Dear Eric: I play Mahjong with senior citizens several times a week at a local Barnes & Noble. One day our group needed two tables, and one table had stuff sitting on it, along with a backpack on the floor with no one around. I moved it to the table right next to it because we needed that specific size table and there were many other open tables around us.

When the young man finally came back, I apologized and said, “Sorry to move your stuff, but we needed this table, and you were nowhere around.” He then told me it was rude to touch his stuff. Many of the ladies agreed with him, so I wonder if I was wrong.

But the way I look at it is, you can’t expect someone to save a table and then walk around for an hour and expect no one to want the table. Also, I have come many times early and sat at a table to “reserve” it and never left my stuff on it expecting no one to move my stuff if they needed the table. What do you think?

– Game Play Rules

Dear Rules: I think you shouldn’t have touched another person’s belongings. Coffee shops, bookstores and spaces where we gather can be catch-as-catch-can when it comes to seating. But the general rule is that if your stuff is on the table, it means you intend to come back to it in the place you left it. Your need for the table didn’t supersede his need. It would’ve been better to make-do with another table until he returned, then ask him to move.

That said, if he really was gone an hour, it’s rude of him to camp out on a table. Everyone here could have made a more conscientious, community-minded choice.

Read more Asking Eric and other advice columns.

Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.