I’m a grown arse woman who spent the whole of dinner feeling bullied and did nothing about it

[Parcelle]

And I’m fucking furious with myself

I’m not a shrinking violet by any means and I KNOW I need to let it go but I was so confused I didn’t do or say a thing and now I’m kicking myself I let my meal be ruined by two absolute pricks.

DP booked a table at a lovely “posh” restaurant in London for our anniversary. I was veering on the side of caution re my outfit so dressed up rather than down and felt comfortable but also hoped I looked nice.

We were seated at a table next to two men. One slouched in what I presume he thought was some kind of insouciant manner all over his chair and the other gave me the most obvious up and down bitchy look as I was being seated.

I took my coat off and had it next to me on the seat and one of the men leans over and says “oh you do know this is the kind of place that has hangers hunny, you don’t need to leave it there”. I just smiled and thought right ok and asked the lovely waitress to hang it for me when she came back.

The second man then did the most obvious wide eyed stare at his friend, looked sideways at me and grimaced and started giggling like a teenage girl. Then then openly giggled and spoke behind their hands for the next 5 mins. It was so clear they were talking about me, my face was burning I just wanted the floor to open up. DP asked me if I was ok but hadn’t noticed what was going on.

I got on with eating my starter and the “leaning” man was pretty much lying down on the bench seat now about 6 inches from me scoffing and talking openly about everyone who walked past his table with his friend giggling and laughing. Someone they knew stopped by their table and again the side eye and up and down look from the first man at me and more grimacing and giggling.

I just wanted to leave. I don’t know why the fuck I didn’t just ask him what his fucking problem was, I’m so angry at myself.

They left after their mains and gave me a “oh by the way lovely dress sweetie” as their parting shot. DP had cottoned on my this point and just looked at me like WTF.

I’m so upset with myself for letting myself be made to feel 2 inches tall by two complete pricks

Lol what the fuck. You let yourself be made to feel like this, people can’t make us feel anything. I’m not downplaying their behaviour, it’s appalling. I have a couple of responses - if it’s the “type of place with hangers” then why wasn’t the coat taken from you on arrival (clearly not as posh as the guys thought). Secondly, are they so sad they have to concern themselves with what others are doing and putting them down. Such sad behaviour.

So sorry your night time went terribly. Don’t beat yourself up, you probably did the wrong thing. The men (I’m guessing who were gay) were clearly just wanting to start arguments and put others down.

Awful behaviour.

Honestly, a smart reply is the the best compliment you could have paid these guys. It would make them feel important.

The biggest insult is to make them feel like you don't think about them at all. I think you achieved that.

I hope they didn't spoil your evening too much.

Btw the correct response to this is to look him up and down like he is a talking piece of shit who has the audacity to try and gain your attention and then turn to your partner and say “as I was saying...” and finish a conversation you may or may not have already been having. Leaving your coat exactly where it was.

This is perfect. Any response smart/clever or otherwise would have given them deep joy and stoked the flames

Sounds horrible, poor you

I think you were right not to say anything though. People like that are just grim and feed off attention and other people’s misery. Best to ignore (which you did) but now forget.
They’re not worth any more of your time

The truth is, if these men were happy with who they are and comfortable in their own skin there would be no need to be such utter cunts. As it is, they make themselves feel better about their own inadequacies by putting down, bullying and harassing other people.

Let’s hope something shitty befalls each of them in the not too distant future.

OP, try not to dwell on this but do contact the restaurant and explain how inadequate SD was and how staff allowed this man to lie across the bench far too close to you.

Agree with others probably coked up. What you were seated next to @Parcelle was a pair of losers who probably spend most of their time affirming each other by making “witty” comments about other people. What sad individuals. One day they will say it to the wrong person.

