People should ask. I was sharing an armrest with an older man on a flight but instead of only taking up half the small cup space, he took up the whole thing. When my drink came I was holding it in my hand because I had nowhere to put it unless I pulled the full tray table out. I had hoped that he had enough awareness to realize he was taking up shared space but nope. I had to finally ask him to move his trash so I could put my glass down. Just weird.

Why do people take off their shoes on a plane? It’s absolutely disgusting.

I’ve had this happen to me and it’s never been discussed, we always just shared the middle space pretty evenly and easily as though it were an unspoken rule. Wild to me that anyone would assume they are entitled to more than half of the free space.

My opinion is it would have been great if she asked, but it would not be a big deal if she didnt. If you wanted to claim part of it, like use the table for your snacks too, or the space on the floor for your shoes or stuff, you can just let her know that you’ll share the space with her. It doesnt have to be bad. Sometimes, we can be preoccupied with everything that we forget to be on our best behavior, and we can appreciate gentle reminders to be more polite and ask in the future.

This exact scenario happened to me on a flight and that’s the day I learned my stare is very powerful lol. She withdrew. Get your bare feet away from me