Annoyed by random man incidents

I had a horrible man refuse to move when I was running on the canal towpath. I always run on the left hand side of the path, I was brought up to think you walk on the left, and on this occasion the water was on my left. An older man and his family were walking 4 abreast down the path towards me. Four!! He saw me and immediately started to point and mouth off about the path being for WALKERS. It's not, it's for everyone and actually forms part of a National cycle route which I use to commute to work.

Anyway, I had nowhere to go as the water was on my left! I stopped and he STILL barged into me as he went past!

I yelled to him that he could fuck off with barging people as he carried on striding ahead. How were his family not embarrassed?!

Had a weird and annoying thing like this on a train the other day. I was sat around a table with my two DC (pre booked seats), there obviously was one spare seat at the table, but loads of other spare seats in the carriage, some pairs of spare seats next to each other, (quiet on the train for once!) Anyway random man chooses to sit at the table with us, not because he needs a table (didnt use the table at all). He then coughs and splutters constantly for the rest of the journey. Didnt cover his mouth once. I was seriously considering moving us but it would have meant splitting us up. Why the hell did he do this?

I tend to have my (pointy) elbows strategically placed to be the first point of contact with anyone who jostles me (particularly useful when on public transport).

What tend to happen to me as that some men will be walking toward me on the other side of the pavement and deliberately change path so that they are now on a collision course with me. I know some people weave but this had happened so often and yep it’s always a man. They tend to quietly shift back to the other side when the realise I’m not moving though.
Men walking walking past so close that when I don’t stop dead I kick them just by walking. So I assume I’m just supposed to stop dead? Or maybe some men are not very spatially aware. God help us if they can drive.

oh and cheer up love. I must be to old for that now but when I was younger every. bloody. day.

I was waiting at a temporary cab rank outside Birmingham New Street years ago - relevant because it was on the street and there were people walking by rather than it being a separate area. The cabbies knew it was where the cab rank was and one pulled up next to me so I could get in. Random man appeared from nowhere and started yelling that I had nicked “his” cab. He hadn’t been waiting by the sign. Just seen a cab, stuck his hand out and assumed when it stopped it was for him. Cab driver said he’d stopped for me. I said I’d been waiting by the sign for the first cab and it was mine. Fair enough he hadn’t seen the sign but the instant aggression was remarkable. It was also followed by a refusal to back down. Unfortunately for him I was travelling for work and had a giant wheely bag. Opened the cab door and whapped the suitcase in, possibly barking Cab Stealer’s shins on the way, who can tell. Yelled very loudly “how dare you try and steal my cab”, leapt in and off we went.

@FoxBaseBeta that's probably because a lot of men do expect women to get out of their way (catch 22 I know).

I had a big man in a car be an absolute knobhead in a small car park recently. He was pulling out of a space, I had just arrived, so hung back giving him plenty of space to manouever so I could eventually drive past him and into the space he was vacating. He didn't like that I didn't drive past him (to the full spaces in the rest of the car park!) in the split second that he paused reversing for me to do so, and he decided that I was stopped In His Way and had a paddy about it. He reversed at speed, hitting the Range Rover behind him, got out to check it, got back in, got out again to storm over to me to shout at me for being in his way (I wasn't, I was hanging back giving the guy some space, and when he was eventually going to be facing the exit/entrance I could have moved forward to pass him & let him past), got back into his car and drove forward with anger so that he hit the car in front this time, came back over to swear at me (at which point I did lose my otherwise calm and polite facade and raised my voice to tell him in these exact words "Go Away you silly man"). Third time was a charm and he managed to complete his manouever and race out of the car park while leaning on his horn. I held my breath waiting to hear a crash shortly down the road, but happily none happened. I was left shaken up though, all because A Man blamed me for his temper.

That is so fucking weird. I just cannot see why anyone would think that is a good or reasonable idea.

It reminds me of a time that I went to the gym and did squats for the very first time. My bf told me exactly what to do as I was nervous of doing it wrong and people watching. For some reason I did it side on to the squat rack as the safety bars were in the way, or so I felt. A guy came in. Looked at me. Said nothing. I went home and told my bf proudly but he told me I wasn't supposed to be sideways. I was mortified. The guy that saw me was part of a group of three that trained there and one was really nice and friendly, not in a weird way. I saw them the next day and said I was so embarrassed he saw me and he said he didn't want to interrupt and tell me as "you looked in the zone and were doing your thing. It still got the job done".

They are the only men I've felt comfortable in the gym around. I wish more men were like them. It's 10 years on and I've had so many ask how many sets I have left or try to tell me how to improve. I don't mind if it's clear they know better but they never seem to. I have also had women ask how many sets I have left. It's not an unreasonable question but it can be asked in an unreasonable way.

@Springpug my god, that bus story - what a horrible experience. It reminds me when I first read the insane statistics of the percentage of woman who have been sexually assaulted.

