Why do some people not give others space???

[CertaintyofCake]

I just fine some peoples behaviour so baffling at times. I was on the tube in London the other day. I live at the very start/end of a line and if it’s not rush hour it’s very quiet normally when I get on. I walked about half way up the platform and got on. Pretty much every carriage I walked past was totally empty. It was still 5 mins until it was due to depart. My chosen carriage was also totally empty. It’s a central line train so has three “sections” of seats. I sat in the middle of one section at one end of the carriage. A couple of minutes later a large group got on my carriage at the other end to where I’m sitting. About 12 of them in total both men and women. Very loud and chatting and laughing. They proceeded to walk the length of the carriage towards me and all sit around me in the seat section I’m in!! Two people directly next to me on each side and right opposite. So they completely walked through an identical section of totally empty seats to crowd around me. Why??? I stood up and moved carriages in which they responded by asking what my problem was and all laughed hysterically.

Why do people do this?? I don’t care that they were all loud and shouting at each other. I’m a Londoner I’m used to it. I’m also used to being crowded on the tube. But why on a pretty much empty train in an almost empty carriage would you actively walk towards someone by themselves to sit immediately next to them/ around them shouting at each other?? Why go out of your way to make someone feel weird/uncomfortable/irritated when there’s other identical seats etc! I honestly find this sort of thing really odd.

Sorry. Rant over.

Well I'm not a normal human then 🤣. I prefer solitude when it's available on public transport and will seek somewhere as empty as possible to sit (unless it's very late at night when I will make sure others are around).

The car park thing irritates me too. Go and park in one of the other 100 empty spaces FFS!

My theory is that when people are in groups their IQ level drops a point or two for each member of the group. The more people the less sensibly they behave.

I was on the top deck of a bus once. Totally empty, other than me. I was sitting about half way down the bus. Two women got on and one sat next to me, with the other on the seat across the aisle.

I’m glad to see the responses here. This is my biggest bugbear when using public transport. I’ve already had to buy a set of air pods so that I have plausible deniability for when they start their tedious “chat” overtures.

They are the type of people that just HAVE to let people around them know how much fun they are having! Well can't be that much fun if you notice that someone has moved and also feel the need to comment on it. Pathetic.

I think as well as the herding instinct / safety in numbers thing, there's probably the belief that people pick the best things when given first choice. So if there's one person in a whole area they've clearly chose that specific spot because its the 'best', therefore that's where you need to be too and if you can take their spot, even better.

Not consciously

I'm just doing some armchair psychology of course.

I was at the cinema last year and booked in advance and there was no one else booked in that row. I tuned up and someone was sat in the seat next to mine. There was a grand total of one other person in the cinema so plenty of seats to choose from

They were trying to start shit with you.

Bugs the hell out of me too. I call it "empty beach" syndrome and it happens to me/my family a lot (usually in a otherwise empty café, restaurant etc.) I am completely baffled as to why anyone would eschew having space around them to choose sitting right next to complete strangers! Sheeple!

@Daffodilsarefadingits not a Mini is it? There used to be a list of “Mini Rules of the Road” and rule 1 was always “park next to another Mini”. Mini enthusiasts tend to still do this one and it makes me smile. If it’s another brand they’re maybe going for the same thing

Claudia Winkleman told a "truth" on Would I Lie to You that involved her driving into the only other car in a car park. When asked why she was parking right next to the only other car, she couldn't really explain. She did say si the car wouldn't be lonely or something but I assume that was a joke.

I remember when I got a brand new car and parked at the back of a superstore car park where there were hardly any cars. Straight away the car behind me pulled in right next to mine even though there were loads of empty spaces on either side.
This happened often and it was so frustrating. It is much easier to get out of a car when you do not park right up next to someone else.
I really do not understand it at all.

Same here.
I used to have a reactive dog, so I'd park far away as I could from anyone, but even if I was away from the car for 2mons, someone would be parked next to it when I got back.

This was in the days when it was still acceptable to leave your own dog safely in your own car.

The reason is because people have become more and more gormless, thoughtless and insular. We live in a very safe world where the need to keep vigilant for danger has been eroded so there are no consequences for being too lazy to think, or gawping a a screen whilst other people have to take evasive action to avoid a collision. The increasingly remote nature of human contact through digital means compared with F2F has amplified this, the remote communication results in disconnection from others and a reduction in empathy, so here we are now with a significant subset of the general public thoughtlessly blundering their way along whilst imposing inconvenience onto others with no comeback. The only way to reverse this trend is to start imposing internalised consequences, but sticking your fist out at nose height so that a gormless smart-phone-dumb-user walks right into it would likely be frowned upon if not dangerous.

I saw this happening on the London tube when I lived there. Women would sit in a section of a carriage perhaps near other women, for safety.

I hate having people walking right behind me, so if this happens I move to the other side of the pavement so they aren’t right behind me, or can get past me if that was what they wanted. A surprisingly large number of times they follow you, like sheep. I once got very annoyed after moving from side to side several times without shaking someone off, and stopped dead. The woman behind me almost cannoned into me. I turned round and looked at her and she said in a wounded tone, “it’s all right you can walk on” !! I said, “I don’t want you walking right behind me, thanks” and she was a combination of offended and also realising she had been behaving really oddly without being conscious of it.

PS don’t get me started on campsites. My parents took us camping all over Europe when we were kids, and my dad would always choose a pitch as far as possible from anybody else. He’d always say grimly, when we come back tonight someone will have pitched their tent so close the guy ropes are crossing, and 9/10 times he was right!