Uncomfortable

I went to the UCAP Conference on Saturday. I will be sharing details elsewhere. I wanted to share an experience while I was there that made me think of this blog. I had gone into one of the rooms for a session. The room was already pretty full. People had started to sit on the floor and stand against the walls. I just wanted one seat. I was almost out of options when I noticed a seat that might not have been claimed. I asked about it and sure enough - no one had claimed it yet. There was a guy standing in the isle that informed me that his jacket was on the seat he was going to use but that the seat next to that was empty. He was kind of on the bigger side - but, I didn't really think much about it. I then walked over all the people to the middle of the row. I hadn't realized - until I was about to sit down that the man that would be sitting on the other side of me was big enough that he was already using part of the chair I would be using. So, I took the rest of the seat and started to get ready for the session to start. I'm not sure if there was a way at that point to politely back out of the decision I had made. The next thing I knew - the other guy was taking his seat and I felt like I was in the middle of an airplane middle of the row nightmare. Ok. So maybe at that moment I didn't quite get to the nightmare stage. But, I did notice there was an issue. The couple next to the guy that had just sat down were obviously associated with him somehow because they offered to let him scoot towards them more. He quickly disconnected his seat from mine and scooted over saying something about how that would be better. He has obviously realized that three overweight people were not going to work very well in three seats that were so close together. So, during the whole session I was doing my best to keep myself as small as possible - taking up the least amount of room as possible. Ugh. It was uncomfortable for all of us I think. The man that had already been sitting down leaned forward partway through the lecture. He also seemed to do his best to keep his arm in front of him instead of at his side. I should have used a little foresight and not sat down where I did. I'm guessing both of those guys were hoping the seat in between them would go unnoticed. But, surprise. I decided to sully their experience for them. Sorry guys. I'm sure they would have been just fine with my sitting there if I had been smaller and fit just right in two-thirds of a chair.