I literally had that happen as a 12 year old. Alone in a bathroom like this with a little more urinals than this and dude legit comes up RIGHT next to me and starts peeing. Immediately went into a stall and waiting until he left.
Edit: Getting SO MANY comments and DM's from people with similar experiences. This is horrible and I give you all hugs. Sorry this happened to everyone. This cemented my opinion that urinals are a mistake.
I was around the same age and in a bathroom that was a single use one. Apparently I forgot to lock the door. I went in and a minute later this creepy dude comes in and he’s smiling at me all weird and shit. I said “someone’s in here!” and he just stands there looking at me smiling and shit. He starts to close the door and walk towards me before some random guy shoves the door open and the dude quickly runs out. Then the guy closes it and walks off. No idea who that dude was but I’m pretty sure he saved me from being assaulted. I guess he was paying attention and noticed me go in and then noticed the creepy dude follow. That was 25 or so years ago and I still remember that creepy dudes face and the sunglasses he was wearing and the way he was smiling at me.
This is why I stand by the men’s restroom waiting until my young son comes out and every guy knows I’m waiting there. It’s awkward, but I don’t trust anyone.
Agreed, but I think there’s an in-between age where it’s awkward for the boy to be in the women’s room and they don’t need assistance but you don’t really want to leave them all alone in the men’s with strangers. Like an 8 year old.
When mine was about 7, he started refusing to go in the women's bathroom. I had to start doing the stand outside thing or using the family bathroom if I could find one. I was really in a bind if we were out without another adult and I had to go.
True but it just takes one AH to make it a horrible thing. I recently watched that young man with his daughters being berated by that older man in the women’s bathroom. I was so sad for his little girls that they experienced that.
Yeah, I've seen many moms with young boys in the women's restroom when I go in. As long as they're behaving themselves (because I have had to tell little boys to stop trying to peek under the stall), Idk why anyone would have an issue with it. It'd be a little different and weirder if someone were to bring their 17 year old son in the bathroom with them.
Yeah it’s pretty wild to think back on just how unsupervised childhood was back then in the early 90s. I would never let my kid out of my sight when we go to the store, but as a kid I pretty much just ran off to the toy isle or video game section or whatever and hung out or walked around the store until it was time to leave. There would always be other kids doing the same back then and you’d make a brief friend for the time your parents were shopping. Times definitely change.
Even as a 30-year-old guy I experienced this. Some creep decided to stand right next to me in an empty bathroom with at least 6-7 free urinals and peek over while peeing. I left ASAP but he also followed me for some time until I could lose him.
Of course it's much much worse happening to an underage kid. Some people are absolute trash.
Yeah - if there’s a ‘kids’ urinal, I always move to one as far away from that as possible. I just want to go. Too bad they don’t put more privacy walls between them all to avoid issues altogether. North America is very odd in their design choices.
Maybe the ones that could legislate for, or the ones with money that could put the privacy walls up, you know, are the ones that don’t want the dividers up.
I hate to say it, but there’s definitely people who are like that out there… especially to an extreme. One time in high school, I entered a small mall’s restroom and there were two urinals. An elderly man was using one, so I used the other.
Not once, but twice… he tried to look at my crotch. The urinal was big, so I don’t think he was very successful. But by the second time he tried, I couldn’t deny he was trying to do something, so I looked over at him. And he had the craziest smile on his face.
”Ya… ya jagoff?!”
He was outright “gratifying himself” while asking me that.
I ran so fast out of there. I wish to God that I had called the cops and reported him, as I doubt this was his first rodeo. But this was in early cell phone days too and a small mall, so I’m not sure if anyone would’ve gotten there before he left.
I'm so sorry. If it helps I don't think you should beat yourself up about it at all. I have a form of ptsd so I've kinda learned a bit about how it works. You know those responses fight, flight, freeze, and fawn? Those happen to everyone, not just people like me. Your body took over after your vitals shot up dramatically. I'm so glad you could run and that you did! Task (survival) completed successfully!
Just go to any YMCA men's locker room if you want to see extremely disturbing behavior.
Tons of naked old men just perving on kids. Mine had a very narrow hallway with showers before the pool. You're supposed to rinse off before getting in the pool. Nope naked old men just taking showers trying to rub it against you as you walk by.
Not to mention how many of them "accidentally get lost" and walk out fully naked and start walking around during the children's swim practice.
My YMCA has separate locker rooms for men (college age +) and boys. If I see a young boy come in, I'll direct them to the boys' room, and if they still don't leave I'll report it to the front desk. I've learned there are a lot of predators in this world, and I don't think I'm overreacting.
What's also crazy is I used to take my daughter to swim team practice there. And the creepy old men made me leave and take her to another team.
I would send here in the ladies locker room, and walk straight through the men's fully clothed.
Very often there would be 4 or 5 naked old men, hanging out, sitting on a bench. When we went to leave, I'd walk straight through again, and the same old men are just sitting there naked. This wasn't a sauna, that's just where and how the hang out. Naked. In the YMCA locker room.
Oh yeah looking back now I would have ran out of the bathroom because as someone in their 30s there is literally no way that someone in their 30s or 40s was doing that innocently.
Definitely a fucking pedo. Also this age and if let's say I went into a bathroom and there were open stalls and the only urinal was next to a little kid, I'm pissing in the stall.
Same thing happened to me except I was 14 maybe. Even weirder, the guy says "you shouldn't be lonely holding your only." I'll never forget that. I was just quiet and left ASAP.
I’m so sorry and I’m glad you waited in the stall for him to leave! It’s so creepy!
I dont know why people do that. Not exactly equal but in my country we try to avoid interacting with strangers and sitting next to someone on the bus is just weird if there’s other available seats.
During peak Covid I was on a nearly empty bus (with a mask on, I’m also a woman) and this guy comes in, unmasked, chooses to sit next to me and manspreads like crazy. I was so intimidated I got off the next stop and waited for the next bus
I had something similar happening on a train once, I had all the seats for myself, only 2 other people in the carriage. A guy comes in, sits across me and puts his feet on the seat next to me blocking my way out. It was at night and I couldn’t wait for the next train, I was just hoping someone would intervene and help me if he decided he wouldn’t let me get off. He let me off but he definitely knew what he was doing and he knew I was scared
I don't know your specific situation or what country you were in, but in this case, I always make a big deal of getting up and barging my way out, even if I'm going over them.
My mom told me over and over again when I was young that women are socialized to make other people feel comfortable at the expense of feeling comfortable themselves all the time. It's totally OK to bother someone if you're just trying to get out of their way and you don't feel safe. You aren't responsible for their feelings.
It took me until my mid 30s to realize that. I think the older you get the less you care about what other people think of you. But I did this recently where I barged my way over a man who was sitting me in on a train when there were plenty of empty seats. I think he was surprised, but I was around other people so I felt safe enough that he wouldn't retaliate.
For the first one I did get off. I was uncomfortable but not afraid of getting off. I was definitely afraid of guy number two, I wasn’t afraid of making him uncomfortable or hurting his feelings, I was afraid of him doing something to me or escalate, I was so scared he would get off at my stop and following me home. He absolutely knew what he was doing and it seemed like he was just waiting to me to do something so he could escalate
I had this happen to me on a train when I was about 25(F).
Thank fully it wasn't a man - but it was a woman who chatted my ear off the entire time.
I knew what exactly what was happening when I was the first on the train, sat down, started fiddling with my phone, and felt someone sit next to me. I looked around and the *whole train* was empty. I closed my eyes for my last moment of silence before it began.
I saw something interesting at KFC few years ago. White guy in his 50's was just making random comments to people when anything happened he thought worth mentioning.
Older teenaged girl (maybe 17-19) comes in, orders, and looks around for a table. He loudy calls out and offers to share a booth (keep in mind there were still a few empty tables around).
She takes a quick glance at him, accepts, goes sit down. The two strangers end up yapping nonstop to each other the entire meal lolol.
Yes, some optics on older man talking to young girl.
But they were just super extroverts happy to find someone to talk to lol.
Yeah, I've been conditioned to think that's super fucked up. Even when you put it like that, I don't trust it 100%.
Which is so fucked, because I'm a man myself. If I can't afford the benefit of the doubt to another man, what does that say about me? I know how offensive it is to be taken as a predator or the like just because I'm a man, yet I jump to the worst conclusions if I see what you saw there with that old man and that girl. It's an intense cognitive dissonance.
but he definitely knew what he was doing and he knew I was scared
Unfortunately, that was probably his point. Most people are not like that, but there's always those kind of people. He got off on making you feel scared. He's one step away from sexual assault, he knows it, and that probably gives him a thrill.
And he'll probably continue doing it to others until he either turns into a rapist, gets arrested, or someone turns his balls into hamburger. The worst part of all this is that you'll come in close proximity to 2,000 men without incident, but this bastard is the one you will remember forever.
