Selfish or Correct? Woman on American Airlines Queue Sparks Debate

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Have you ever seen somebody do something you felt was so wrong that it made you enraged, and yet their reasoning for doing it was 100% correct, all at the same time?

That’s what happened in what’s believed to be Ministro Pistarini Airport (EZE), in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at an American Airlines queue, not long ago.

Imagine standing on a queue to check in at the airport. The first person on line is called, so everyone moves up. The next person on line then gets called, so they go to the next available airline representative. This continues, person by person, wherein everyone moves up.

Except this one woman. Take a look:

This girl at the airport waits until the queue moves all the way forward to move. People confronted her and she said, “it’s the same if I move now or later.”

This was posted on Reddit’s r/ImTheMainCharacter forum not long ago. That’s the forum to show, as they call it, “People who act like they’re the center of the world.”

I don’t know if this woman thought she was the center of the world or not, but she certain caused over 5,000 replies in a very short period of time. A small percentage agreed with her because what she said WAS true – whether she moved then, or when she was next on line, the end result would be the same. But everyone else? Not so much. 😉

Here were some of the most interesting comments (comments edited only for adult language and brevity):

• I would straight-up go around her. — UrbanSunflower962
• (In reply to the above) Yeah I’m sure she would move up if she saw people starting to cut ahead.  — iBeenie
• (Also in reply to the above) I’d do it with my headphones in too lol. Just play dumb the whole time haha. — Hunter_S_Thompsons
• Eyebrows up too because she knows she’s doing something objectively wrong and feels smug — DHaas16
• This post is making so many British people so angry. — delysid2507
• (In reply to the above) david beckham queued up for 15 hours to pay his respects to the Queen. they offered him a speedy MVP lane but he declined it and said he’d rather wait in the regular, longer queue. thats how much british people love queues. — halfmeasure611
• Perfect. She’s neither right nor wrong. Doing something perfectly legal in an obnoxious manner — sterfri99
• the real reason for moving while in a queue is that if you just stand there, the queue will get longer and longer as there is no steady forward movement. eventually it will obstruct other pathways and annoy passerbys — CloudYdaY_
• It does get exhausting moving bags in a line like that if you have a lot. Leaving up to a 10 foot gap is fine, if you ask me. Better than the people obsessively moving up a quarter inch at a time until they’re so close you can tell what deodorant they’re wearing. That said, this is just too much gap. — cuteintern
• Shes not wrong – Alex4315Boom
• (In response to the above) Except she is wrong because not moving forward causes the line to back up even further. If someone parked on the freeway on-ramp because traffic was backed up in front of them, then refused to move forward, you wouldn’t say “it’s all the same”. — cat_prophecy
• (Also in response to the above) Yeah it causes huge problems for the back of the line wtf that doesn’t even make sense unless you are only thinking of yourself which is obvious here — One-Giraffe3105
• (One more in response to the above) Someone can be correct, whilst still managing to be the a-hole. — ControllablePsi
• I don’t understand why people would just wait behind someone being belligerent like this — hippiechan
• Don’t be a d**k for the purpose of being a d**k. — aaaaaaa1273
• You have to be behind the person in front of you to be in line. She’s decided not to be in line. Move around her so you can stay in line.
  There’s arguments to be made over whether it’s really necessary or not, whether it’s dependent on the situation, whether we should keep to set rules and take personal judgment out of it
  But at the end of the day we all know how lines work and if you f**k that up for pragmatism, you’re really causing more trouble for everyone who expects a line to work the way they know it to work. You don’t really get a benefit by waiting until later, so what’s even the point? — sonofaresiii
• Go under the barricade, walk around and go under to get in front of her a**. Do it slowly, and have someone behind her recording for when she finally looks up from her phone and sees a completely different person in front of her. That’s a f**king Tik Tok I’d watch on a loop haha. — infowosecfurry
