essential pepper: Fighting for elbow room at the movie theatre

Have you ever been sitting, quietly minding your own business in the movie theatre when someone drops in the seat next to you and just takes over that armrest you just deposited your drink into? How RUDE! I was here first!

What would you do?

Would you, in a passive-aggressive kind of way, place your elbow at the back of the armrest and progressively move it up so it pushes the elbow out of your staked territory?

Would you remove your drink out of its tray and place it on the other side? Assuming no one else has taken it first.

Would you just tell the person off?

Would you just suck it up stick your elbow in and hope they don't backwash in your drink?

Or would you totally move to another seat?

The majority of movie theatres have rules for turning off or silencing pagers and cellphones. They also request that you throw your own garbage out. Makes sense. BUT, why are there no rules for elbows????

First of all there is only 1 armrest between the two seats. Perhaps if they made two armrests (OK make them thinner so there would not be a loss of theatre seating) then the simple massess like us would be able to share, no problemo.

Second, respect the 1 seat seperation rule. People, understand that if I am sitting in a half empty movie theatre, don't cross the theatre, come up to the row I am sitting in and plunk yourself down right next to me.

BTW to those that come in late, please don't expect others to move so that you and your friends can sit altogether. Get there earlier like the rest of us.

Everyone has a social distance. This distance can range depending on the culture, intimacy, friendship and other factors. For certain, movie theatre seating can violate this distance making people uncomfortable in close proximity to others. If people were to realize, accept and respect this it would make the experience more enjoyable.

So in conclusion GET OFF MY ARMREST!

Other movie etiquette...wrappers!