So here's the situation. I'm sitting on the subway on my way in to work (Boston, red line) reflecting on my disaster of a weekend that ended at highland with a dislocated shoulder and trip to the hospital for reinstallation. At about the second station in to the city, a 350lb+ beast of a woman decides to take the 2 seats next to me. Since there is no way she can squeeze her continent sized ass into the space a normal person might occupy and they are the last seats on the train she muscles two other people out of the way and plops down, smashing into my shoulder and arm which are in a sling. I pass this off as minor collateral damage as it didn't really hurt and it probably wasn't physically possible for her stop that much weight moving forward without some other outside force acting upon it.
She immediately pulls out her smartphone to mindlessly stare and poke at like everyone else on the train. A couple of minutes later I notice she is starting to hold the phone up and sort of wave it around in front of her face. I happen to glance over at the phone and see the familiar faces of the entire row of people in front of me in digital form on the screen. I then watch for the next five or so minutes as she tries to covertly takes pictures of everyone around her on the train. She even flipped it onto webcam mode to get the peoples faces next to her. Ill admit I was fully creeping on her creeping at this point and also saw her save every one of the photos, and that there were 800+ OTHER PHOTOS that all seemed to be of people in public.
So she is still next to me when we get to my stop. Up to this point I haven't said anything to her, I'm the only one that seems to know that she's taking the pictures and I feel that the people on the train deserve to know as well. So as I stand up to get off I loudly say something along the lines of "I don't appreciate you sneaking and saving pictures of me on your phone like that, and I'm sure these people (points to other row of seats) don't as well." Her face immediately turns beet red and she just shook her head. As I was stepping out I said "Don't shake your head at me, you know exactly what I'm talking about, DELETE them." The death stares she got from the people sitting near her were priceless.
So, I thought about this after and realized I probably just destroyed any amount of self confidence this (very large, bad smelling) woman had. But at the same time I couldn't stand what she was doing. I understand she has the right to take the pictures but I also have the right to let her know how I feel about it. So who's the a-hole here? The woman for taking the pictures, or me for calling her out?
She immediately pulls out her smartphone to mindlessly stare and poke at like everyone else on the train. A couple of minutes later I notice she is starting to hold the phone up and sort of wave it around in front of her face. I happen to glance over at the phone and see the familiar faces of the entire row of people in front of me in digital form on the screen. I then watch for the next five or so minutes as she tries to covertly takes pictures of everyone around her on the train. She even flipped it onto webcam mode to get the peoples faces next to her. Ill admit I was fully creeping on her creeping at this point and also saw her save every one of the photos, and that there were 800+ OTHER PHOTOS that all seemed to be of people in public.
So she is still next to me when we get to my stop. Up to this point I haven't said anything to her, I'm the only one that seems to know that she's taking the pictures and I feel that the people on the train deserve to know as well. So as I stand up to get off I loudly say something along the lines of "I don't appreciate you sneaking and saving pictures of me on your phone like that, and I'm sure these people (points to other row of seats) don't as well." Her face immediately turns beet red and she just shook her head. As I was stepping out I said "Don't shake your head at me, you know exactly what I'm talking about, DELETE them." The death stares she got from the people sitting near her were priceless.
So, I thought about this after and realized I probably just destroyed any amount of self confidence this (very large, bad smelling) woman had. But at the same time I couldn't stand what she was doing. I understand she has the right to take the pictures but I also have the right to let her know how I feel about it. So who's the a-hole here? The woman for taking the pictures, or me for calling her out?