Imagine being a college student who needs quiet in order to study. You’d probably think the library would be the perfect place t go. What would you do if someone was talking loudly at the library?

Would you try to ignore it, go somewhere else, or confront the loud talker?

In this story, one woman is in this exact situation, and she chooses the third option. Now, she’s wondering if that was the wrong thing to do.

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

AITA for asking a woman to be quiet in the silent area of the library and ruining her presentation?

I really need a reality check here because I’m freaking out and feeling really guilty; I don’t know if I’m just exhausted and grumpy or I actually was horrible for this.

I’m a STEM college student and I get most of my work done (when in-between classes) in the library.

I’m AuDHD, and get irritated at small noises far more than most people on a good day, but I have only gotten 5 hrs sleep and I’m feeling like garbage today (unable to sleep from ptsd/anxiety, I’m responsible with time)

Most people know you’re supposed to be quiet in a library.

I ALWAYS work in the silent area of my uni’s library since I’m easily distracted/irritated by noise. This is a blocked off area with multiple “No Talking,” and “Silent Area” signs around, with private desks.

There are other parts of the library with large areas for group work, and another area for independent work that’s typically near-silent but doesn’t have rules about noise. I go there when I’ve had virtual meetings, and I’ve seen others do the same.

A woman sat a few spots away from me, and started recording a video on a presentation, I presume, for a final. She was talking louder than a general conversational tone, and it was getting under my skin to the point I couldn’t concentrate on my lab.

I noticed a couple of people letting out frustrated sighs and checked with another girl if it was bothering her too, since I know I’m ultra-sensitive to noise so I didn’t want to be the jerk who try’s to micromanage people’s lives and police rules that are socially acceptable to break/ignore temporarily.

She confronted the loud talker.

I went over to the talker’s table and waited until she had a paragraph break/breath, and put on my best nice/quiet voice and asked her if she could move since she was being disruptive and it was affecting my studying.

She told me, in an annoyed? tone, that she needed to finish the presentation and this is the only area quiet enough.

I directed her to the aforementioned quiet-but-not-silent area, and she packed up to move and told me I ruined her presentation.

She knows the woman was lying about being almost done.

Afterwards I turned back to walk to my seat, and she yelled at me “I had 2 seconds left if you let me finish I would have been done by now!”

She yelled other stuff about how I ruined her presentation and she “has to start over,” but I was too caught off guard to remember it.

The part about OnLy 2 SeCoNds LeFt really ticked me off since it literally wasn’t, I was listening to the speech and it wasn’t towards the end; that was a straight up lie and didn’t make sense to say.

She’s really stressed out about this interaction.

I didn’t reply but I feel really guilty.

I timed my speaking as to be easily edited out, but she sounded REALLY upset and I don’t know if I was unnecessarily being a jerk by ruining her presentation. I probably could have grinned and bared the noise until she was done, then try to focus again on my lab.

This happened about half an hour and I’m trying not to cry/panic and I’m worried I’m going to get in trouble over it, and I feel really guilty since I went out of my way to ruin her day so I’m probably being a jerk but I need outside input.

The woman who was talking loudly in the library was clearly the one in the wrong. There’s no excuse for that.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Here’s an explanation of why the loud talker got upset.

That woman never should’ve been doing a presentation in an area where you’re supposed to be quiet.

Another person is on her side.

There was probably a better place at the library to do a presentation.

If you’re going to be talking loudly, don’t go to the library.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.