Why you shouldn't have to give up a booked train seat just because someone asks

Boarding an overcrowded train delayed by 40 minutes, I was just relieved it had finally arrived. and finding that my reserved seat was free would be a bonus.

The train was full with travellers standing and luggage everywhere. When the woman battling up the aisle in front of me found her seat and showed her ticket with QR code to the man in it, she was rebuffed.

Something about the delay and he had also booked this seat, so he wasn’t moving. She shrugged and went and stood next to the toilets. I resigned myself to doing the same but when I got to my aisle seat, it was empty. Happy days.

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Earbuds in

Then a woman approached the man in the aisle seat across from me, asking him to move to her table seat so she could sit in his, next to her friend in the window seat beside him.

“No,” he said, and I braced myself for an entertaining confrontation – the only witness as everyone else was fixed on screens, earbuds in, accompanied by a cacophony of crunching and rustling, while I was looking forward to possible views of beaches and castles and seascapes.

The man in the seat explained his reasons. “I don’t want to move because I have long legs and I booked this seat on purpose as there’s more leg room and the table seats don’t have as much. It causes issues,” he replied calmly.

I rubbernecked his legs, sticking out of his shorts, knees knocking the back of the seat in front. Long indeed, fair enough, plus she didn’t look like she needed any special consideration in terms of seating, which she had elsewhere.

Claustrophobia

People book certain seats for a reason, near the toilets, away from the toilets, for leg room, to be close to friends and family, in the aisle (me, I’m claustrophobic), next to a window, so aren’t they within their rights to stay put, unless someone has a clear health reason?

But the woman wasn’t to be deterred and spent the next half hour standing over him talking to her friend, thereby blocking my view of the coastline. I’m not one to object (I would have moved if asked, I’m a pushover, and then probably spent the rest of the journey being bumped from booked seats), but the man stuck to his guns, shoved his earbuds in and opened his laptop. A standoff. Sitoff.

After a while the woman disappeared, only to return later in the journey to announce she’d found a seat next to another friend because “a LOVELY woman had VERY KINDLY moved” so they could chat – a pass-agg sally that fell on his deaf ears.

Now I realise why everyone arms themselves with earbuds and a screen.