A Social Dilemma

I read somewhere, I don't remember where, that being fat is like being invisible. This is the way an obese person described it. Apparently, since people are trained "not to stare" at people who look out of the ordinary, they end up avoiding eye contact altogether. So if you look like you "have a problem" nobody acknowledges your existence as you walk down the street — no eye contact, no human signal of any kind. It's as if you didn't exists. That's what I read, anyway. There is a young handicapped woman that I occasionally see when I take the bus to campus. As people get on ahead of her they all move to the back, ostensibly to leave room for her wheelchair1 in the front. This essentially leaves her alone in the front half of the bus, facing forward, so that she can't see anything or anyone except the back of the driver's head. Remembering what I had read in the past, I decided to sit in the front. In this part of the bus the seats are sideways, meaning that they face toward the center, not forward. This means that my legs were taking up room in the aisle. As she drove past me she apologized for forcing me to move a bit so that she could pass. Clearly she had no need to apologize, I was in her way; I should have been apologizing. Yet, because she did apologize, I felt that she must have been thinking2 either, "Is this guy blind? Can't he see he's in my way?" or "I hate being in a wheelchair. I'm always in people's way". Neither result is good. So was it wrong for me to sit in the front? What do I do? Do I get in her way? Or do I pretend she doesn't exist like everyone else? 1. Pardon my insensitive language. I meant mobility aid. 2. Obviously she was probably just being polite, but like I said, this is what I felt.