I used to work with someone years ago in London who was rolling in family money, very entitled, always making comments about strangers (mainly about women, especially if older or not obviously “posh”) for the benefit of his audience of hangers on. Usually he’d pick on people who made him feel insecure; people who were obviously happy couples or groups of friends obviously having fun. He had regular tables in good restaurants where he’d hold court. I kept my distance on the whole and didn’t have the money to join those occasions, I just got to hear about them. A few years later I heard he was using a wheelchair as a result of a hit and run; what had actually happened was that he had said the wrong thing about some woman and been overheard by the group of men she was with who had waited for him and attacked him. I’m not saying that the level of violence used against him was OK but it just goes to show that these two men might not get someone as decent as you next time.

You let yourself be made to feel like this, people can’t make us feel anything.

Sorry, but that's nonsense.

OP went out, looking forward to a lovely anniversary meal. She was 'minding her own business' when two people quite deliberately set out to upset her, or at the very least to make her feel uncomfortable.

The majority of our feelings as human beings are influenced by how others treat us. We are happy when people are kind and thoughtful. We can be devastated when people are unkind or thoughtless.

I’m so upset with myself for letting myself be made to feel 2 inches tall by two complete pricks

Then stop. They made idiots out of themselves, and your natural response was to carry on without appearing to give a shit. It's exactly the right way to deal with bullies of any age.

The issue is why are you willing to let idiots make you feel so bad? It sounds like it's not because you were bullied, but that you did nothing about it. I wonder if you've failed to stand up to bullies in the past, and this is echoing that for you? If so, don't forget that these idiots aren't a permanent feature in your life, so standing up the them would not have really been the right thing to do - they're not an ongoing problem you need to solve, like a bullying colleague or relative would be.

I’d have stabbed him in the eyeball with my steak knife!!!
Sorry your special night was spoilt by 2 idiots.

Your ex comes across as the unpleasant one in this scenario. Deeply unpleasant

Only when he stole the car keys. Until that, I was with him all the way.

@Potionqueen

I’d have stabbed him in the eyeball with my steak knife!!! Sorry your special night was spoilt by 2 idiots.

At what point? Genuine question?! When he made the daft coat comment... overreaction When the OP thought they were bitching about her Or the lounging around.... overreaction

Just a couple of spiteful Queens - move on, nothing to see...

Op, off topic (ish) but what exactly was your outfit like? Just intrigued to understand why it’d concern these two blokes so much.

And sorry they ruined your night.

@MyPersona how has the OP set up any "lazy stereotypes"? She just explained what happened?

OP, sounds horrid but as others have said, definitely a reflection of them and not you. Agree you did the right thing by ignoring.

@WitchesSpelleas

You let yourself be made to feel like this, people can’t make us feel anything.

Sorry, but that's nonsense.

OP went out, looking forward to a lovely anniversary meal. She was 'minding her own business' when two people quite deliberately set out to upset her, or at the very least to make her feel uncomfortable.

The majority of our feelings as human beings are influenced by how others treat us. We are happy when people are kind and thoughtful. We can be devastated when people are unkind or thoughtless.

Here is the simplistic explanation - tell a depressed person to be happy, that’s right, you can’t.

I’m not downplaying the nastiness of the two men, but 101 of emotional regulation is others can’t make you feel anything.

@ThePollutedShadesOfPemberley

I had a similar experience when I was with my ex. We were on a coach going to a ski resort and this total hooray type was leaning over me with his armpit in my face talking to the couple in the seats in front in a high pitched whine and so loud that everyone in the coach knew he has skied at Verbier, Trois Valle' Crested Butte blah blah. My ex poked him in the ribs and the fella just looked at him in a condescending manner. My ex then stood up from the window seat and got hold of the top of his arm and stood him in the gangway away from me saying, "get your armpit out of my wife's face'. The bloke looked around at everyone and said, "Difficult man". My ex was a man mountain that had wrists like my thighs and he was up and out of his seat and eyeball to eyeball with this twat so fast. Fella meekly sat down when he saw the size of him. As we were leaving the coach my ex saw this fellas car keys that had dropped onto the seat and he quickly pocketted them saying, "Karma baby". He hung them in his shed as a good luck charm. : )

Some people have egos the size of planets.

