh at the huffing. Some people are just dicks. It was ever thus. Don’t give it headspace op.

Well, it’s a just a sports injury, so I can walk and stand. I didn’t feel it was bad enough to take up a priority seat, I just really wanted the seat her bag was on. Normally I’d have not bothered asking - I’d have just gone back down to stand. Maybe I am a pushover.

Lots of varied answers, thanks. I don’t normally give headspace to things like this, but as I sat listening to her huff away, I just really curious as to how others would have reacted.

I'd just laugh everytime she cuss. Nothing annoys them more than a laugh. And no I wouldn't be 'kind' to this dickhead.

It depends on my mood tbh.
Im always kind but i think like everyone else when pushed we fight back.

Well I'm chuckling away at the varied responses 😆 I've had a crap week and it's cheered me up reading this! So thank you 😊
As for the OP, you reacted a lot more classier than I would have done, so brava to you! 👏

Even entitled nobheads with/without surplus bags ride buses! 😆 🤣 😂

This is why I thank my lucky stars that I'm fortunate to have a car, amd I haven't reached peri menopause yet! 🙌 😆 🙏

I'd have just carried on minding my business. And given her a thank you when I got up and off. She was being rude, for whatever her reasons were. No need to act like that though. It's a bus, it's public transport. Sharing seats happens. If she does have issues about space, socialising etc then it would have thus been a positive interaction not something paying into her fears. If she was just being rude (seems most likely) then it's enough not to sink to her level. Courtesy is easy.

You should have ensured that you took the whole seat up. I got on a train recently and asked a lady to move her bags. She wasn't impressed either, and her husband even asked if she was OK. I'm a large girl, but I didn't squash her or anything. Anyway, as they got off the train, I could see she was pregnant and thought maybe I shouldn't have asked for the seat her bags were on. But then, she did have a seat, and it was only her bags she had to move, so being pregnant didn't actually affect the situation, so I didn't feel bad.

Taking the obvious route to "be kind" can involve being indirectly unkind to someone else.
in your case, being kind to her and letting her keep her bags on the seat was being unkind to you and making you stand.

I was told we had to "be kind" and give the benefit of the doubt to people who were bullying me. Because "they probably didn't mean it that way". That wasn't kind on me or the other people who were also being bullied.

not a big fan of "be kind".

I wouldn’t have said anything, because I can’t be arsed most of the time. Nothing to do with being nice , or kind , or hating confrontation. As long as I get what I want/need - in this case a seat, on which I would’ve sat on properly-, it doesn’t matter if the other person is mumbling or moaning about it. That’s their problem and I’m not making it mine. I’ve got enough of my own.

There's a difference between "kind" and "doormat."

You can be assertive and kind.

Oh come on! It doesn’t give anyone a reason to take it out on someone else. So many people have things going on in their lives and they don’t take up two seats on a bus and have a strop because someone else wants to sit down.

I always feel sorry for people like her bc they must have such miserable lives to behave like this.

I can't imagine being like that bc I am very happy in my life.

Hopefully they will die soon as they are so bitter and twisted.

1st off Did she pay for 2 seats. Probably not. Then she has no rights to 2 seats

Nah, I don’t do that. Whatever is going on in your life that allows you to mutter FFS and huff and puff?!

I also think you were right not to do/say anything because these days you just don't know how volatile people are and what you can end up getting into.

I was violently pushed by someone for politely speaking up about something last year. She ran off before I could call the police - I count it as assault. I was so shaken and these days I just ignore/walk away from the nutters. Unless I need to inform the authorities, of course.

OH, I had the most annoying interaction over a bag on a train once! Must be 25 years ago, but it was so so irritating that I've never forgotten it!

I was sitting on a train seat at rush hour, in a window seat, commuting down to the coast from London at evening rush hour. I was just minding my own business, my bag on the shelf above. There was a large bag, like a carpet bag, on the seat next to me; clearly someone was saving that seat. I was looking out of the window and taking no notice of the bag.

This foreign man suddenly pipes up, saying something to me in such heavily accented English that I couldn't understand a word he said. But he was clearly being rude to me. I kept catching the phrase "Tye red." I kept looking at him really puzzled and he kept jerking his head down and repeating his gibberish, and so my gaze kept following his down to the floor and back up again, where he would repeat whatever he was saying, including "Tye red." I was utterly confused. Eventually, after about five times, I came to understand that he was saying, "Is your bag tired?" SO rude! He just assumed it was mine and decided to have a go at me about it! I wish I could remember how it ended. I hope I said, once I understood, "IT'S NOT MY BAG!" I'll never forget how rude, aggressive, and uncalled-for it was.

So be careful about assuming that a bag belongs to the person sitting next to it and being all clever!

Edit: I think what happened is that the bag owner came back and I never said anything or received an apology. I was just glad that the aggressive gibberish-talker had shut up and gone away! I mean, honestly! He said it over and over again and I was as puzzled as a drunk monkey - did he not see that I hadn't a clue what he meant!!!

Not saying it's acceptable at all but if I'm being really honest, I've said FFS under my breath before now. Not my proudest moments :

Example.
Taking DD to her first weigh in appointment. Still had stitches in. 30 minute walk back. Baby crying in pushchair, I'm bleeding. Jolly man hands me a leaflet about a nursery, I gave him daggers and said "I don't want a fucking leaflet". I've never been so ashamed. I regretted it the moment the words left my lips. I was a bag of hormones, so stressed (never felt stress like it - hearing a newborn cry like that for the first time!). Contemplated going back to apologise once I'd got home and baby settled but knew he wouldn't be there.

2 - in Sainsburys. Waited 10 mins at the checkout for someone to come and help because 1. Avocados didn't have a barcode, 2. Needed an id check, broccoli barcode ripped, couldn't get round the shop because they had about a hundred crates as they were restocking shelves. Till assistant was a kid who didn't know what she was doing had to wait for a second member of staff. I had my one year old with me. When I thought noone could hear me I am sure I muttered 'this is getting fucking ridiculous now'. Made sure to say thank you and have a nice day to the girl who was struggling with the till.

My point. It happens. If you've never huffed at something in your life, you must be a saint. If I have done so in one occasion, Im not going to judge someone too harshly for doing the same.

Yes the person in the OPs post was being a dick. In the examples I described above I was being a dick. Sometimes people have a bad day. You are correct, you don't have the right to huff and puff at someone. But it does happen. Maybe she was sorry, maybe she wasn't. Id prefer to think the best of someone and just let it go. We are all human.