Ryanair seat belts & mean passenger

[Lacacahuete]

It’s sad to see so many people worrying about seat belt sizes, some almost to the point of cancelling their holiday.

I’m 176cm tall and since my early thirties I’ve fluctuated between a UK size 16-20 due to various reasons. At any of those sizes, I’ve never needed an extender when flying.

Today I flew on Ryanair and I was sat in the very last row window seat.
As I got to my row, there was a woman in my seat, I guess waiting to see if anyone would take it. I asked if I could have my seat and she got out. I got in and fastened my belt and noticed it was the tightest I’ve ever felt a Ryanair belt. I have never needed an extender and only a few months prior I’d travelled on Ryanair and had four inches spare on my belt.

This time my belly was sort of cut in half, but I was so tired I just put up with it and sank into my seat.
The woman next to me kept looking over at me. I wasn’t spilling over onto her, nor was I using the armrest but she seemed so irritated with me and my body.
I ignored her, but then later in the flight caught her looking again. I had my headphones in but nothing playing and she started saying stuff like ‘look at that, I can’t imagine being like THAT’ to her boyfriend next to her on the aisle seat. She actually pointed at my belly. Then when I looked at her she stopped but wouldn’t make eye contact. She wanted me to feel bad and I wondered if it was all because I asked her to move out of my seat?!
After that she seemed to spread out more and put her elbows over both armrests, and stuck her book and bottle down the side of the seat so they pushed onto me on my side.
She obviously has her own insecurities.
As I was tired and unwell I chose not to engage, but a few more times she was looking me up and down.

It was such pathetic, awful behaviour from a grown woman of at least 35. I felt so upset, I was trying to not sleep so I could make sure my legs and body were not near her, crushing myself up into the corner as much as possible.
After we landed I took my belt off and had a really bad muscle pain.

I feel sad this I let this dumb idiot bother me when I wasn’t even in her space.
I’m posting here because I want others to not feel shame in asking for an extender, and also to ask slimmer travellers to think before they make comments or looks at people.

Who knows what a strangers body has been or is going through. I want to lose weight and am active, but operations I’ve had make it harder.

I’m probably being overly sensitive but i also deserve peace and space. I hope that anyone reading this in a bigger body can stand up for themselves better than I did.

Also, WTF Ryanair!

What a vile woman. Reading this makes me feel so upset, OP. I’m so sorry you had to go through this and hope it never happens to you again.

I’m sorry, I would have walked up the isle and told a member of the crew. They would have moved you to somewhere nicer.

edited to say I’m sorry this happened to you, not to criticise

Thanks for the message I really appreciate it. Yeh my partner was glad he wasn’t there as he doesn’t mince his words 😆

I'm not sure what the "WTF Ryanair" bit means, if you're referring to the fact that the seat belt was shorter this time: Ryanair operates several generations of plane (including a few Airbuses under the Lauda brand, as well as the usual Boeings) and the belts are not all the same. They might even vary from one delivery of a particular plane model to another. I fly with them a lot and I have different amounts of belt left hanging on each flight.

As for the other passenger, I'm guessing that she and her partner hoped to score a 3-for-2 row and were disappointed when you showed up. She then proceeded to be awful about it. Not much you can do — encountering an arsehole is one of life's hazards.

She obviously has her own insecurities.
A wise therapist once told me, "Once you realise that people relate to others the way they relate to themselves, you stop worrying if someone is being horrible to you".

Your last paragraph is interesting. What is meant by “people relate to others as they relate to themselves”?

I think it means if they are judgmental towards others they are judgmental about themselves as well. They don’t like themselves.

Gosh OP, this is really horrible. What a shame a fellow passenger didn’t catch on to what she was saying and doing and complain on your behalf. She sounds truly poisonous and yes, you just have to pity people like her.

Solidarity, OP. I've had similar treatment on a plane too by another passenger. It's shit.

I’m really sorry this happened to you - how vile some people are. A flight is arguably the worst time to get saddled with someone like this.

Thanks everyone. I’ve never used an extender before I didn’t even think about it.
As the passenger was rude with me from the outset I felt ashamed to ask for an extender. I hope that people who ask for this regularly are treated well by fellow passengers.
I read that if seat belts get frayed, they often chop them down rather than replace, so maybe that’s what happened.. 🕵️‍♀️ The plane I was on looked pretty old and faded too.

I know this will sound stalky but I saw what I thought was the passenger’s name when she was doing something on her phone.
I looked her up and immediately saw she is a nurse. I hope she respects her patients more than she respected me.
Of course I’ll never ever contact her, I hate confrontation which is why I didn’t say anything on the plane, but yeh. I guess I was curious but I’m going to let it go as ‘encountering an arsehole’

She doesn’t sound pleasant. I mean realistically none of us want a fat person next to us in the seat. I had one once on the way to New York and he took over part of my seat. She had no reason to say anything to you though. You were on your side not hers don’t let it get to you .

