Man refuses to move from bench despite woman saying he made her uncomfortable, asks if he's wrong

Everyone is entitled to their own space, and especially women when you consider they feel unsafe in public places. This is further backed up by a survey that shows 81 percent of women experience sexual harassment in their lifetime. A man who refused to offer the space a woman had requested turned to Reddit to ask if he was in the wrong. "Am I the a$$hole for refusing to move from a bench at night cause this lady was uncomfortable?" asked u/ladyatstop. The 24-year-old man shared the incident and believed he was entitled to his space. 

"I get off late from work around 11 pm almost midnight. I do packing and shipping, it was an 8-hour shift was on my feet all day so I’m exhausted AF and just wanna get home. At the metro station where I catch the train, there is only one long bench to sit and this lady was already sitting on one side. She looked maybe like 30’s, not too old. So I sit on the other side of the bench. Not even that close to her cause I’m at the edge. She keeps looking at me until she asks if I mind. I ask her what she means. The lady tells me if I mind going somewhere else and I ask why," he wrote. 

She plain told him that she was uncomfortable. "She tells me we’re the only people at the station and she not comfortable with me being close to her. I look around again even though I know there are no other places to sit and I tell her sorry I won’t bother her I just really need to sit cause I’m tired from work. Then she asks would it really kill me if I moved somewhere else since the train gonna be there in 15 mins and I could sit then," he wrote. He wasn't ready to move away."This lady's not letting it go. I promise I won’t bother her. Like I didn’t even tell her anything or do something the first few minutes I sat down by her. This time she gets really mad and asks me to move," he wrote. 

He was kind of annoyed by insisting on him moving. "I tell her no and that I’m sorry, she doesn’t have to worry about me since I just want to sit somewhere after standing all day. After saying that, I put my headphones back on and looked at my phone. But saw this lady after a few mins get up and walk all the way to the other side of the platform and just stand there. Before she left, I did hear her saying “fucking jackass.” Didn’t think she would get this mad at me for not wanting to move," he added. 

"I get why ladies would be uncomfortable that late at night at a train station with some random guy but I wasn’t even paying attention to her at all. And didn’t wanna move cause again I was super tired. Still was I an asshole?" he asked Reddit. He also clarified that they were both wearing masks and maintaining a social distance. Many seemed to agree with him and argued that if she felt uncomfortable, she should have moved. Some even argued it's a public bench. "Absolutely not the a$$hole. If she didn’t feel safe, she shouldn’t have even spoken to you. She should simply have walked away without a backward glance and that would have been it," wrote one Redditor. While that appeared to be the general consensus, any look at crime stats and especially that of sexual assault and sexual misconduct will tell you why women don't feel safe in public spaces.