" She ignored me the whole residual of the flight , and I ignored her . I got a good but painful workout of whatever muscle it is that keeps your knees together . "
If there’s anything men do day-to-day that I find annoying, disrespectful, and totally unnecessary, it’s “manspreading.”
In case you don’t know, manspreadingrefersto “the act or practice by a man of sitting with the legs spread wide apart (as in a public seating area) in a way that intrudes on the space of others.” It often happens when men are seated next to women, and is pretty popular on buses, trains, or planes. Here’s what it looks like:
But, are there circumstances where manspreading is understandable? That’s what Reddit useru/Dr_Chekhov(or OP; for Original Poster) wanted to know when he asked in theAm I the A-holesubreddit if he was wrong formanspreading on a planeand encroaching on the seat space next to him.
Here are the details, according to OP:
“A few months ago, I was alone on a long flight, around six hours. I had a middle seat between a young woman (in her 20s) in the window seat and a woman (in her 30s) in the aisle seat. I’m tall and am never comfortable on planes. My knees always dig into the seat in front, and it can be quite painful. I usually try to take a walk around the airport before flights to stretch my legs, but neglected to this time. It was Spirit Airlines, so even less legroom than usual.”
“About half an hour after takeoff, I found my left knee inching to the side for the sweet relief of open space — specifically, the no-man’s-land in between seats, level with the shared armrest. But I wasn’t paying attention to my knee the entire time. I’ll concede it’s possible that at some point I was occupying space that rightfully belonged to my window seat neighbor. All was well for about two hours.”
“At this point, the woman in the window seat called over the flight attendant. She asked her something like, ‘Could you tell him to keep his ****ing leg in his own ***ing seat?’ With horror, I understood she was talking about me. I instantly retracted my leg in deep shame. She added something about ‘his enormous dck’ — my understanding was that it was meant to be a snide reference to the idea that spreading your legs is about male genital comfort. But she wasn’t speaking very clearly, and the flight attendant didn’t seem to understand her. The flight attendant asked her some sort of clarifying question, but she didn’t answer, and eventually, the attendant went away.”
“I had been shocked into silence, but when the flight attendant left, I frantically began to apologize. But she refused to speak to me. She acted like she didn’t hear me. Instead she started furiously texting on her phone. The aisle seat woman said she had some extra space on her side I could use, but then promptly went to sleep. Oh well.”
“I tried again to apologize to the window seat woman, but again, she ignored me. I went from embarrassed to confused. I kept replaying it in my head, wondering why she didn’t simply ask me to move my knee instead of calling over the attendant.”
At this point, OP started looking at the woman’s phone. “My defense is that I was baffled by her behavior and wanted answers. I didn’t see all of it, but a significant portion was definitely about me; she wrote, ‘Men really do be too much sometimes’ with a laughing emoji.”
" This is a known , reoccurring outcome . You KNOW you will palpate better with more leg blank . arrest pinching pennies and give for an gangway seat or an issue seat . There are options ! "
— u / Ryuloulou
" I ’m a more fair gentleman at 5'11 " , and I always get an aisle seat or business concern class for the excess room . The windowpane lady called the attendant for her protection , but also to shame you into conformation , and rightly so , you should be ashamed of your behavior . It go down on to be in your position , but you are wittingly doing so without ameliorate your berth either , then enforce onto those women . "
— uranium / thenord321
Others pointed out that the onus shouldn’t be put on the woman next to him to tell him he’s encroaching on her space — he should simply be respectful enough not to do it in the first place:
" By wanting the woman to tell you if she is inconvenience by your invasion of her space , you make it her responsibility instead of just not doing it . cleaning lady can experience too vulnerable to face a tall guy ( your own admission ) by themselves , especially when they are nonplus at the windowpane seat and can not snuff it if the guy gets angry . She did n’t call the attender to say you to move , she phone her to have an potency public figure to help her make a point . "
" I ’m a diminished woman , and men on sheet flights CONSTANTLY thrust their knee into my personal outer space , even when they have enough room to sit down with their legs together . It ’s exhausting having to endeavor to figure out if I should bother asking them to move , specially because I dislike conflict , and sometimes , they either get mad ( and then I ’m adhere sitting next to an angry somebody much orotund than me for hour ) , or else talk through one’s hat an apology and then go back to doing it 10 minutes after .
If you physically ca n’t fit into your blank , I ’m not go to get huffy ( yeah , possibly you should book a larger seat , but I do n’t know what your financial position is or why you necessitate to fly ) , but if you are able to agree , even if it ’s less comfortable , keep your goddamn body parts to yourself and do n’t put me in the place of let to ask for canonical personal space . "
— u / colourscaptivating
Then, there was the issue of OP looking at the woman’s phone after the incident:
" In compose up this incident , he add that he was spy and what level of snooping . It was n’t an accidental glance ; he cognise what she was see for three hours , what she wrote in text , and gens . That ’s incredibly rude and trespassing . What she watched , what she texted , was none of his concern . If he ’s a functional adult , he can control his eyes and control where he looks . "
— u / Pablois4
And finally, someone made this ~very~ interesting point about one of the details in OP’s story:
" The fact that he claims he ' worked out ' the muscleman that keep his legs together show this is something he does all the time . It should n’t be fag out to keep your damn legs in your space . "
— gas constant / isisis
And for more drama-filled stories — like the man who didn’t want to take his girlfriend out to nice restaurants because she’s apicky eater— clickhere.
