Passenger Praised for Reason She Invaded Man's 'Personal Space' on Train

A woman has shared on Reddit how she was caught in an altercation on a train when a man wasn't respecting the rules of the 'quiet carriage.'

In a post that has received more than 13,000 upvotes, the user u/NandosIsNotCheeky shared her dilemma.

"I live in the U.K. [and] we have quiet sections on trains," she wrote. "I booked my ticket specifically so I could do work on a table in the quiet section on my laptop."

Sat with her friend on the four-hour journey, the woman was shocked when a passenger came into the carriage and disrupted their peace.

A survey of 820 passengers published in the Shanghai Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2021 showed rail transit was noisy, and much much so in the carriages than at stations.

"A man was sat next to me and about 15 minutes into the journey, starts watching Friends out loud on his iPad," the Reddit poster wrote. "I put my headphones in but it was loud enough that I could still hear it. My friend and the person sat next to her were just giving him dirty looks, but he was oblivious and munching away on his sandwich."

After a while, the poster asked: "Excuse me, would you mind turning that down just a little bit please?"

"He said no. Literally one word, no," she wrote. "Then I mentioned that it was the quiet section of the train and he laughed at me and said 'are you go gonna tell on me?'"

As the man continued to watch the TV comedy, the woman calmly closed her laptop and decided to watch with him—loudly commenting on the show, too.

"Omg I love this bit," she said, and "watch the next part, it's soooo funny." The man didn't comment but looked irritated.

Before long, he slammed the iPad case shut, grabbed his bag and left the carriage—presumably to find another seat somewhere else on the train.

However, the woman's friend told her that she felt the poster had been a little bit rude to the man and invaded his personal space.

"I didn't touch him or move from the confines of my seat at any point, and she was like no but watching someone's iPad is an a****** move," explained the Redditor.

Etiquette expert Jacqueline Whitmore told Newsweek: "I think both the man and the woman were in violation of the quiet car rules. Firstly the man, by playing his iPad too loudly; then the woman, by engaging in a lively conversation with the man."

In more than 1,400 comments, users reacted to the dilemma and sided with the woman.

One comment read: "He wanted Friends, he got a friend."

Another agreed: "He chose to make watching his TV show a public activity. In doing so, he opened himself up to public participation."

"First, the woman did the right thing by asking politely for the man to turn down the volume," said Whitmore. "After he refused, she could have moved to another seat, alerted the conductor, or both.

"But she didn't. Instead, she participated in his rude behavior, adding fuel to the fire. Therefore, he removed himself from the situation to avoid any more conflict," Whitmore added. "Etiquette is being mindful of how your behavior affects others. These two people were clearly in violation of this etiquette rule."

Newsweek has reached out to u/NandosIsNotCheeky for comment. We were not able to verify the details of this case.