A woman travelling on an almost empty bus was subjected to a barrage of verbal abuse by a man after she moved away when he chose to sit next to her. The tense incident was captured on camera and has been widely shared across social media, most recently on Reddit.
Man follows woman after she moves seats
The woman, who was trying to get from A to B, got a shock when the man sat next to her and started trying to engage her in conversation. She got up and moved away, which angered him, prompting him to follow her and stand in the aisle next to her seat, chastising and insulting her for not wanting to sit near him.
In the footage, the man acts confrontational throughout, saying: “Why are you moving away? That’s rude.” When the woman tries to reply, he talks over her, adding: “What I’m hearing from you is ridiculous.” But she does not back down, telling him: “You literally chose to sit right next to me on an empty bus.”
Passenger intervenes
When the man asks what is wrong with that, the woman replies: “It’s weird.” She adds: “I don’t get why you care so much, you don’t even know me.” The man repeatedly tells her to “shut up” and accuses her of “thinking she’s better than” him and “coming with rudeness”.
Eventually, someone else on the bus – not visible on camera – intervenes, saying: “What’s the problem? [What] are you being rude to a woman for? Why are you being disrespectful?” The man hits back, telling the intervening passenger the situation “had nothing to do with” him, but the passenger responds: “She wants you to move away from her, so respect that.”
Social media reaction
In the comments section, fellow Reddit users shared their thoughts. One person said: “Being a woman is goddamn exhausting.” Another said: “Creep can’t handle rejection and argues with woman about it.”
A third commented: “Yeah, dude is either a creep or a pickpocket. Gets offended when caught so he argues to avoid accountability.” A fourth shared: “As a man, if I get on a bus and there’s one other person on the bus, I go and sit on the furthest corner from that one other person. Anybody who does what this man did, is pretty weird and dodgy.”
Someone else said: “Sitting next to someone on an empty bus is weird. Getting all upset and argumentative when they ask you to sit somewhere else is mental.” Another added: “We’re women, and often when we are faced with sticking up for basic human decency (boundaries, don’t touch me, my body doesn’t exist just for you, please leave me alone, if I say no I mean it, etc), often needs a male backup before the predator leaves us the f*** alone. Please do what the guy in the video did and SPEAK UP when you are witnessing this kind of behaviour. It’s so incredibly, exhausting and frustrating, but sometimes a man won’t back off until another man tells him to.” Others branded the man “a creepy predator.”
