Throwaway, I’m on mobile, so sorry for formatting. I’m writing this from the airplane, seeing as this just happened a few minutes ago. 

My boyfriend and I are on a flight direct from California to Europe. It’s 10 hours... we left at 6pm Monday and are arriving at 12pm Tuesday in Europe. So a lot of our fellow passengers are taking advantage of this to catch some sleep. 

Bf and I are in window and middle seats, respectively. In the aisle there is (or was) a guy, probably in his 30’s. Pretty nice guy, was chatting with us before takeoff, etc. 

The entire flight, bf and I have been using the built-in entertainment systems provided by the airline to watch movies, track the flight, etc. since we aren’t tired and are terribly bored. Most other people have their screens off and are sleeping, but a few others are doing the same as us. 

About an hour ago, I noticed the guy next to me (aisle guy) was shifting, trying to find comfortable sleeping positions, alternative between putting a blanket over his head and taking it off. I didn’t think much of it, because I’ve done that too, and it’s never been because of light disturbance. I figured he was just trying to find a comfy sleeping position. 

So finally, about 5.5 hrs into the 10hr flight (12am California time, 8am Europe time) he gets up, finds a flight attendant, and moves. He wasn’t rude about it - when he came to get his stuff he said “no offense, I’m just switching seats because of the screens”. Apparently our screens were bothering him and he couldn’t sleep. 

The fact that that might have been an issue honestly never even crossed my mind, which makes me feel a bit asshole-ish. But at the same time I feel like it would have been unreasonable for us to not use our screens when we aren’t tired and can’t sleep and have nothing else to do. He didn’t ask us to turn them off, but I still feel like a dick for not even noticing and thus forcing him to move. 

Were we the assholes here? 