My initial reaction was to be sceptical but I sat down and thought back over the years, I’ve been grabbed in the street and told I was going to be raped, trapped in an enclosed space with flashers, some of whom were wanking, terrified by various cab drivers and of course harassed and followed in the streets too many times to count. My daughter casually mentioned at the weekend that she always gets a friend to go with her to the car wash because the male attention makes her so uncomfortable.

It really is shocking what women face.

DH and I both go running and we're always mindful to be the ones to move out of the way. I have to regardless as people carry on walking 2/3 abreast at me, but DH has always said it's striking how often people naturally move out of his way quite a distance ahead. He's a fairly small skinny bloke so doesn't look in any way imposing, but as he's a man running people just assume he'll run straight at them..

But men are in a hurry - they have IMPORTANT things to do!

Unfortunately, lesbians still have to deal with random men in the wild too! We can just avoid them in our homes.

My boyfriend moans about this too. It is always a man that does this.

I have mentioned this one before. I have had a man CLIMB A Chainlink FENCE onto a private sports ground to come to tell me the way I was doing a sport was 'wrong'.

When asked, he had never done the sport but felt very entitled to come to interrupt me and tell me I was wrong. He absolutely wouldn't hear otherwise and wouldn't let me continue by getting in my way as he was demanding that I 'try it his way' 'just try it once' 'give it a go and you will see' 'Oh come on, you are making this harder than it needs to be, just do it that way and you will see I am right' 'no need to be rude, I'm trying to help you'.... and so on

This continued until a male team member came over to see what the heck was going on. As soon as he saw the man approaching the pest scuttled off immediately.

i absolutely hate it in our a gym when a couple of men do circuit type training across 3 machines. Means I can’t get on any of them. So bloody entitled.

Start your own post then instead of coming on here and having a strop about women sharing their experiences of being annoyed or intimated in public by men.

This exact thing happened to me and he made me feel stupid so I didn’t argue and just let him because I was like is this gym etiquette that I don’t know about! Really talked to me like an idiot so I just left feeling silly! But after I’ve been like actually should I have told him no!

I swim and there’s a massive difference in sharing a lane with a man and sharing with a woman. Men just feel entitled to take up so much space, it’s so bizarre. And I’ve only ever had one give way to me so I can overtake .

Your last sentence struck me as I work with young children. Myself and my colleagues all noticed after the lockdowns they all came back much less tolerant of each other and had lost a lot of the soft skills that help with social interaction.

Maybe it wasn't just children this happened too. The only difference being in schools they did a lot of targeted pshce to address this but adults got nothing similar.

I'm in my 50 snow,
But still remember being trapped on the top floor of the bus ,coming home from primary school and a man sat next to me ,so I couldn't get out past him ,and he proceeded to wank
Another time I was walking my dog and a man ran past with his penis out of the trousers flopping side to side
And another one came out of a hedge holding his penis and shaking it at me as I walked to school ..
All of these happened when I was 11 and 12 ,and had pigtails and looked 11/12
Not all men ...no ...it certainly felt like it at the time

OMG THIS. I'm 5ft7 and dated a guy who was 5ft5. Wasn't an issue for me but my god it was an issue for him. One day I was at his house and he insisted I MUST be 5ft6 and got me to stand against the wall so he could measure me.

He went silent holding the tape measure, and told me I must be stretching myself to make myself taller... so I assume it came out at 5ft7 or maybe 5ft8

I went along with the measuring because I thought it was funny. Like I said, I didn't care about his height. It became a huge deal though, he would sulk if I wore any kind of heel.

He was also an angry little man and has an issue with women, as a PP said.

I've got one of these stories!

We get on the bus yesterday & it was busy, I'd put my 2 shopping bags in the shelf bit as it was empty.

Time to get off, Two men standing by the shelf, so I said 'Excuse me I just need my bags'. First man moves out of the way. Second man was leaning across the shelf bit for some reason. I said 'Sorry' & he looked at me.

So I got off first, kids followed.

Soon as we get off my son says 'Mum, that man moaned at you'. I laughed & asked what he said, expecting that he'd just 'Tutted' or something. Turned out that he called me a 'Piece of shit'. So that was nice.

I mean honestly... this describes me. Does it not describe us all?

"Constant, simmering anger"

I'm happy for men to do this. Come at me bro, as it were. I'll come straight back. They never expect that. I do get scared that one day it won't work how I expect.

@ThisOldThang
I am 5ft exactly and have pet mice. Funny how I don’t stand on them when I’m cleaning their cage out and they've got full run of the room. Do you think you're just as far off distance wise from short people walking near you?

God help worms on the pavement after it rains, every one guaranteed death by giant human feet.

It's the instant flash of rage that's so strange to me. Constant, simmering anger that needs the lightest trigger and they'll lose their shit. And we're the emotional ones.

Exactly this!

yeah they wake up and their first thought it ''how can I annoy a woman today, I don't have anything else on'

There’s a lot of stress and tension in the world at the moment, lots of petty squabbles. I try not to add to this