Being told off by strangers

[Potnoodly]

I hate that some people feel the need to poke their nose in to the lives of complete strangers and go as far as telling them off!

I was at a festival today and my teenage ds, who had been walking around with his cousin all day without me, came running up to me and sprayed silly string all over me!…

I was a bit annoyed, as I’m not much of a fan of wasteful stuff like that. But he found it funny and it was nice to have a joke with him. No one was harmed!

I said that we’d need to pick it all up though, which is fair and we proceeded to.

As we started to pick it up a woman from a stall came charging over and told me that I must clean this all up at once!! Shouting at me, making me feel like a naughty child. Which was pretty embarrassing.

I mean wtf?!!!… Picking it up was literally what I was doing! I even had some in hand. I told her this, and she replied with, well they shouldn’t be spraying it everywhere. Which I replied, tbf they do sell it here!! And she said well I can’t control that!

My 14yr old nephew replied with well you can’t control everything in life can you?!

I just walked away, but I felt like utter shit afterwards as I hate confrontation, and I hate people thinking bad of me. I’ve come across as the bad guy who litters, people were walking past watching me being told off. I felt like this was so unnecessary.

I did clean it all up By the way. But she was just standing next to us like she was supervising.

You should have sprayed her and roared at her to clean it up.

I kind of wished I’d walked away and left it for her to tidy up. But I do hate litter and would have felt worse later on.

I think it’s annoyed me most because I have a rule when put and about to pick up at least 3 bits of litter.

I must be quite the horrible person as today I have told off strangers three separate times.

I told the teenager smoking weed whilst sitting on a wall at the end of my garden to go and smoke it in his own garden.

I told off the group of 5-8 year olds who were completely unsupervised in the street chanting swear words and homophobic slurs at the top of their voices.

I told off a man who drove his car so far up on to the pavement to avoid parking directly on top of the double yellows, that he caused an elderly woman with a walking frame to have to stop, wait for him, and then walk around into the road.

The teen and the kids seemed to listen to me. The adult gave no shits.

Maybe I’m just a grumpy old woman but I’m not sorry, I’ll say things if I need to.

Not a horrible old woman but possibly somewhat officious and overbearing.

I’m not much of a fan of telling people off. In your case, I would have spoken to the teen and children, respectfully. Not shouty or aggressively. I would have ignored the 3rd as what difference would it make?

A lot of things in life are fun and not altogether sensible. Wrapping for presents? Cards for birthdays? All use resources.

My family gets recyclable paper for both these things, but I'm pretty sure we also do stuff that others may think is unreasonable.

Given that you were in the process of cleaning the stuff up, the other person was being unreasonable.

I don’t do cards. I use reusable paper.

The festival we were at was full of very eco types, which I consider myself to be part of. My dc have been brought up in a household that considers the environment… obviously it’s not fully avoidable . Just being alive and having child is a big environmental impact. But I try.

I can’t control everything my 15yr old buys. He’s 15! He’s impulsive! He’s never tried silly string before and thought it would be fun.

Telling people off just gets their backs up. Better to have a chat, definitely in the case of the weed smoking teen and the obnoxious 5yos. The silly string lady sounded officious.

Just because someone "tells you off" doesn't mean that a) they're in the right, or b) they're doing it in the right way, i.e. respectfully and proportionately, as opposed to aggressively.

If people are aggressive towards me or my children, it doesn't matter if they have a point - they're not entitled to express it in that way. So I'd tell them to back off and stop harassing me, because they're being aggressive and intimidating in a public place. Screaming and shouting is never ok.

It is hard not to react defensively when someone is telling you off with such little respect.

I don’t understand why she felt the need to come over in the 1st place.

Those 3 examples don’t compare in any way to the OP’s experience.

OP, the woman that told you off sounds a miserable cow, and I would have told her so.

I agree with you @Potnoodly. It sounds as if she was unnecessarily officious with someone who'd not only taken the brunt of the wretched stuff, but was clearing it up. Did she think shouting at you would get the job done faster?

By coincidence, I was also at a festival today, where I had to have words with a couple of women who thought it was appropriate to disturb everyone else's lunch by playing videos at full blast. I was very polite and achieved my aim of peace and quiet for me, DH and everyone else who didn't want to listen to an intrusive racket. Your shouty lady, by contrast, didn't achieve much at all. She upset you without gaining anything worthwhile for herself or anyone else. Your teenage DS and DN don't have much to teach her about being silly.

YANBU.

You just know that she wouldn’t have said any of that if you had been a massive man.

Anybody shouts at me, I roar right back in their faces really close up, with the worst swear words I can remember. Always shocks them into shutting up. Bullies the lot of them, think we will be meek and take it, fuck that. Come for me, right back at you bitch! It’s great fun watching their faces change as they realise I’m not backing down.

I had a similar experience the other day op and you feel horrible in the moment. I had an older woman shouting at me on the bus. I wont go into the boring details but she wasn’t giving up and kept calling me a liar and telling me that I was acting illegally because she assumed I had chosen not to pay to get on. I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong but it was upsetting and annoying because I would NEVER choose not to pay and I had had such a nice day up until that point. I gave her the facts politely to begin with but she just became more and more accusing. The bus was really busy and hot and she gave up when I told her I wasnt going to argue about it with her. I can only assume she hasn’t got much going on in her life if she can get so wound up about such things.

Sometimes "Get out of my face, please. If you speak to me again, I'm going to take a picture of you and report you to the police for harassment" is the best way of dealing with people.

Even if people have what they think is a legitimate grievance, it's not ok to hector and intimidate others.

Anyone who "tells me off" usually lives to regret it. I have a tongue like a lash and I dont mind a bit of confrontation. Anyone who takes me on gets more than they bargained for.

This, I'd have instantly sprayed her and told her to fuck off, busybody.

Why did you feel the need to revive an almost year old thread just to tell everyone that???

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I personally think that adults that tell other adults off are deranged. If they need to say something then they shouldn’t be shouting, waving fingers and riled up. I asked some lads sat in their car to please not throw litter out of their window a few weeks ago. They said fair enough and picked it up. The transaction was over respectfully.