When travelling on a plane, passengers should follow some basic etiquette and do their best to accommodate and not disturb or trouble anyone seated around them. Now, in a recent incident, a plane passenger claimed that his "passive-aggressive" seatmate refused to get up when he needed to get to the bathroom, and even complained that he was invading her "personal space". In a Reddit post shared to the popular "Am I The A**hole?" subreddit, the passenger detailed the inflight incident, which took place on a "long flight" where even "the comfiest seats feel like torture racks".
"I'm a big dude. Not yet book 2 seats level, but enough for plane seats to be absolute hell. Booked a window seat, figured the extra space would help," the passenger shared. He said the woman sitting in the middle seat initially seemed a "nice person". However, things got "tricky" after the passenger had to use the lavatory, he wrote. "Nature called a couple of times during the flight, and let's just say squeezing by in that cramped space is an exercise in contortionism at the best of times," the flyer lamented. "The woman in the middle seat politely refused to get up whenever I needed to use the restroom," he wrote.
Left with no other choice, the passenger said he was forced to squeeze by his seatmate every time he needed to go to the bathroom, which left him in an awkward predicament. "I get it. Nobody wants some sweaty dude brushing past them. I tried my best to minimize contact, literally sucked in my gut and held my breath like I was underwater. But even with all the contorting, there was some unavoidable brushing past," he wrote.
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"At the end of the flight, the woman makes a passive-aggressive comment about "personal space" and how uncomfortable I made her feel throughout the flight," the flyer recounted. "Honestly, I felt terrible. Didn't mean to make her feel that way, but what else was I supposed to do? Hold it for 8 hours?" he spluttered. Ask her to physically get up? (Since she repeatedly didn't get up and indicated I should squeeze by, I had no reason to think she was too bothered by it)," he wrote.
The flyer asked the Reddit community if he was wrong to make her uncomfortable. Fortunately, the users sympathised with the man's inflight plight.
"What sort of idiot refuses to get up so someone can go to the bathroom?" wrote one user. "You're nicer than me, my response would have been: 'Ma'am you refused to get up, so my only options were to either encroach on your personal space or pee on you. I'm sorry you feel I chose the wrong option," said another.
"Who the hell doesn't get up to let the window person in and out? Even if you are a slender been pole there's not enough space to get out to the aisle without rubbing against someone," commented a third.
