I hate hate hate being told what to do! I've spent most of my life in US but now I live in a different country. Here, the elders are above everyone else. I also originally belong to this culture but I always hated the elder younger crap because in my dysfunctional family, my elder sister always used that against me, for ex. Go get me a glass of water, she'd say and if i didn't want to, then I was bad because I didn't listen to my elder (in her opinion. my parents just followed because they didn't want her ranting around).

Anyhoo, now that I'm here... let me say what the REAL ISSUe is.

So, the city I'm living in right now has loads of public parks, government owned. A lot of times, some people try to boss others around in the park. It really bugs me.

Today, at this one park, there are two sections of benches, you can move the benches around. One section the elder ladies sit, and the other the elder men. Today, the sections weren't very divided and there was a bench in one odd corner that I sat in. I had my legs up on the other bench, so i was using 2.

The elder grandpa sent the gardner to move the benches who told me to move. I let him take the bench I had my feet on but I didn't want to move from the bench I was sitting in. Then the older grandpa came and said "well ladies sit there, you should go there, we need this bench this is for men".

okay first of all there are no such divisions in ANY park in this country, people just make divisions based on daily socialization.

I didn't want to move to the ladies section, I wanted to relax ALONE. What should I have said to him?

I told him that I'll be leaving soon, and he can have the bench then.

Don't you think that's a bit absurd to make me get up and go somewhere I dont want to?

The dilemma here is, if i stand up for myself and say I'm going to sit here, they'll hate me and say how rude of a young person i am to not respect elders and make it a whole community neighborhood story, hey that's the girl that didn't move when asked! shame!

The other side is where I can get up to save my so called "reputation" from getting spoiled but then I get angry on the inside that I moved because someone said so. Then, tomorrow someone else is going to say something and I'll move again. I feel like a wuss.

I need help! Would anyone in my place have done the same and not left their seat or would they have moved?

If you would have stood up for yourself, can you help me deal with this inner guilt and feeling like my reputation is now ruined because I'm a bad youngen??