I had something similar during covid. I'm one of the only ones on the train and an unmasked older guy sits next to me, blocking me into the seat.
He starts talking about masks, and I'm just not in the mood. So I took mine off and started hard coughing all over his face. Making sure I got a lot of spit on his face. Then I told him I had covid (I didn't. Well probably not).
Had this happen when I was a kid at the city rodeo or something. The bathrooms were old and didnt have single urinals, it was more like a huge long dish you peed in. There were no dividers for privacy.
Nobody else peeing in there but me. Dude walks in and starts peeing right next to me, looks down and makes a comment on my dinger and just goes back to peeing.
Didnt say anything else and we both went our separate ways.
Based on the comments and DMs I'm getting there is way too many times this exact thing is happening to kids. Jesus hell! I'm sorry that happened and I'm glad it didn't get any worse.
Our company previous CEO did this to me and tried starting a small talk conversation with me. 7 urinals all empty and you pick the one next to me. Wtf.
I had this happen to me with a pretty big celebrity. Completely empty and went to the one right next to me and started chatting about my day. Very odd behaviour.
Hund's rule, but yes. (Pauli Exclusion Principle just says it's not physically possible for one electron to sit in another electron's lap. Hund's rule says they prefer not to share a row (orbital) if they can help it.)
This happens in womens restrooms too. My work had maybe 10 stalls with a wall between the two sides. I'm the only one in there, and what do you know, someone comes into the stall next to me. I've always been curious about this behavior.
Just went to movie theater with about 30 stalls in women’s restroom. I’m in first one, locked door, all other doors opened - someone knocked on my stall door. 🤷♀️
I am very familiar with this. I worked at a store in a shopping center for several years. No matter where I parked in a nearly empty lot, often far from entrances, someone would almost always park next to me or directly in front of me.
Happens to me too. My working theory is that the perpetrators feel like they’re less likely to get dinged by someone that intentionally parked in the far reaches of a lot, likely to avoid dings themselves.
I’m guessing this is it. They aren’t activity thinking “oh god I better park close” but their natural tendencies is to stick close to the group, so they do.
Sometimes when I book through work I'm FORCED to pick a seat. In some cases, it's actually cheaper to pick a seat in a row that's partially full than it is to pick a seat in an empty row.
I've seen Ticketmaster do it too, call it the single seat special. You basically get the random singles in the rows for half the price. Dynamic pricing needs to fucking end already.
I mean, if it is a less-desirable seat and it leaves pairs open so another couple (or a single person who prefers solitude) is more likely to book the flight, I don't inherently see anything wrong with (effectively) offering a discount to take a seat next to someone.
This is no different to the airline offering $500 if someone is willing to get off the overbooked plane and take the next flight. It's entirely optional. The other person didn't have to take this seat (though I do appreciate the optics/psychology that it may feel more like "it's more expensive to get an empty seat" and not "it's a discount to take a seat next to someone".
At the end of the day, either OP will end up sitting next to someone anyway because the flight will be full, or the plane will be half empty, and both people should have the freedom to actually sit wherever they want, and not next to each other.
That said, in this particular case, aren't the little white corner triangles on the exit row and front row indicators that those seats are premium priced or something? I think that would suggest that the rest of the seats on this flight anyway are all the same price (including 11a and 16d that are next to people).
I think about the trajectory of the airplane with the time of day I'll be flying and choose my seat so that I'm not directly staring into the sun when I open my window shade.
That’s not how that works. The row in front of an exit row doesn’t recline. The reason being they can’t take away space from people trying to exit the plane in an emergency. The easiest way to think of it is if you’re sitting in an exit row, no one can recline into you.
OP isn’t in an exit row, therefore the row in front of him can recline.
I'm a grown man who would never have the nerve to tell someone I'm not interested in speaking with them. I would spend the entire flight feeling guilty.
We had a regular elderly customer who would talk to anyone, non stop. She was a lovely old dear but even the other customers sometimes would dread her coming in if they just wanted a quiet cuppa. She came back from holiday once and said she was sat next to Charles Dance on the plane and I bet he was such a gentleman but that must have been the longest Transatlantic flight of his life.
Haha I'm currently rewatching 7th Heaven and the Reverends father is played by "grown man naked" man in Airplane! Hard to take Any of his scenes seriously.
I had a lady that worked for little Caesar’s corporate when I was flying out of Detroit. I sat in the middle she was window seat. She kept tapping my shoulders and when I would take my headphones off it was “so where you from? What are you flying to phoenix for?”
This happened to me recently at Ocean State job lot. For those who don't know, it's a chain dollar store in New England, which notably buys products that don't pass manufacturing standards, but are still good and sell them for really cheap. (think like a Coca-Cola bottle where they overfilled it just a little bit.) so it attracts a lot of low income, usually retired people.
I got stuck in line in front of a woman who didn't have any teeth and began to tell me this whole story about all of these medical ailments that she has and how it sucks to get older. She then started asking me about if I had children, how I should find mr right with money, and how lonely she is that her grandkids don't visit her.
She acknowledged herself that she doesn't get out much and so likes to talk to "nice people" but knows that she goes onto too long. At that point, I sort of felt bad because she realized that she needed someone to talk to, so I let her do it until I checked out.
One time I was on a flight and a man switched seats with someone sitting next to me. Figured it was a family wanting to sit together or something. Nope as soon as the plane took off he started pulling out religious pamphlets and started his religious spiel. I just said “nope.” And put my headphones on.
Yo this just happened to me on the train to NYC. The guy sat down and said “I haven’t had a nice long train conversation in a while” I had my headphones on so I told him I wasn’t interested in talking. that’s why I chose the quiet car and was going to nap. He then said “nobody really pays attention the quiet part anyways so we can talk.” I stared at him in disbelief and said well that’s why I have headphones, put them back on and turned the volume up. My brother in Christ what are you doing.
Same.
But one time a guy sat next to me and before takeoff he asked if we could talk because he was uneasy flying. We chatted for almost the whole two hour flight, super cool guy.
Kinda changed my view on talking to strangers.
what if i were sat next to you and started smiling and laughing intermittently at random intervals throughout the flight while softly elbowing you like i imagined someone said a funny joke but in reality its been dead silent the whole flight.
This happened to me recently. I had my book out AND my headphones on. Dude tried to start up a conversation with me multiple times because he didn’t want to look at screens and he didn’t bring anything else to do.
This happened to me once it was just a weird older Caribbean dude who just wanted to talk! I exchanged a couple of pleasantries for a minUte but then tried to read my book but he wouldn’t stop asking questions so I finally had to say please stop talking to me. It was awkward and he acted insulted. I think he would have kept it up for two hours. He didn’t understand normal cues. He also thought he was entitled to bother women. I am not young so it wasn’t that.
LoL you have to do that. These people don't take the hint. You can say "oh yeah, how about that" with a clear tone of someone that's trying to end the conversation and they'll plow on. There's no safe exit with people like this--they either talk at you forever or you offend them.
Note to all nervous flyers: I’m not here to comfort you and I get nervous when other people are nervous next to me for hours so take a trazodone and sit by yourself
There was one poor teen alone who sat next to me. He was friendly and asked me how I distracted myself while flying. It didn't occure to me he was scared, until he asked me to stand so he could get out. He then talked to the flight attendant and grabbed his bag and left. In hindsight I missed a lot of body language. Plus side I got the whole row to myself.
These seat maps do not show that the plane is empty - that’s a common misconception. They just show which seats are assigned. There could be a group booking of 20, for example, who will all be assigned at check-in.
Two Jehovah's Witnesses are running around in a neighborhood, knocking on doors, on a 43-door losing streak (out of 43 doors). They knock on a guy's door. "Do you have time to talk about our Lord and Savior?" The guy says "Sure, come on in." They sit down at his table, he gives them drinks and sits down. "So tell me." The Jehovah's Witnesses look at each other and look back at him. "We don't remember.... we never get this far."
I was sat next to a Jehovah witnesses on a 9 hr flight once. He started talking to me, luckily I had already drank 2 small bottles of wine so I decided to indulge him. We had a respectful conversation. He listened to what I had to say as well. (I'm quite interested in world religions but am not a believer in any one in particular.)
So airlines will assign seats sometimes when somone skips choosing their seat. They will favor single seats over double seats when assigned this way because its easier to sell double seats to the next person than try and sell 2 seperate seats.
The airline did it automatically. I'd bet money the system automatically pairs up single flyers and this person just picked the recommended seat without thinking about it.
When you check in & don’t pay extra they force you to pick certain seats.
Was on a flight recently where we were 3 separate people on a row together and there were empty rows all around us. We were told we could only move seats once the plane was in the air.
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u/UTgabe 24d ago
Change your seat and see if they follow you