Count me in with this vote. I don’t get it. Were they rude in a way you didn’t describe in your OP? Otherwise, I don’t understand how asking to get to sit together is “princess-ly” spoiled etc. And believe me, I’m one of the first to be annoyed at spoiled entitled behaviour.
I kind of thought this at first too, but they were teeny-boppers, probably not yet well -versed in the “correct” way to approach things verbally speaking.
Seriously? Showing up at the last second and expecting other people to abandon their sweat equity so *you *can have the most privileged seat?
Seriously?
Nothing in the OP shows that the five “expected” anyone to abandon their seat.
-FrL-
Nothing straight out. It’s just that the “Could you two move?” keeps rubbing at me as being a rather abrupt way to ask a favor from a couple of complete strangers. Plus, it’s not clear if they were asked to move because there wasn’t anyplace else for 5 to sit together in the theater, or just in the front row (the quoted “request” did specify the front row, but they may have figured that if they had to ask someone to move in order to sit together, they might as well start asking people sitting in their preferred position).
If they did say “Thanks”, then CanvasShoes may be right, they just may not be well-versed in polite requests. If they didn’t, then they might just be rude.
I disagree 100%.
And even so, why focus your response entirely on a single word?
Showing up at the last minute?
Dismissing the effort required, and expended, to earn the seats they wanted?
This is CS, not the Pit, so I’ll be polite, but the kind of response that is most likely to send smoke from my ears is this, singling out a single word and pretending that simply contradicting it is a valid response to the entire post.
It’s not.
Okay.
Because that was the only point from your post I wished to respond to. Was I obligated to do more than that? If so, my apologies. Please chalk it up to innocent ignorance.
Since you’re interested in my opinion about these points as well, I’ll go ahead and say what I think. I have never thought there is any social rule that says one ought to show up early to a movie. Last minute is fine. It’s not like I’ve made a date with the other people in the audience.
Being late is of course not okay, as it causes a disturbance. And by showing up at the last minute, one incurs the risk of accidentally showing up late. But showing up at the last minute, in and of itself, is no offence.
This is substantially the same point as the one I already responded to, since the expectation that seats would be vacated presumeably would stem from a failure to appreciate the effort involved in attaining those seats.
So, I’ll respond in substantially the same way: I see nothing in the text of the OP to indicate that they “dismissed” anyone’s efforts.
Yet I made no such pretense, so the relevance of your comment here is not clear.
I did not respond to your entire post. I responded to a single (albeit to my mind somewhat central) point within it.
-FrL-
Surely you’ll concede that wanting to find five seats together in the choicest row is an exception to this laissez faire approach?
I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying it’s just wrong to show up at the last minute to a movie, period.
If I understand correctly, what you’re actually saying is that it is wrong to not show up well ahead of time if one wishes to get five seats in a row in a choice location within the theater. I don’t agree completely. I don’t think it’s wrong, but I do think it falls short of the ideal of practical rationality.
“Laissez faire” is a good characterization of my feeling about it. I don’t think there “oughta be a (social) rule” against showing up at the last minute hoping for the best five seats in the house. If that’s what the group chooses to do, then godspeed to them. And then, if no one wants to do them any favors to help them out, godspeed to those folks as well.
-FrL-
(By the way, did you intentionally post in a way fitting your own negative characterization of my previous post to you? Or is that an unintended irony?
I found your own one-liner post to be perfectly appropriate. I’m not complaining. I was just curious about the motivation behind it.
-FrL)
No, not ironic: you only gave me one thing to respond to.
And as for your “wrong” strawman, I never said it was wrong to show up late; I said it was rude to expect better seats than you’ve earned; that it’s selfish and inconsiderate to show up late when you want five prime seats in a cluster.
I’m a bit boggled that you keep bouncing back and forth between the two main issues, as if they’re unrelated. One: it’s not “wrong” to want five good seats. Two: it’s not “wrong” to show up at the last minute. But these two things do not go together. And while it’s not “wrong” (your terminology, not mine), it’s rude and selfish to ask others to take up the consequences of combining these two incompatible notions.
I count three at least.
It’s not really a strawman, not in any important or useful sense, when I preface it with the comment “If I’ve understood you correctly.”
This brings us back to the only really important issue in our discussion. The one I brought up in my first response. Namely, the issue of whether any “expectation” was portrayed in the OP.
“Rude” is a better term. I thank you for pointing that out. I do want to note that by characterizing your own position as involving a judgment of the girls as “selfish” you further undermine your claim that my attribution to you of a claim that they did something “wrong” was a strawman.
I’m not sure what you mean by saying I’m bouncing back and forth between issues. I do not think it is rude to show up at the last minute and ask others to move. (Nor do I think it is rude to refuse that request.) That position clearly involves both of the issues you mention.
I can’t see how you have failed to understand that this is part of my position. The best I can manage is to think you believe my argument goes like this: “Showing up at the last minute is not rude, asking people to move is not rude, therefore showing up at the last minute and asking people to move is not rude.” But that is not my argument. In fact, my argument is just this: “Lissener thinks the girls expected the people to move, and that they did something rude thereby. In fact all I see is a request–showing at most a hope, rather than an expectation–for people to move. There’s nothing wrong with this, even in light of the fact that they arrived at the last minute. Therefore Lissener is wrong about something.” As you can see, I’m not arguing for a position over whether or not it is rude to show up nearly late and ask people to move. Rather, I am acknowledging it would be rude to do so under an expectation that the people will or ought to move. I agree with you: That would be rude. Where we disagree is whether that’s in fact what happened.
My original, single-point post is looking more and more apt every minute.
-FrL-
Sorry I’ve been away for the past day and a half. I will attempt to answer some questions that have been brought up since my OP.
“How full was the theater?”
It was starting to get pretty full. Seats on the main floor were almost completely filled and there were quite a few people on the balcony with us. There were other groups of 5 seats still available… just not in the first row which was nearly all filled up by the time they arrived there.
“Did they have to move far?”
They moved clear to the other side of the balcony. I doubt they had to move that far, but they did. I can only guess why?
“Was the tone of their request to move haughty, demanding, or in any way rude sounding?”
It appeared somewhat haughty to me, but then I don’t quite understand teeny-bopper culture as well as I used to.
“Did they at least say, ‘Thanks’?”
I didn’t hear a single “Thank You” at all from them, but there was some conversation between them I did not hear.
“What was their behavior after the movie started?”
They were somewhat chatty amongst themselves throughout most of the movie, but it wasn’t especially loud.
To those who say that they didn’t think they were being rude:
Perhaps they didn’t think they were being rude. There were all teeny-boppers and at that age, they don’t know enough about social etiquette to ask something like this and not come across as spoiled or rude. Also, there is not a bad seat in this theater. One can see the screen equally as well from the back row on the balcony as they could in the front row. As I said before, there were other rows where there were groups of 5 seats available, but they wanted to sit in the front row and nowhere else. They even stated, “We want to sit in the front row.” They didn’t say, “Could you move so we could have 5 seats together?” It seemed to me rather petty and selfish on their part to ask people who had been in their seats at least as long as us and probably longer to give them up.