Share
9th August 2023
10:57am BST
A man has sparked a debate online after refusing to swap seats at the movies so a mum could watch Barbie next to her daughter.
The seating debate usually involves planes, trains and even buses, but has now moved to the movie theatre.
The moviegoer thought he was in the right, under his girlfriend suggested otherwise when they left the Margot Robbie and Ryan Golsing's film.
So he crowdsourced opinions on Reddit's Am I the A****** page.
According to the man, he and his partner arrived at the cinema to find a mum and daughter sitting in their seats. The daughter was about five or six, he said.
In his post, the man explained that the mum told him she was unable to buy two tickets together and asked him if it would be okay for them to swap seats so that they could sit together.
The man refused, saying that he had reserved the seats in advance so that they could enjoy the movie together. He then asked the mum to move.
He wrote: "I let the woman know that they were our seats and I even showed her the tickets. She said when she purchased her tickets they only had two seats available, one in the front row and another in the far back.
"She said she wanted to sit next to her daughter and she didn’t want her sitting that far away from her so she asked if my girlfriend and I could swap seats.
"I told her that wasn’t my problem and I paid for those seats, so I politely asked her if they would get up. The woman said she understood I paid for the seats but I didn’t have to be rude and inconsiderate."
The situation was resolved when someone else stepped in and switched seats to the mum and daughter could sit together.
The man thought nothing of it, until he was leaving the cinema and his girlfriend said she "felt bad for the woman and giving up our seats would’ve been the right thing to do and I was being a bit inconsiderate."
His post continued: "At first I didn’t think I did anything wrong, I paid for those seats and the woman purchased the tickets knowing she wouldn’t be able to sit with her daughter."
Commenters were divided.
As with most seating questions, the consensus sat with the person who booked the tickets in advance.
One wrote: "NTA the woman should have chose a different movie time instead of assuming people would move for her. She was being inconsiderate to her own daughter in the situation no one would move."
Another added: "NTA. Poor planning on their part does not constitute an emergency on your part."
However, another commenter pointed out that, while not in the wrong, the man could have chosen to be kind.
They wrote: "You could have helped them out, and it would have made that little girl's day, and taken a huge load of that lady's problems, and all it would have cost you was not sitting with your girlfriend during the movie. "So, no, you weren't an asshole, and you didn't ignore any social obligations, but you also didn't do the kind thing - the nice thing - when you easily could have."
Related links:
Explore more on these topics:
