Pregnant Woman Wonders If She Is Wrong For Sitting On Man's Hand After He Refused To Move It From Seat
She had every right to do this.
Sharkshock / Shutterstock A 30-year-old woman got into a bit of a confrontation with a man on the bus after he refused to give up his seat while she was eight months pregnant. Not the seat that he was sitting on, but the seat that he decided he would rest his hand on.
Now, the pregnant woman wonders if she was wrong for sitting on his hand when he refused to move it.
The woman took to Reddit to try and figure out if internet strangers would take her husband’s side in the argument they had about what happened on the bus.
“I take the bus to work every day and oftentimes it's packed, but I get lucky enough when decent folks volunteer their seats for me,” she wrote. “Now I should mention that I [don’t] use my pregnancy as an excuse to get what I want but people just offer me their places by themselves which is kind and sweet.”
Giving your seat up for a pregnant woman or elderly person is one of those unspoken rules that are known by everyone to be a common courtesy on public transportation — one that this man apparently did not get the memo for.
“Wednesday, I get on the bus like usual but this time there's one empty seat, I go to sit but I find a guy in his business attire sitting there with his hand on the empty seat (sort of like resting it?)” she continued. “I say excuse me and ask him to remove his hand so I could sit, but he tells me the seat was ‘taken.’”
She admitted that at first, she found it funny — until she realized he meant it as he continued to refuse to move his hand.
“I had enough at this point, my legs were burning and my back was hurting, so I go ahead and sit on his hand,” she revealed. “He freaks out and tries to remove it quickly while shouting at me.”
At this point, everyone on the bus is looking at them and her, even after he gets off the bus, and she admits to feeling some shame at this point. Her husband took the man’s side and said that she messed up and that what she did was “totally inappropriate,” but Reddit entirely disagreed and called him out on it.
“I hope you farted,” said one person. “I can't believe you stole the seat from his only lover!” added another, all giving her the “NTA” rating.
While most people on Reddit agreed that the woman was not in the wrong, instances like this are unfortunately quite common.
A 2014 study carried out by University of Westminster student Georgina Kotjan found that despite 100 percent of people she surveyed saying they would give up their seats for a pregnant woman, when actually put to the test, not many actually did.
“I took several Tube journeys as a pregnant woman with a ‘Baby on Board’ badge to test people’s politeness," she said. “I was surrounded by hundreds of people on my journeys but most of them were too busy with their phones and papers and it took me more than 10 hours of travelling to gather a hundred people who actually noticed me."
Etiquette aside, what shocked most people was the husband's reaction to his pregnant wife's situation.
“I really don't understand the husband's reaction,” said one user, while another said “Don't know about you, but when my wife was 8m pregnant she could give two [expletive] what was appropriate. I backed her all the way and I back you up as well.”
She cleared up that he typically does back her up but thinks that sometimes she reacts "irrationally" and gets worked up easily, so that’s probably why he disagreed with her here.
Next time this woman is refused an empty seat on the bus, I’m sure she won’t think twice about sitting on whoever’s hand is in the way.
Isaac Serna-Diez is the Assistant Editor for the Entertainment & News department on YourTango.com. He focuses on writing about pop culture, the entertainment industry, social justice, and current events around the country.