Sat behind me at the cinema was a mother and two teenage girls having a conversation amongst themselves (with mostly Mother talking) and kicking the back of the seats.
Mother goes for a pee. The kids aren’t talking but at least one of them was still kicking the seats. I ask them “Please stop kicking the back of my chair” They do, all good.
Mother comes back, conversation resumes. I ask Mother “can you please shut up”. She gives a half hearted fake apology.
Daughter then tells Mother I spoke to her.
“Did you speak to my child?”
“Yes I did, I asked her to stop kicking the back of my chair.”
“But that’s ridiculous, my chair is the one behind yours…”
“Well someone behind me was kicking the chairs, I felt it and asked them to stop.”
“My god, are you that sensitive?”
“Apparently so.”
“Oh well make sure you don’t get too scared watching the scary movie.”
Conversation between them didn’t end I just couldn’t be bothered arguing further.
Movie ends, I think “I’m going to get an earful off this woman” so leave as soon as the credits start to roll.
As I’m leaving I hear Mother come out and say “excuse me”. I’m assuming she meant me, she was speaking to a girl behind the counter. I start to walk away. I then hear Mother say that a man abused her 14 year old daughter in there.
Counter-girl rightly had a horrified look on her face because of the liberal use of the word “abused”. I walk over and said “that would be me” and explain what I said to Daughter. Counter-girl then calls over her manager.
I let Mother speak to Manager and then explain my side.
Manager says something like “this is just a cinema” clearly can’t be bothered with this and I don’t blame him.
Mother asks if there’s CCTV in the screen, Manager says no. Then Mother walks away calling me a “bully” and a “horrible man”. I leave also.
So, AMITA?
This is why pirated movies are so popular.
You were a fool to identify yourself when this woman was talking about abuse. That could have ended badly for you.
I thought it would be best to nip that in the bud as soon as she said it because the cinema had my details due to me pre-paying for my ticket on my card.
Last thing I wanted was to get a knock on the door from the cops late at night talking about “abusing a girl” on my door step and then for the mother to worm her way out of it by saying “oh dear, I meant verbally abused, so sorry for the confusion…”
I haven’t been to a theater that doesn’t do assigned seating in years. They can likely see who was in the seat by payment method unless you go out of your way to not sit in your assigned seat or use a form of payment that isn’t tracked.
Next time get up and complain while the movie is still running.
More than one A but you are not among them! I don’t often see movies on the big screen, in part for fear of something like this. Think you handled it gracefully. I might have walked out immediately and asked for a refund.
NTA. However trying to get people to stop is almost impossible; you better off just getting up and finding a different seat.
