Guy who takes up both armrests on plane has the audacity to complain about his neighbour's size
Let's get this straight. Texting mean things about someone when they're sitting next to you and within eyeshot of your phone is a despicable thing to do.
One woman flying to Los Angeles witnessed her neighbour texting mean things about her size, despite the fact he was actually taking up more room than her.
Natalie Hage posted an account of her ordeal on Instagram, stating that as soon as she sat down, the gentleman to her left began "loudly huffing, sighing and readjusting himself in his seat".
"I see him furiously texting and purposefully turning the phone away from me," wrote Hage.
The next time the man texted, Hage snuck a look and discovered that the texts were about her. Hage says the texts were "mean and ugly" and she feels "positive" he took photos of her. "If you can't read the texts, it says 'hopefully she didn't have any Mexican food' and his response is 'I think she ate a Mexican'. Then he proceeds to say he's leaving a 'neck mark on the window' because he's so smashed against the wall," wrote Hage.
"From the photos, you can see I'm not in his space. He's even taken over both arm rests on purpose, coming to my space and digging his elbows into my side...which is in my seat," Hage continued.
Hage says the next text she saw said: "If the news reports a DFW airbus A321 leaving the runway without rotating, that would be my flight."
Hage says she was "so upset" and has just been "crumpled into a ball" in her seat "trying not to bother".
"This is a fat person's daily reality and not just on a plane. This is on a bus, standing in line at the grocery store, at a concert, on the internet," she wrote.
Hage later confronted the man over his behaviour and posted a video of the interaction on Facebook. The man apologised to her for his text messages and said that he had been drinking, but added he did not believe she was equipped to help people off the flight in the event of an emergency.
"You can be completely in your own space, not bothering anyone, and people will still fuck with you and try to hurt you," wrote Hage on Instagram.
Hage says all a person can do in that situation is "know you haven't done anything wrong just by existing".
"This just makes me a mixture of enraged and super sad," she continued.
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