Christ I would've died of embarrassment.

Firstly that your ex didn't seem to think you had the wherewithal to simply ask him to move and secondly because everyone could see you were on holiday with a complete wanker.

Good for you that he's your ex.

I'm sorry that you had to put up with them. I am a grown arse woman too, but probably wouldn't have thought of any sensible put downs until the next day, and would stew about it for ages too.

However, you more than make up for it by using "insouciant" in your OP. You clearly rock! Anyone who drops insouciant into casual online conversation is clearly right up there! Don't give them another thought.

@Parcelle

I’ve thought about it over and over and women being bitchy would be like water off a ducks back. Men being gross/overly sexual again water off a ducks back. But men being bitchy was just the weirdest thing, I felt like a little kid

Men can be just as bitchy as women

Here is the simplistic explanation - tell a depressed person to be happy, that’s right, you can’t

Telling someone to feel a particular emotion is not the same as causing them to feel an emotion by your treatment of them.

You can't tell a depressed person to be happy. But you can make them feel happier by listening to them and supporting them. Or you could make them feel worse by telling them to 'pull themselves together' or ignoring them.

Something similarly awful and upsetting happened to me about 25 years ago. I have no idea why it still upsets me but it does. Every time I remember it I say something kind to someone else. Something to make them feel unexpectedly more not less. From that single act of unkindness many many kindnesses have grown. Be who you were meant to be.

You could have worn a sack and still been prettier than ugly personalities like that.
A dress can be changed but it takes work to clean unpleasantness from inside.

@WitchesSpelleas

Here is the simplistic explanation - tell a depressed person to be happy, that’s right, you can’t

Telling someone to feel a particular emotion is not the same as causing them to feel an emotion by your treatment of them.

You can't tell a depressed person to be happy. But you can make them feel happier by listening to them and supporting them. Or you could make them feel worse by telling them to 'pull themselves together' or ignoring them.

Again, no one can make anyone feel anything. We also can’t control our emotional response. We can control our actions, that is all.

Take this scenario:
Friend has found out her husband has been cheating on her and cries. You come along and tell her to stop crying and feel instantly happy as she is now able to contact David Beckham and ask him for a date. She feels instantly happy because you’ve told her to feel happy. She doesn’t like David beckham but because you’ve told her to be happy, she feels happy.

Right that’s unrealistic. Couple of things:

1. how we emotionally react to a situation is different to each human. There is no one human way to react to a situation.
2. our thoughts control our emotional, emotions control thoughts

Idiots, they're everywhere and as others have said, women haters.
I feel for you so much OP I had something similar years ago when me, DH, DSis and BIL were in a pub. Two blokes, say late thirties, nudging each other, laughing, doing the whole wouldn't touch her with a barge pole faces. Nobody noticed as they were behind the others. I didn't say anything but when I read this it came back to me. Knobs!!

@BigSandyBalls2015

How was your DP so oblivious to all this!

this

Take this scenario:
Friend has found out her husband has been cheating on her and cries. You come along and tell her to stop crying and feel instantly happy as she is now able to contact David Beckham and ask him for a date. She feels instantly happy because you’ve told her to feel happy. She doesn’t like David beckham but because you’ve told her to be happy, she feels happy

OK, so firstly she's crying because her husband has cheated on her - so he has caused her to feel like that. I think most people would agree that was a reasonable and likely response on her part.

Secondly, as I said before, telling someone to 'feel happy' is not the same as cheering them up by being kind to them.

You've come up with a nonsensical and unlikely method of cheering a dumped wife up by reminding her she can date David Beckham.

How about we substitute the more likely behaviour of a good friend - being there for the dumped wife, listening to her as she pours her heart out, perhaps treating her to a day out. No, it's not instant happiness, but the dumped wife would be comforted by the kindness and attention of a good friend.