Why do people stare as though you’ve stolen their seat?
Call me old fashioned but I used to feel self conscious when I’m sitting and people scowl as they survey a room to find somewhere to rest their bones.
Are there two kinds of people in the world, I wonder? That pairing is not the people with seats and those without, the haves and have nots, no, it’s far more complex than that.
One evening I reserved a seat for an Irish film at the Dublin Film Festival. It was an Irish and Canadian co-production that was distinctive since it featured U2 drummer, Larry Mullen in his first and only, so far, performance as a screen actor.
The film sold out quickly. It was a world premiere in a tiny Irish cinema. Members of the film’s cast were expected to make an appearance. The screening was due to begin at 6.30pm.
The seats weren’t numbered so it was first come, first served. I got there early, 6.15pm to find myself a good seat at the dead centre of an aisle in the middle of the room. By 7pm the place was packed, the people from the film had yet to arrive and the screening was hopelessly delayed.
It was uncomfortable. Stragglers were still arriving, scouring the venue for the remaining seats. My aisle filled up but, as I was alone and not in a group or pair as most people were, the seats to my left and right were vacant. People made incursions from either side of the aisle to secure this prize.
One couple, approaching from the left, claimed the last two seats. Their competitors, from the right, had to retreat in ignominy. The prize, though, wasn’t all they expected.
As they arrived, the lights went down and the opening credits began. I stood up to let one of them, a young woman, claim the seat to my right and sat down again, intent on the film. Her companion remained standing. And standing. People behind him and beside him began to murmur in protest and discomfort.
‘Sit down,’ a few hissed.
He retaliated by hissing in my ear.
‘Could you give me that seat?’ he said in a tone that suggested entitlement rather than supplication.
I ignored him but I could feel I was getting a nasty look from his companion as though her glare might manifest on my skin like a burning rash.
‘Excuse me,’ he hissed quite loudly and apparently oblivious of the incongruity, ‘can you move?’
Several thoughts occurred to me. I remembered my mother’s retort when questioning or correcting our grammar when we asked ‘can we’ do anything. ‘you can but you may not,’ she’d say. I thought to ignore him and I thought to tell him, ‘no, I won’t excuse you,’ deciding then, on balance, to simply say, ‘no.’
Before I could say anything I was elbowed in the upper arm by the young woman, his companion, sitting on my right.
‘No,’ I growled, in surprise, pain and indignation, much louder than intended.
To my surprise, it was greeted by a chorus of ‘sit downs’ and cheers of approval from people around me.
The couple weren’t finished. Now the acquisition of my seat became their quest and by all and any means was clearly their intent.
‘What kind of a bollix are you?’ I was asked and the tone was now rhetorical and outraged.
It was time to change tack.
‘I’m the kind of bollix who reserves a seat, gets here on time and then waits for a delayed screening caused by the likes of yourselves, arriving late and causing a disruption.’
The film, by now, has been forgotten as this ludicrous tableau unfolded before the audience’s eyes.
The ‘sit downs’ multiplied. Some people broke into applause in support of my stance, others in frustration at the distraction. Slowly, the murmuring receded and the couple sat down, defeated.
The viewing was uncomfortable, the cinema stuffy, the film, awful. I got up and left.
So when I’m sitting alone in a cafe, occupying a comfortable table in a shady nook and someone flashes a knitted brow and piercing glare as though I’d personally contrived to ruin their day and grab the last remaining table, I don’t react.
Instead I leave it to them to work it out for themselves while I enjoy my coffee and read my book.
