Sardines In A Tin Can (2)

So yeah, the main point. As the title originally suggested, it was quite crowded then. We got there a bit earlier than the rest (somebody forgot to check the time...), but it resulted in prime seats. What surprised me was that as it got busier, people started sitting right next to us. And I mean right next to us. Normally you'd leave a seat in between empty, right? People need space, everybody knows that. Space so I can have the arm rest all to myself, space to put my coat and other stuff, and so on.. So why did they sit on the adjacent seats then, I wondered. And not just these few people, there was hardly an empty space left in the entire room. When I saw an usher appearing, surveying the room, I thought that perhaps the audience were told to do so, closing the ranks so more people could fit in. Well, they won't have this problem when the movie goes into its actual premiere...

Afterwards I started thinking about it some more... Why do we (or at least me then) want to have space to ourselves? And not just in the movie theater: in public transport, people always choose empty seats, without anyone sitting next to them. Sometimes, if there are no two adjacent empty seats, people will just choose to stand instead!

I don't really know why other people act like that, but for me it's pretty simple: I don't wanna come across someone who's annoying. And since it's hard to determin who's annoying when you just see them for 5 seconds, I'd rather not take the chance and find and empty seat instead. I wrote about it some time ago, about annoying people in public transport. I guess it's the same for all situations, like classes or movie theaters. In case the person next to you is annoying, at least you have some distance between each other.

And of course, the guy next to me just had to be annoying. Not that he could do anything about it, but he was the type of people that could not breathe without making any sound. You know the type, you can hear them exhaling through their nose so loudly as if they were rhinos getting ready to charge. So yeah, next time I'll just keep the seat next to me occupied, thank you very much.