respect the personal space
Respect the personal space, Dude!!!
What is it with people who put their arms on your seatback while you are sitting in the chair? This is one of the Mudphudder’s pet peeves. Whether it’s on an airplane, theater, whatever, I find it to be a pretty darn annoying violation of my space when people decide to grab a hold of my seatback to jerk themselves out of their seat or just to have something to lean against. I’m sitting there, and I’m thinking WTF?
I was sitting in a psychiatry case conference today. When I decided to lean forward in my seat, the medical student sitting next to me decided that he wanted to put his arm up and across on my seatback. Slick move–I tried that on my first date–it didn’t work then, it’s not going to work now. To give you some background, though, this guy is a real douche–wants to be an orthopedic surgeon (sorry to rag on the orthopods, but there you have it). And I’m sitting there wondering why this guy who probably weighs about 60lbs less than me would feel okay with essentially putting his arm around/behind me. Maybe because he’s a douche? I don’t know.
People, we’ve got to respect the personal space. I don’t mean that we should be stand-offish, but more something along the lines of: don’t put your arm around the guy sitting next to you during case conference. You know what I mean? Sure you do. It’s like that creepy guy in college who went around making all of the girls on your dormitory floor really uncomfortable by giving them back rubs.
So I got out of my situation today by leaning back in my chair to make my presence felt. Luckily this guy took the hint. But in all seriousness, what goes through peoples’ minds when they do stuff like this? I wonder if they even think about it. I think some people don’t even give it a second thought to lean against my headrest (with my head against it) while they are waiting in the aisle, looking for a seat on the plane. Or to put there arm around me in case conference. Perhaps the Mudphudder is in the wrong here. Again, I don’t know. As long as I don’t get random back rubs from strangers, I suppose.
