to have felt this perfectly nice guy was maybe being a wee bit sexist?

[LoudRowdyDuck]

I'm not sure about this, really.

I've been to a talk today and everyone always breaks up to do informal chat afterwards. There's a man whom I know slightly, and he started talking to me about his research project, which is an area I am really interested in. So I listened. He did ask me what I did at one point, and I started to explain but was quickly cut off because he picked up on a detail of what I'd said and ran with it. I can see he's enthusiastic about his stuff, and that's nice. However, while we were standing there someone senior (a man) came and joined in the conversation, while a (female) friend of ours was standing with us politely listening (she'd been talking to me before the men showed up). The men proceeded to talk to each other, frequently talking over me.

I'm sure they were enthusiastic. I'm sure they were both really excited about the conversation, and I know that my friend isn't a specialist in this subject so wouldn't have much to say.

What I want to know is, if you were enthusiastically talking to a colleague an interrupting a prior conversation, would you think it was ok to ignore or minimalize input from the people who were there before? As it happens we were physically backed into a corner so couldn't easily leave, but in retrospect perhaps I should have been less bolshy and just walked away instead of trying to keep in the (useful, important for my work) conversation.

What do you think? Them being rude or me being a pushover/overly sensitive?

[ApocalypseCheese]

Does it reeaaaaaaallllllyyyyyyy matter ??

Maybe he just liked the guy more and was happy to find someone else to bore chat to

[TheBigZing]

Them being rude.

If you had have just walked away, that would have sent a subtle message that you 'know your place' and that you accept that male talk is more important than female talk.

Well done for not giving in.

[LoudRowdyDuck]

Yeah, Apocalypse, that's what I'm wondering really.

I mean, I did think it was rude but I really wanted to know what this guy thought, and I wanted to know what my mate, the woman, thought about it. And it was slightly annoying that I never got to ask those questions. I just felt a bit pissed off that they kept talking over me or asking me a question and then cutting in as soon as I disagreed. Meh.