My Theater Buddies

My father wanted to go to the movie on his birthday. At first, I found this request incredibly weird. My dad asking to go to the movie for this birthday is like me asking to go to Academy Sports for mine. It's an activity that I don't hate, but certainly not a decision I would intentionally make.  He claimed it was because he wanted movie popcorn for his birthday dinner, but I honestly think he just wanted to make my mom happy and go see "Promised Land" for her.

So that's how I found myself on the King's Birthday seeing a movie with my mom and dad on a random Tuesday night. There was no one at the theater when I met my parents there except for a few people who were going to see Les Miserables. We had the entire theater to ourselves, which was kind of cool. My dad always like to sit on the first row in front of the metal bars, which in my opinion is entirely too close to the screen, but hey....his birthday, his choice.

We are sitting there, chatting through the forever long previews when this woman walks in, holding a huge bag of popcorn. She looks around the empty theater, takes a breath, and walks to the front row where we are sitting. And only pausing for a small moment, she sits down two seats over from me. 

"How weird" I say to myself. Out of an entire theater, she decides that she wants to get up close and personal with me. I think that she's probably got some sort of anxiety issue and needs to be around people when she sees movies alone or something random like that, and I refocus my attention to the Diet Coke ad in front of me. 

A few minutes later, a man comes in the theater, sees the lady and nods with recognition. He then proceeds to join us on our row, and sit RIGHT NEXT TO ME. 

Now, let me preface, these people had every right to sit that close during the movie. Had it been a Friday night or even a midnight premiere, I'd be perfectly accepting. But it was a Tuesday night in a B-movie in an empty theater. Out of probably 400 seats, these people sat down right next to me.

I have theories.

1) They are communication professors doing an experiment on non-verbal communication and the art of expressing awkwardness.

2) They are Amish people who had snuck out to go to the flick but felt weird being by themselves and needed to surround themselves with other humans.

3) They are just really odd people who have no social cues.

I'm sure there is a deeper message to be found in my encounter with my movie buddies. But I just thought it was weird and wanted to share. Perhaps you have some deeper insights?

I think I'll try sitting next to someone the next time I go to a week day movie.