Who is in the wrong in this situation?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Alrighty, I’m going to try and explain this situation I found myself as fair and evenly as I can.

A friend and I went for a drive recently and we got out to have some lunch in a small town. When we got back in to the car, I opened the passenger side door and sat down. My friend, who got in to the car at about the same time I did, immediately yelled “Watch out! My glasses!”. Sure enough, I’d sat smack bang on his glasses, slightly bending part of the frame, but the bend was small enough to be easily re-adjusted.

“Lucky for you they didn’t break”, my friend said, somewhat annoyed. “You’d have been up for a new $600 pair of glasses”.

I apologised and didn’t think too much of it at the time… so on we drove and we arrived at our second destination. My friend proceeds to take off his glasses and, once again, place them on the passenger seat.

“Don’t forget this time”.

To which I said, yes, with a bit of sarcasm…

“You could of course just not leave them on the passenger seat, then there’s no risk of me sitting on them”.

My friend then replies with something along the lines of:

“I don’t break my patterns of behaviour just because they don’t suit somebody else” (yeah, he was clearly agitated at my suggestion).

Anyway, I let the issue drop at this stage but I was a bit annoyed about it for some time.

My question is… who is in the wrong here? Should I be so vigilent as to always spot a pair of glasses resting on a car seat? If I had sat on them and broken them, would my friend be at all responsible for leaving his classes in a place where it is common for people to rest their body weight?

2

Your friend is in the wrong. If you have something precious to you, you look after it.

I learned this at my mother’s knee, when I left my glasses on the floor of my room, and she stepped on them, and I got angry with her. She said she learned the same lesson when she was a student and her roomie stepped on her glasses.

Saying “I don’t break my patterns of behaviour…” is just dumb.

3

  1. He should change that habit, unless he plans to always ride alone in his car. Glasses are what the glove apartment is for. Or those hard plastic cases.

  2. You both should have personal insurance for such risks. It is customary for all Dutch to have a WA-insurance, for small accendental damage to others possessions.

  3. He is either not such a good friend of yours, or he’s a bit of an asshole.

4

He’s definitely responsible for his own glasses. As far as “I don’t change my behavior to suit others”, you should have responded “Neither do I, which is why I’m very unlikely to check the seat for your glasses.”

5

Surely it’s part of life for you to both learn a lesson from an experience? You should learn to look where you are sitting before you sit down - and he should be more careful with his things when circumstances change (i.e. when someone is in the car with him). I don’t see why it’s an either or thing.

6

The first time around it was an unfortunate accident - him automatically putting his glasses on the passenger seat, you getting into a car that’s not yours without thinking to check if something was on the seat. But the “You’d have been up for a new $600 pair of glasses” was a bit jerkish, deflecting all blame onto you.

Him doing it again, however, knowing full well that you were going to be sitting there again and might sit on them again, and pre-emptively putting responsibility for his glasses on you - that’s just plain petty and stupid. He’s an asshole.

7

Maybe he was just angling for new glasses?

8

Sure, but that doesn’t make the OP responsible for the glasses.

Put it this way… if I sat on someone else’s glasses, I’d feel terrible and probably offer to pay, thinking to myself “Well it’s my fault for sitting down without looking.”

But if someone sat on my glasses, I’d absolutely feel “Well, it was my own fault for stupidly putting them, unprotected, in a place meant for sitting.”

Thing is, one of those is a reflex action familiar to anyone who has a glimmer of conscience, and one of them is actually true. Seats are for sitting in, not for storing fragile, expensive items.

9

Thing is, your friend’s habit doesn’t just not suit you - it doesn’t suit him either - because it means he’ll end up with busted glasses sooner or later.

To be honest, I think this sort of attitude might be a dealbreaker for me. I might have replied “well, that makes you a bit of an ass, no… not just a bit of an ass - a lot. Please drop me right here and I’ll get a taxi home”.

Of course that depends on the depth of the relationship, etc, but… what a tool.

10

You’re both at ‘fault’ in that you both need to be more aware of your surroundings, he should be careful of putting things where they can get damaged and you should be looking where you’re going.

Also, how long have you been friends with Sheldon Cooper?

11

The thought had occurred to me.

“But I always keep my glasses under the rear left wheel of your car! You should have checked before pulling out!”

12

It isn’t reasonable to expect to have to check for fragile items when sitting down in a car. It is reasonable to store your glasses in a place that isn’t where people sit. Next time you ride with him, pick up the glasses before you sit and toss them in the back.

13

I have a friend who leaves his spectacles on the passenger seat, and I have sat on them a couple of times, fortunately without breakage. I can’t help but think that any damage would really be his fault The glasses are not just expensive, but fragile and largely transparent; an abundance of reasons not to leave them somewhere designed to place one’s arse.

14

“I don’t break my patterns of behaviour just because they don’t suit somebody else”

OMG, you’re friends with THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE! You should feel so privileged!

15

I have glasses with inordinately expensive magnetic sunglasses clip ons. If I am driving and the sunlight fades I throw them on the passenger seat, usually until the next morning when I drive east to work. If I happen to pick up a passenger I consider it my responsibility to move the clip ons.

16

It’s in his own interests to at least try and place his glasses where they are unlikely to get damaged. Wilfully electing not to do so, especially after a near miss, is foolish. It’s not about ‘changing his habits to suit others’. It’s about exercising a little careful ownership over valuable articles.

It’s in your own interests to look where you are going to sit before you actually sit down, in case you are going to sit on something you might not want to sit on. Failing to do after a near-miss is akin to choosing not to learn from your own mistakes or near mistakes, which is also foolish.

You have both had a learning opportunity, and it’s a good thing to take advantage of learning opporunities as and when they arise. Otherwise we’d all still be sitting in caves and thinking thunder had something to do with angry gods.

17

Both.

18

Since you drove together, he put his glasses in your seat (assuming you were the passenger on the way up). That makes him wrong to think it would be your responsibility for breaking them.

Even in the most neutral circumstance, an eyeglass wearer is responsible for damage to their own eyeglasses unless the damage done was very deliberate. Were you to turn around and accidentally bump me in the face and break my glasses, it’s still my responsibility to repair them.

Since he repeated his behaviour deliberately, that makes him a jerk.

Get rid of this friend.

19

Well, I would expect people who use my furniture (even the automotive based furniture) to look first before sitting down. I’ve had people try to sit on top of my cat on my couch or jump right into my car WHILE I’m trying to pull stuff off my passenger seat (sitting on my hands as I was grabbing stuff).

That being said, that doesn’t so much apply here as you had already been in the vehicle and had the expectation that there was nothing on the seat when you got out of it.

So your “friend” is being an ass.

20

  1. Always confirm that seat is not occupied by person or things before deploying buttocks.

  2. Don’t put your glasses on a fucking chair, and don’t be an ass if you do so and somebody sits on them.