📝 AITA For not giving up my seat on public transport

By Electronic-Wind1503 • Score: 3 • April 14, 2025 6:33 AM


Me (18m) was on a train to university today (2 hour uninterrupted journey) and as I was getting to the platform of my second train came to know there was works being undertaken on the line and thus I needed to get a bus replacement from an appropriate station. So after ~1 hour i reached a suitable station where i could go on a bus to get me to the station which the train would have taken me to.

I was one of the first people on the bus due to being cutoff near the beginning of the line due to the previous bus reaching capacity before I was allowed on. Nonetheless I waited for the next bus and sat on a seat that was singular - towards the end of boarding a middle aged man (~40-50) also got on the bus but was standing right next to me. Before we said anything to each other his body kept swaying and putting his whole weight on me which did bother me but not enough to make an issue out of it. And continuously was staring at my phone and pointing at my smartwatch. I then looked at him and removed my headphones so I could hear if he was going to ask something and he proceeded to simply ask me if i would be on the bus for a while (fifth stop out of roughly 6 stops) and i let him know not really unfortunately. To then he replied you should let old men sit down instead of you and your young legs - keep in mind he did not ever ask me politely which if he simply did i would have been more than happy to give up my seat.

As i did not give up my seat he was obviously somewhat agitated and then proceeded for the rest of the journey to lean and put all of his weight on me exaggerating it whenever the bus approached a stop or turn. I'm aware it is easy to lose your footing on a bus but it seemed to be only me out of the five people near us he continuously fell on - but i ignored it. Later he pulled out one of my airpods and it landed on the ground so i told him not to touch my stuff and he proceeded to just tell me it looked like it was falling out. I then proceeded to only keep one airpod in for the remainder of the journey and i can hear him talking to other passengers (even though they are not responding to him) saying a a "fucking smartass" although he does not even know my name and is a grown man getting upset about not being able to sit down straight away on a bus - keep in mind there are no priority seats on this bus and i am a full fare paying customer.

AITA?

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