• She loves how this bothers people. This is a psychopath having her meal. Energy vampire at work. — Funrunfun22
• In Germany, people would simply move past her. — (deleted)
• I assume it’s because of the amount of bags she has. She doesn’t feel like moving them every time she goes forward. That’s her fault. I’d call someone to make her move. Or, just wait till they notice how long the line is — Puzzled-Secret-317
• The most infurating thing is that I entirely disagree with her actions, I’d be pissed as well, but I can’t exactly explain why. — FlyingLotHus
• Chaotic Neutral. — I_am_That_Ian_Power
• (In reply to the above) Chaotic lawful. She’s following the rules just fine. — PyroSAJ
• (Also in reply to the above) If shes following the rules then she’s not chaotic. She’s lawful evil. — Adventurous_Move8524
• (another one replying to the one above) More like Lawful Disobedience. She’s respecting the law, but not following societal norms… Which just angers everyone else even though you’re right — MrFlyingKitty
• (And another) That my friends was what falls under lawful evil. Following laws and traditions but in ways that are selfish to the individual — bqx23
• (Yet another) Nah very much lawful neutral. Doesn’t care what others think, only loyal to her own code, but still a follower of the actual rules. Textbook lawful neutral. — crispytoasyum
• I was at the bank a couple weeks ago and someone was pulling this stunt. The bank teller said next and the lady doing this didn’t hear it and I told the people in front of me the a-hole was waiting on a specific teller and they all walked passed her. It was so funny watching the a hole lady’s eyes get super wide in shock. — FuhrerGirthWorm
• Strong “you’re not wrong, you’re just an a-hole” energy. — bailaobain
• I feel like if this happened in NY or NJ someone would just pick her stuff up and put it to the side and then walk past. — ironichaos
• (In reply to the above) New Yorker here. We wouldn’t move her stuff, we’d just walk past her. We might kick it out of the way, though. — PurpleGoatNYC (Note from Sharon, who is a native NYer – true story!)
• Unless there’s some hard physical stop at the end of that line that prevents more people from joining… it’s still not technically wrong. No one is getting delayed for their flight by someone waiting longer to move their position up. Especially if there’s still a blocker ahead of them.
  It’s just against social norms, and it makes people FEEL like they’re being delayed. — HarpoonNPuppies
• Resisting social norms is a power play for narcissists. — Crafty-Walrus-2238
• The one good thing about COVID was the stickers on the ground informing people on how to achieve adequate personal space! — dgksbt
• I’m American and it’s irritating as s**t. I’ll bet she sits in the front of the plane and takes 20 minutes to get her shit out of the overhead compartment when the plane lands. — The1BannedBandit
• Sometimes I wait for two “shuffle ahead” events before moving to give people behind me the feeling that the line’s making bigger progress — dontseeme
• it’s overly individualistic and selfish to expect 50+ people to conform to your norms which differ from the generally accepted norms — Sk-yline1
• When I was a kid, my friend used to walk extremely slow across the road on purpose. Note that the light was red for the cars and green for pedestrians. Man, I don’t know what but this would always trigger some d**k head to lay on the horn and tell him to move, even though it was go for pedestrian?! He would time it so that he’d reach the other side by the time the light turned green for the cars. This was good 20-30 years ago before ‘road rage’ was a thing and it was in Sweden! — biggysharky
• I don’t think i’ve been more low key miffed, than looking at this photo. — zelepukinralley
• I’m in Philly and I would lose my g**damn mind. — allisondojean
• I tend to let people move 4-5 feet, then pick up everything and move. The constant movement every inch is a pain in the ass. — cantgetoutnow
• She’s taking it pretty far but I’m 100% behind the principle. — (deleted)
• What if everyone in the queue decides to do the same. — KayySean
• i would wait until the end of the line got around to be past me across the barrier, then i would duck under the barrier. — uhohspaghettisos

Our thoughts

Personally, this woman would’ve driving me bats**t crazy. I’m a rule follower and may as well be British, for all that I appreciate and respect queues.

And yet, she wasn’t wrong. But still…I’d want to kill her, LOL!

What do you think?

Feature image: pxfuel

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary