Back in school, we all have been taught to give up our seats while taking public transport to certain groups of people such as pregnant women, children, the disabled, or the elderly.
A man’s well-intended gesture of kindness was ‘rewarded’ with hostility and an outrageous claim that he was looking to outrage the modesty of a woman who seemed to have trouble keeping her balance while on the LRT train.
Man taps SG woman’s shoulder to offer LRT seat
In a post shared on the subreddit r/singaporehappenings, a netizen shared that he and his girlfriend were taking the LRT train in Singapore when he noticed a woman and her young daughter were struggling to stand inside the moving train.
Seeing their difficulty to keep their balance, the OP wrote that he and his girlfriend rose from their seats and that he proceeded to lightly tap on the woman’s shoulder to let her know that there was an empty seat waiting for her.
However, he wasn’t prepared for what came next.
‘No touching!’
As soon as the OP’s tapped the woman’s shoulder, her husband freaked out and began shouting ‘No touching! No touching!’ at him.
The OP also added that the woman’s husband rambled on by spewing comments that would make one super uncomfortable.
(He) said so many things like racial discrimination like ‘Just because it’s OK in your country to touch (a) woman in public means it’s ok to do that here in Singapore’.
“I was so tired that night that I don’t have the energy to argue and answered politely: ‘I just tap her back to offered my seat and I’m sorry for that,” he wrote.
Despite the OP’s apology, the woman’s husband continued to verbally harass him and ignored his daughter’s attempts to make him shut up.
Towards the end of the post, the OP said that he doesn’t plan to offer up his seat anymore in the future, adding that Singapore was a place where “no good deed goes unpunished”.
Netizens offer their sympathy
In the comment section, a majority of netizens were sorry for the OP’s unfortunate experience and tried comforting him by telling him that he did nothing wrong and advised him not to beat himself up over it.
They also slammed the woman’s husband for lashing out at the OP who wanted nothing but to do a kind deed.
What do you think of this incident? Let us know in the comments!
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