If there's anything men do day-to-day that I find annoying, disrespectful, and totally unnecessary, it's "manspreading."
In case you don't know, manspreading refers to "the act or practice by a man of sitting with the legs spread wide apart (as in a public seating area) in a way that intrudes on the space of others." It often happens when men are seated next to women, and is pretty popular on buses, trains, or planes. Here's what it looks like:
But, are there circumstances where manspreading is understandable? That's what Reddit user u/Dr_Chekhov (or OP; for Original Poster) wanted to know when he asked in the Am I the A-hole subreddit if he was wrong for manspreading on a plane and encroaching on the seat space next to him.
Here are the details, according to OP:
"A few months ago, I was alone on a long flight, around six hours. I had a middle seat between a young woman (in her 20s) in the window seat and a woman (in her 30s) in the aisle seat. I'm tall and am never comfortable on planes. My knees always dig into the seat in front, and it can be quite painful. I usually try to take a walk around the airport before flights to stretch my legs, but neglected to this time. It was Spirit Airlines, so even less legroom than usual."
"About half an hour after takeoff, I found my left knee inching to the side for the sweet relief of open space — specifically, the no-man's-land in between seats, level with the shared armrest. But I wasn't paying attention to my knee the entire time. I'll concede it's possible that at some point I was occupying space that rightfully belonged to my window seat neighbor. All was well for about two hours."
"At this point, the woman in the window seat called over the flight attendant. She asked her something like, 'Could you tell him to keep his ****ing leg in his own ****ing seat?' With horror, I understood she was talking about me. I instantly retracted my leg in deep shame. She added something about 'his enormous d*ck' — my understanding was that it was meant to be a snide reference to the idea that spreading your legs is about male genital comfort. But she wasn't speaking very clearly, and the flight attendant didn't seem to understand her. The flight attendant asked her some sort of clarifying question, but she didn’t answer, and eventually, the attendant went away."
"I had been shocked into silence, but when the flight attendant left, I frantically began to apologize. But she refused to speak to me. She acted like she didn't hear me. Instead she started furiously texting on her phone. The aisle seat woman said she had some extra space on her side I could use, but then promptly went to sleep. Oh well."
"I tried again to apologize to the window seat woman, but again, she ignored me. I went from embarrassed to confused. I kept replaying it in my head, wondering why she didn't simply ask me to move my knee instead of calling over the attendant."
At this point, OP started looking at the woman's phone. "My defense is that I was baffled by her behavior and wanted answers. I didn't see all of it, but a significant portion was definitely about me; she wrote, 'Men really do be too much sometimes' with a laughing emoji."
"She ignored me the whole rest of the flight, and I ignored her. I got a good but painful workout of whatever muscle it is that keeps your knees together."
If OP was looking for any kind of reassurance or validation, he certainly didn't find it in the comments. In fact, the comment section was aflame with people agreeing that he was wrong in this situation. Some felt that since OP knows he's tall and this is something that's happened before, maybe he should make other arrangements:
"This is a known, reoccurring issue. You KNOW you will feel better with more leg space. Stop pinching pennies and pay for an aisle seat or an exit seat. There are options!"
"I'm a more average man at 5'11", and I always get an aisle seat or business class for the extra room. The window lady called the attendant for her protection, but also to shame you into compliance, and rightly so, you should be ashamed of your behavior. It sucks to be in your position, but you are knowingly doing so without improving your situation either, then imposing onto those women."
Others pointed out that the onus shouldn't be put on the woman next to him to tell him he's encroaching on her space — he should simply be respectful enough not to do it in the first place:
"By wanting the woman to tell you if she is bothered by your invasion of her space, you make it her responsibility instead of just not doing it. Women can feel too vulnerable to confront a tall guy (your own admission) by themselves, especially when they are stuck at the window seat and cannot exit if the guy gets angry. She didn’t call the attendant to tell you to move, she called her to have an authority figure to help her make a point."
"I'm a small woman, and men on plane flights CONSTANTLY shove their knees into my personal space, even when they have enough room to sit with their legs together. It's exhausting having to try to figure out if I should bother asking them to move, especially because I dislike conflict, and sometimes, they either get mad (and then I'm stuck sitting next to an angry person much larger than me for hours), or else fake an apology and then go back to doing it 10 minutes later.
If you physically can't fit into your space, I'm not going to get mad (yeah, maybe you should book a larger seat, but I don't know what your financial situation is or why you need to fly), but if you are able to fit, even if it's less comfortable, keep your goddamn body parts to yourself and don't put me in the position of having to ask for basic personal space."
Then, there was the issue of OP looking at the woman's phone after the incident:
"In writing up this incident, he added that he was snooping and what level of snooping. It wasn't an accidental glance; he knew what she was watching for three hours, what she wrote in text, and names. That's incredibly rude and invasive. What she watched, what she texted, was none of his business. If he's a functional adult, he can control his eyes and control where he looks."
And finally, someone made this ~very~ interesting point about one of the details in OP's story:
"The fact that he claims he 'worked out' the muscles that keep his legs together shows this is something he does all the time. It shouldn't be tiring to keep your damn legs in your space."