Q. At the theatre a few nights ago with a
group of friends, I was seated directly behind one friend’s 19-year-old daughter. She had a plastic water bottle from which she proceeded to drink throughout the first act. I found the continual jerky movements in front of me somewhat distracting, and politely requested her to to keep still. Alas she refused, and continued to drink her water. This inconsiderate behaviour was upsetting, and I would much appreciate your view on how best to deal with this situation.
B.M.F, Australia A. Nineteen-year-olds do not necessarily mean to annoy — new research shows that their developing brains make them particularly inconsiderate at this age and their egocentricity is more a biological than a moral problem. Someone behind them is out of sight and therefore out of mind. Someone facing them is a different story. Since there is no doubt that those on stage would find the jerky movements amid the sea of faces even more distracting that you did, a better policy, therefore, would be to lean forward and hiss, ‘I’m afraid the performers are finding your movements with the bottle very distracting.’ The Batemanesque response from other theatre-goers nearby would see to it that she stopped the nonsense straight away.
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