Man Agrees To Give Up His Seat Next To His Wife On Flight So 'Frantic' Parents Can Sit With Their Child Only To Find Out The Child Is Actually An 'Entitled' Teen
He feels like the teen's parents tricked him out of his seat.
JC Gellidon via Unsplash / Stokkete, Khosro and Mix and Match Studio via Unsplash We’d all love to think we are the kindest and most empathetic person on the planet, especially when it comes to kids. But there are times when you are tempted to put your own comfort ahead of a child’s. One such instance is on a flight that you’ve booked and pre-selected your seats.
It's rather common for parents to ask fellow passengers to swap seats so they can sit with their kids. That’s the scenario one man found himself in when catching a 14-hour flight with his wife. The man had booked his wife a window seat on an international flight while he took one for the team and sat next to her in the middle seat. “My laptop was loaded up with episodes from the show we were watching, we had our snacks all organized, etc.,” he said.
The man was approached by a couple who frantically asked if he could swap seats with their child.
According to the Redditor, who shared his story in the u/QuabityAsuance subreddit, he would have normally turned the distraught parents' demand down, but he empathetically considered the many possibilities of why the parents had been seated separately from their little girl. So, he agreed, gathered his belongings, and headed to his new seat, leaving his wife behind.
He was surprised to find that the vulnerable little girl he had imagined in his head was actually a “disinterested” 16-year-old mindlessly playing on her phone while her parents panicked about her being so far away from them.
Photo: Reddit
“She was literally taller than my wife,” he said when describing just how independent the young lady should have been.
Losing his cozy spot next to his wife was nothing compared to what the bitter husband would endure for the entirety of the 14-hour flight. “I was moved to a seat next to a toddler who was kicking and screaming the whole flight,” he explained.
On top of that, apparently, the teenager, now seated next to his wife, kept resting her pillow on the woman’s shoulder.
Clearly, it was a very long flight. It seems that no good deed goes unpunished. It must have taken a lot of patience not to march up to the teen’s parents and demand his original seat back.
Debates surrounding airplane etiquette are becoming increasingly common.
When it comes to catching flights, what is or is not proper etiquette is a source of debate. People seemingly get more anxious when it's time to fly and are much less empathetic and impatient with each other.
It goes without saying that you should never plop down in another passenger's seat before they have boarded the airplane (though not everyone adheres to that obvious rule). But the question that often comes up is what to do when you are asked to swap seats with another passenger.
The most important thing to remember is that you are well within your rights to decline a seat swap. You paid for yours and everyone likely knew what they were getting in advance. It is not your duty to make other people more comfortable on their flight.
But an unspoken rule regarding seat swaps is that when requesting one, you should offer better or equivalent accommodations. For example, if you want an aisle seat, you should offer more legroom. Or if you are seated near a bathroom in the window seat, you might give it up for a middle seat far away from the toilet. The key is mutual respect. Only ask for a switch if absolutely necessary and don't get bent out of shape if you are turned down.
Seat swaps aren't the only drama airline passengers (and employees) face.
You may have noticed a plethora of stories involving undesirable incidents on airplanes recently. People are threatening flight attendants, violating other passengers’ space, refusing to consider the comfort of other flyers, and fighting their significant other over trivial things. Much of this can be attributed to increasing mental health issues like stress and anxiety.
People are feeling much less sympathy for their fellow passengers and are unwilling to budge when it comes to compromising.
It seems that everyone could benefit from being less judgmental and much more empathetic.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington. She covers lifestyle, relationships, and human-interest stories that readers can relate to and that bring social issues to the forefront for discussion.