Reply Number 1,000!
Man, you couldn’t even get that right.
Dammit! ***I ***wanted to be post #1000!
No, notice how I said reply number 1,000, not post number 1,000. 
When I posted that, it said 1,000 outside on the BBQ thread lists page.
I’ll be damned, boy’s got a point. I believe it’s time to crown the Dope’s new Pedant King!
So much hoopla over some movie seats.
Oh, just because we’re talking about pedantry, typographical errors and lifelong conditions, I think “apoplectic” would fit better than “epileptic” pancakes (just remembered I forgot to include that in my post).
That wouldn’t have happened if he had insisted on not scooting over one.
Yeah, it kind of makes you wonder about the kind of person who would post 174 times in a thread about some movie seats. They must be pretty desperate for attention.
Let’s stop here, where I think everyone would mostly agree.
Now on to where opinions vary. I’d endorse the following variation:
If there is what you as the slider to be believe is a good reason to decline you politely decline. No explanation required.
You see that is where the disagreement starts. I also see our op’s reason to be a bit of an irrational one but that does not matter. And it does not matter if the reason makes sense to the ones asking the favor. The one who gets to, has to, decide if the reason is a good one or not is the potential slider and the potential slider owes no explanation, merely a polite, sorry no I am afraid I’d really rather not move. And the correct response is perhaps a brief look of being taken aback or hurt and then, oh, well thank you anyway then, and moving to either ask someone else or to take the other seats that are open up further front. Her phobia might not make sense to us, but it does she does not have to explain it, or discuss her current health status, infectious disease or mental, with this stranger. The answer of sorry, no is all that need be given.
Does that seem a reasonable POV to you?
Then there were the confounding factors. The movie had already started (3 to 5 minutes in per the op). In that case the latecomer is obligated to disturb those already there as minimally as possible. End of story. Sit in the very front row if need be. Even sliding past others to get to couple of empty seats in the middle of a preferred row is pushing it and requires profuse but very whispered apologies. Also there were other seats open together that the op felt, in her experience and to her judgment, were adequate, if not as ideal, seats. With those as particulars latecomers asking someone else to get up and shuffle around after the movie had started, when other adequate seats were available, did, to my read, cross the line into rudeness on their part. Causing a scene at that point was beyond rude.
Is there anything outrageous in those beliefs?
Well I am in second place for posting 61 times (counting this one) so far.
Or someone who does not let entitled assholes mow them down.
What, didn’t get that from my op?
True, they should have moved on and asked someone else to shift instead of creating a commotion with the OP.
And she is still categorized as rude for denying a common courtesy most people willingly participate in.
This is the definition of courtesy:
“Characterized by gracious consideration toward others”
The OP clearly did not show the couple any courtesy.
Still ignoring the “in the clear minority” thing, eh?
This may be part of the problem. Acquiescing to a request to move seats is not being “mown down.”
It’s no mystery that theatres are first come, first served.
That in NYC, movies tend to fill up fast, so it’s a good idea to get there early.
That 3 week old movies, just nominated for a shit ton of Oscars will probably be popular.
That showing up late to a movie will likely result in you no longer having your choice of seats.
Yet, I am supposed to accommodate someone who thinks they are above all of that. Right.
And you’re the poster, 4 months into this board, who posted a thread entitled “Will you remember me in 20 years?”
So… yeah.
Perhaps not, but realizing that all your requests may not be fulfilled, is part af acting like a part of civilized society. Not farting in someone’s face, not loudling mucking on popcorn, leaning into another’s seat, or cussing them out, texting throughout the film, as people in this threat who disagree with my decision have all suggested as acts of “revenge”. Or stuff that actually happened to me that night.
Hentor, Hentor… doll. I don’t mean to keep invoking that forbidden phrase, but let’s all let this go now. You know how in the real world people are like “Oh sure, no problem” and just do it? Yeah, that’s what actually happens, but there was a theory here about the mindframe about the kind of person who somehow feels it’s okay to not just move one seat. We’ve seen more than one person express they feel like they’re being duped when someone asks if they can please move over so that someone & co can sit next to each other, and another person says this makes them feel “mown down.” There is reality that people with healthy self esteem and social lives don’t live in. You can’t win. These people feel perpetually victimized. When you ask them if you and your girlfriend can sit next to each other, they feel like this is some battle between right and wrong, early and late, earned and unearned. It’s not. Dude just wants to sit next to his date. This is not a jerk vs not-jerk debate (for the most part), it appears. We’re talking to people who honestly feel like basic human interactions are an encroachment on their very person.
Let’s let them have it. Wanna have a drink? Let’s go to the bar. We may have to ask people to move over so that we can sit next to each other, but don’t worry. The person will be happy to do it.
Do you see the fact that the movie had already started as having any significance or not?
Do you see the fact that the op perceived (irrationally or not, it was real to her experience of the movie) a major difference in the quality of the seat she was in the one she was being asked to move to as having significance or not?
You see while many people may not have seen those two seats as differing much, almost all would say that being asked to move from a seat they very much preferred, to a seat that they had their own reasons to very much not want to be in, for the sake of people coming after the movie had started to not have to sit nearer the front, would be a major imposition, not a common courtesy.
Sure, if the movie had not already started, if the lights were up, some creative shuffling around could have been done that would allow her to stay where she was, her significant other move two, or shifting her the other way farther away from the person she was phobic about … but doing that after the movie had started would have been rude to the others around them … worse even than someone texting or talking.