I hate guys who sit with their legs wide open on the bus. It’s obnoxious and half the time there’s no reason for them to be doing it.

I boarded the 38B this morning, and there weren’t too many available seats. One guy sat in the aisle seat without shame, and the woman in the seat behind the one I ended up sitting in blocked the aisle seat with her bag.

Anyway, I sat next to this guy who had his legs spread out. Usually I can get a leg spreader to close his damn legs, but it didn’t work for me today. His right knee was pressed into me, so my first tactic in dealing with leg spreaders is to do the same thing—spread my legs also and press into them the way they press into me. Usually that embarrasses them to stop. Our knees made contact, but he didn’t budge.

Then I decided to be direct. “Can you close your legs please?” I asked. He obliged, but for two seconds. He opened his legs right back up.

“And you open them right back up,” I said, sarcastically. “Dag!”

As soon as the girl who was seat hogging behind me got off the bus, I took her former seat. (I can see why she was seat hogging—probably didn’t want a jerk like this guy sitting next to her!) The leg spreader went right back to opening his legs even wider than what they were after I moved.

I was hoping someone larger than this guy would board the bus, sit next to him and give him a taste of his own medicine, but it didn’t look like it’d happen.

The bus gets to Rosslyn, and a short older woman gets on the bus. She first sits in one seat, but then moves to sit next to the leg spreader. The leg spreader immediately closed his legs and sat closer to the window. How about that! She wasn’t bigger than this guy and didn’t do anything specific, but he finally started acting right. Good!

I know guys are going to come here and say “The seats are small and we need to open our legs to be more comfortable!” but I don’t want to hear it. This guy looked like he’d be no taller than 5’7” standing, and seemed to be one of those small (figuratively) men who thinks he’s big by spreading his legs open to make himself feel powerful over a woman. Men like that are weak and pitiful.

Though my encounter with this guy didn’t go well, I’m still going to continue to call them out on their crap.

Submitted by anonymous on 12/10/2010

Location: 38B Bus, VA

Time of Harassment: Day Time (9:30A-3:30P)

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