I also wanted to add - my left lower belly still hurts from the belt. I’m getting twinges and not due or ovulating.This pain is on me because I let that woman’s arseholey-ness dictate my comfort and I won’t do that again!
I’ve had a huge intramural fibroid removed on the left side, and have endo/scar tissue/fluid filled tubes that I am currently awaiting treatment for. To squish all of that up really hurt. Now I’m thinking about it, I’m equally annoyed with myself!

I hear you and I’m sure I would have felt the same way years ago. As the average UK size is 16 (is that still current??) being 18-20 now after my ops, I wouldn’t have thought I was going to encounter any problems, but I guess it’s going to be hit and miss until I can lose weight. I hold more on my middle but am very average everywhere else.

@Lacacahuete well I for one would rather sit next to a “fat” person as the poster so charmingly put it that many other people on an aeroplane, particularly the loud and obnoxious ones.

You are overthinking it. There was a person beside you who was absolutely pissed that she couldn’t have YOUR window seat. Likely also pissed that there was no spare seat between her and her partner for them to put their stuff on and have more room. Of course it is completely unreasonable for her to be pissed about this.

She then took her (stupid) frustration out on you and found something to ‘pick on’. It just so happened to be your weight/stomach. You could have been the slimiest person on earth and she would have found something, probably making bitchy comments about a stray hair supposedly getting on her and then carrying on the whole way to her partner about your awful hair. Or, the texture of your top that brushed against her and the whole ‘who wears that in a plane with other people, got look at her clothes, gets dressed in the dark, can you imagine looking like that’ etc.

Essentially, this was all about her having g a hissy fit and being a bitch because of the seat, yet somehow you have, in your head, made it all about you, a seatbelt, and an extender??? There are two things at play here, her bad behaviour as she seems a bitch in general, and you being sensitive and somehow making her bad behaviour about yourself.

A wise therapist once told me, "Once you realise that people relate to others the way they relate to themselves, you stop worrying if someone is being horrible to you".

This is true.
Also applies to you Op. You come across as a bit victimey. You feel powerless about being fat and therefore this woman’s behaviour has got to you.

Next time you overhear someone commenting on your tummy you should remember they know nothing about you, tell them a lie about your ovarian cancer. Rude fuckers.

Aside from her nastiness, which was unacceptable, I thought it was an unspoken rule that the person in the middle has dibs on both armrests.

I think your reaction was completely understandable. I’m fat and it completely changes the way you think about yourself and the way people think about you. This absolutely would have been my experience too. I try my hardest to shrink myself so I don’t take up as much room and I’m highly tuned to just how much room I do take up. There’s no way I’d have got an extender while that woman was so brazenly judging me.

I cannot believe she said those things about you while you were sat right next to her! This is nothing to do with her being pissed off about someone taking the seat she wanted, this has everything to do with her being a massive bitch. If you’re sat in a seat that you weren’t assigned and someone comes along and wants their seat, the correct response is “oh yeah haha, sorry! Was just hoping no one would sit there so we could spread out!”, not slagging you off and making personal comments right to the back of your head. That’s absolutely revolting behaviour, and coming from a nurse?? 100% she slags her patients off like that too, I know plenty of nurses who judge their patients like this.

Just try to think, these comments say more about her than they do about you. I find people like this have so much hate that it twists and rots from the inside out and makes them so bitter. It’s sad.

This is nothing to do with her being pissed off about someone taking the seat she wanted, this has everything to do with her being a massive bitch

Well, yes, but she was also pissed. For no genuine reason other than someone dared to buy a spare in her row. AND because she is a mega bitch, she took it out on OP. Zero to do with her being overweight or anything to do with a seatbelt. Again, OP could have been a slim supermodel and that person would have been a bitch, they just would have found something different to focus on/make fun of/bitch about, so the weight/seatbelt stuff is moot.

I've put on a lot of weight due to health problems and have had to use belt extensions for the last couple of years. At first I felt very self-conscious asking for one, but now, if anyone looks at me in a way that shows any sort of disproval, I just glare at them as if to say 'what's your problem?' I have found that it makes them feel embarrassed for their behaviour which they fully deserve.

No, why would I report her? I have encountered professionals in all fields don’t like fat people, it’s nothing new. The fact that she is in a position of care just exacerbated my feeling about it that’s all.
As I said, I’d never contact her.

Yeh it was very entitled behaviour for sure!

I don't understand why you didn't say anything to this piece of shit of a woman? If I had heard her speak about my body while she thought I couldn't hear her I would have had to say something.

That’s fair. I am sensitive about it all, in part because of history and I’m part because of being stuck in the healthcare system, so maybe that does come across as victim-y. I’m not powerless about losing weight though, it’s happening slowly.