Sure it is. If you’re not going to have the screen take up your entire field of vision, why not stay home and wait for the DVD?
In real time? So that if the movie is bright, your phone is bright and if the movie is dark, your phone is dark? That’s a pretty cool app!
It would annoy me since crowding into one area is goofy if there are areas free. I’m used to the way people generally behave at baseball games, where there is always assigned seating. If you show up and your row is mostly full but the next row down is empty, you sit in the next row down until those people show up. Because it’s silly for everyone to cram themselves into a single row. If someone does cram themselves into that row, I’m probably more likely to move, even down to gasp dreaded row 5. I don’t mind being in physical contact with others when it’s hard to avoid, but when it’s easy to avoid, it’s annoying to have someone against you.
I’ve never been bothered by having someone next to me in a theater, but some people are more bothered by such things than I am.
Solution: have assigned seating!
Do you read things before you quote them?
Sorry but that still doesn’t work. Your phone is not being compared to the brightness of the screen but to the darkness of the audience. In a dark room, even a tiny amount of light from a cell phone is incredibly visible.
Texting in movie theaters is rude and distracting.
But here’s my take on the OP - the latecomers might well have been rude. But when you pay for a movie, you are paying for one seat. One. Seat. Not extra seats so you can have a buffer zone around you. One seat. You paid for the seat you are sitting in, and you do not get to control the seats around you just because you got there early. (Maybe the latecomers planned on getting there 30 minutes early too, but had a flat tire or something.) The way I see it, you want to control all the seats around you and keep them empty - pay for those seats. Then, they are yours.
So, in a full movie theater with only the unpleasant front five rows available, if someone asked me to move over so he and his date could sit together, of course I would, in a heartbeat. I can’t imagine a situation where I would do otherwise.
I’m not seeing how she did though. She didn’t say they couldn’t sit next to her. She just said she wasn’t giving up hers.
If they had come in and just sat in those two empties this discussion never would have been started. No?
I blame the Typhoid Marys in the same aisle who went to the movies while coughing and sneezing. Although I suspect that, even if there was no sickness issue, the OP would have come up with another reason not to move. She justifies it because the people were 10 minutes late. OK. Maybe they were coming from the hospital. Maybe the girl is moving slowly because she just got an abortion and it’s their first outing since. Maybe they both had a long, rushy day and the movie was the high point and then they got stuck on the subway heading over and wanted to cry. You never know.
I have refused to move seats once in my life. I was 12 years old. The people were immature in their reactions but the OP was immature in her selfishness about buffer seats.
Do I like changing seats in movies/changing seats on planes/giving seats up for pregnant women/sitting next to coughers/etc.? Hell no. And yet, we all live in the same world. So if you’re going to venture out in public, it would be a nice personal policy to err on the side of being considerate to strangers. Who knows, you might even get some consideration in return, one day.
Holy mackerel. I’m out.
No but really. Why don’t we have it so that you have to book seats ahead of time? Then you sit in those seats - just like booking seats on an airplane.
I can’t believe the people saying she should’ve moved. Want to sit in a particular place? GET THERE EARLIER. Someone gets there before you? Tough shit, pick another seat.
Now, if someone tries to sit in your buffer zone, that’s also tough shit for you (and also very weird unless all non-buffer areas are full), but she never said they couldn’t sit in the buffer, just that she wouldn’t move so they could consolidate buffers and sit together.
I might have moved on request had the couple shown up before the movie started.
Since they were late, and rude to boot, they deserved no special consideration. Texting throughout the movie is just icing on the cake of their assholery.
Yeah, and I can’t believe you wouldn’t have enough courtesy to do a simple favor. It’s like not tipping a waiter. Yeah you don’t have to do it, but its the nice thing to do.
If a person is so strongly concerned with not sitting next to someone (and we’ll leave aside the question of why they choose to go to a public showing in the first place), then I would strongly advise them to take the “perfectly fine” front rows, rather than the prime seats.
Buffer seats are nice, but it’s not reasonable to expect one if you also want the best seats in the house. A theater only has so many really good seats, and it’s rude to purposefully try to make it difficult for others to use them. You have to chose your priorities here. Wanting the buffer zone and the best seats is too much to ask for if it’s at all crowded.
The OP sounds like on of those people who makes a special effort to make it difficult to sit next to them on the subway. I’m talking about the people who sit in the aisle and leave the window seat open, act like their purse needs it’s own special seat, and spend their ride pretending to be so engrossed in their USA Today that they “don’t notice” the train is packed full and oncoming standing passengers are staring daggers at them.
I go out of my way to sit next to those people, even if there are open rows. The train will fill up eventually, and if someone does end up with an open seat next to them, I’d much rather it go to someone who wasn’t acting like an entitled jerk.
Off topic, but I’m wondering how people would feel if you were in a mostly empty theater (less than 10 people) and someone decided to sit right next to you? What if they left a single seat buffer between you? Two seats?
True, but the net effect would have been the same. She wanted some sort of “buffer zone” between her and the person next to her.
Whether she stayed in “her” seat or moved over so the couple could sit together next to her and her date, she was still going to lose that buffer zone.
Weird but meh. Public space is public.
If it really bothered me I’d move.
Cute.
Interesting analogy. I spend a lot of time on the subway, as well. I really, really despise being trapped in the inside seat, so I’ll always sit on the outside. If someone wants to sit next to me, I will shift so that they can get by me, but I don’t scoot over. I am offering them the open seat. I’m not offering them MY seat just because they would prefer it (and yes, I make an exception if I happen to be sitting in the “handicap preferred” seating, so let’s not go down that road). If I get on the subway and the only seats available are inside seats, I will either suck it up and sit on the inside, or I’ll just stand. I have never asked anyone to scoot over on my behalf, and I doubt I ever would. I don’t have any interest in making my preference someone else’s problem.
The OP has not made any claims about preventing people from sitting in the buffer seats around her. That is not the same thing as having to change seats on someone else’s behalf.
But again, the net effect would be the same - she’d lose the buffer seats. So why not just move over so everyone is happy?