Rude or polite

I think he had a lucky escape.

That guy is one lucky man.

You were rude then and you're being rude now

😭😭

Yes, you're rude op. Why would you assume he's coming on to you? 😂😂

OP, you’re clearly entrenched in your view so why are you canvassing opinion?

You were definitely not polite.

I bet you are a horror to date.

Yes you were very rude.

But what’s even weirder is the fact that you told friends/colleagues who all disagreed with you and now you’ve come on MN and are obviously getting annoyed that posters are disagreeing with you.

Do you always feel the need to be right?

Why is this encounter such a big deal?
If you don’t think you were rude then it’s a non issue isn’t it.

I’d at least let him say more than “excuse me”. He might want directions or something like that, not every man wants to chat you up or harass you!

How old are you? I don't think anybody is being dense. You were rude.

I am baffled by the title of the post. Not "rude or not rude" but "rude or polite". In what kinds of circumstances/cultures interrupting someone mid sentence to shout "no" would be considered polite?
Oh, and I hope it is polite of me to note that it should read "could have" not "could of".

I'm not sure why OP is so angry at him, her colleagues or posters on here?

RM: "excuse me?"

OP: "no"

RM walks away.

2 minutes later RM walks back...

RM: "you could have said you were not interested!"

RM (presumably) walks away again.

That sounds very odd and not very realistic. Human beings don't usually communicate in such a stilted way. So either OP is leaving some of the conversation out (which would probably have made her posts much clearer) or they are a pair of robots.

I now think he should be grateful you didn’t wish to engage in chat with him, this is all so weird

OP, every single person on here has said you were rude.

Your posts are hard to read, they don't really make sense and I have read them all.
You use the fact that he came back as a reason to prove yourself right, but that doesn't make sense.

You said NO before you knew what he wanted, before he said 'you could have said you weren't interested' before any of that was clear, you said no.

yes that was rude.

I do get it that women are taught to be 'nice' and why should we be nice when a block chats us up at a busstop? But you didn't wait for him to chat you up, you were just rude before he had done anything.

"Rude" is a cultural construct, dependent on local context. Assuming this happened in the UK (because that's the source of most of the traffic on this site) then by traditional rules of etiquette yes, "no" as a response to "excuse me" was probably rude - especially as from his perspective it probably seemed like an interruption of whatever he was planning to say to you. (However, an immediate "I'm not interested" seems equally rude - and as you've said, you've had pushback from that response too.) In the same cultural context, TELLING you that you were rude would be considered even more rude than your original arguably rude behaviour.

All that said, you have every right to be "rude". If you don't have the bandwidth to have a conversation with a stranger, then shutting it down immediately is the best thing for both of you. I learned this the hard way when I first started solo travelling - in some places a lone traveller, especially a woman, is approached constantly and unfortunately ANY response can be perceived as encouragement and result in an intrusive and possibly even dangerous interaction. When I first got the advice to ignore any approached completely I thought it was way over the top and paranoid, but I soon learned that it really was the best strategy (out of a lot of imperfect possibilities). Yes, putting up the barrier proactively CAN mean you also shut out interactions that could be pleasant and helpful, but that's a risk you take and no one else can decide for you what's an acceptable level of risk.

And in my experience this has very little to do with thinking a person is interested in you sexually, let alone romantically - there are lots of much more common types of unwelcome intrusions.

But you didn't know what he wanted, when he first said "Excuse me"

Unless you're telepathic

If eg he was only asking if this bus stop was for buses heading into or out of town centre, would you have declined to answer him?

I am filling the phrase under ones I am going to steal and reuse at every opportunity.
🤣

Yeh you were rude to him and now rude to posters because you’re not hearing what you want to hear. Yes you said he came back and said you could of told him you wasn’t interested but you didn’t know that’s all he wanted after just hearing excuse me, so yes it’s rude to shut someone down like that. What happens if you do that but next time they say they were only going to ask the time?

It's not about getting a grip it. Sometimes it's just an instant reaction rather then an intention to be rude. I'm not saying that anyone should go screaming the word no if a man approaches but its not hard to work out why some ppl react negatively when a stranger speaks to them.

Were you rude or not? Considering the way you are being on here my money is on that you were rude