I was at a show in a very big, nice theater earlier this week. My husband and I got there very early and sat in our seats waiting for the show to start. About five minutes after it started, an usher showed in the people who had the seats next to me. A woman about my age (mid-twenties) sat down and left her big puffy, noisy coat draped across her lap. My husband was on my left, and we were sharing that armrest. I had my arm on the right armrest.

As the show progressed, the woman next to me started sighing loudly and squirming in her seat, making lots of racket with her swishy coat. Suddenly, she proceeded to shove her elbow into my arm and try to shove my arm off the armrest. I am very stubborn by nature, so I held my ground. We sat there for maybe ten minutes with our elbows pressed tightly together. Then she gave up for a while, and at ten-minute increments would shove my arm and force herself onto the armrest, and then give up. This happened all the way to the end of the show, for approximately an hour.

After this long and complex description of a mundane situation, my question in this: Was I wrong to maintain the armrest? Was it selfish of me to use one and a half armrests? Or is she the rude one? I’ve had plenty of times where I’ve felt that a stranger was being selfish and taking advantage of me, but I’ve never forced physical contact with them.

I totally understand if this is too weird and boring for the Vine, but seeing as how my husband now thinks I’m some sort of reckless arm-shoving vigilante, I’d like an outside opinion if I was out of line.

Thanks!
The Armrest Bandit