Unsolicited comments from strangers - what’s your rudest/funniest one?

[maria199]

Bit of a funny one really but yesterday I was about to go for a walk near a nature area and I was putting my 4 month old in her pram. She had just been in the car for a little while so when I put her into the pram she started crying (don’t worry - she loves the pram and was fine as soon as we started walking!)

As I was putting her in a woman in her late 60’s/70’s walked past with an elderly man and she says to the man “oh a little crying baby! must be hungry!” She then asked me how old my baby was so I told her 4 months old and she says to me “she sounds hungry!” I said “no she’s just been fed (she had), she just doesn’t like being put down” (in a friendly way) and she says to me “oh you’ve spoilt her then!” and laughed. I was a bit taken aback because how can you spoil a 4 month old baby?? 😂

Anyway, she walked on and it wasn’t exactly a malicious comment but it did make me think why on earth do people always love to comment, especially to people they don’t know!!!

It just made me curious - what are the funniest/rudest/weirdest interactions people have had from strangers when out with their baby?

I returned the orginal lamp with receipt. I was holding and the more expensive lamp which was a different model and shape of lamp I even had my purse out ready to pay the difference. She had already tested the lamp I was returning to confirm it was faulty. She was very clearly making a judgement and patronising me. It may have been twenty years since I worked in retail however that is not how you treat customers.

Seems a bit unnecessary and unpleasant when someone has gone out of their way to apologise

A friend’s sister after I’d got a new fringe cut, “it suits you, it makes your face look less harsh”

So you damaged charity property? They should have called the police on you.

I was in my last couple of weeks at work before maternity leave, struggling a bit with PGP but it was manageable enough to still be working. I’d just visited a patient in a block of flats and was waiting for the lift as stairs were getting a bit difficult and a man came out of his flat, looked me up and down and said I’d be better off using the stairs judging by the size of me. I was eight months pregnant and looked it!

I fancied a day out (years ago when I was young and single) and enjoy history so I went to St Albans for the day. I was sitting on a bench in the Abbey grounds looking at the great ancient building in front of me and a perky little woman came up, sat next to me and piped up, 'Hello! Are you a pilgrim?'

It was like something out of the Canterbury Tales - she was very Chaucerian actually - and still makes me laugh all these years later (and funnily enough I now live quite close to Snorbans, as the locals call it).

I had a Saturday job at John Lewis, they have some weird ‘partners’.

I was very nice to the daughter and she understood what I meant. It was a lovely interaction, very different to the one with her mum.

Yep, I had one where we had a work experience student in the inhouse graphic design studio I managed where the tutor visited to see how he was getting on and he told the student 'I like your creativity, come up with a few more ideas and you'll be working for a good agency, rather than being stuck in an inhouse studio like this'. We had done the college a real favour by having the student, too.

I think it’s because some people- not you obvs- actually do get difficult if the replacement items is more expensive than the original and they didn’t don’t notice or think that the should get it at the original price.

It’s the same as when you want something extra on a menu, weary experience means that the server has to warn you at the time that they’ll have to charge you for it.

You would think this would be obvious but people can and do kick up a stink at the point of paying.

I had this too when I worked in a restaurant

Sadly, I can understand your pain. I was eating in a Whasbi in Oxford Street back in 2008. There was a lovely little girl at the next table about 3-4 years old. Looking around curiously as children do. I smiled and waved at her, played a little peek-a-boo. As I was leaving and waving goodbye to her. Her father who was American, felt he had to approach to thank me for engaging with his daughter. The little girl has Downs Syndrome and disgustingly often was ignored by adults in public.

My ILs get this all the time. Several times when they've been browsing in the posh bit of shops, someone (sometimes a sales person, sometimes a random member of the public) has come up to them and redirected them to the cheap items 😂

They don't look scruffy or cheap or poor.

No idea what's going on.

Both my daughters are red heads.

Very often when I was out with my oldest daughter as a baby, she would catch someones eye as she was a very happy child and always smiling at people. Often the person would stop for a chat. They always said something along the lines of “hes a happy little chap” now this was while she was sat in her pushchair in a pink dress. They usually asked “his “ name. When I told them they would look at me like why would you give your son a girls name?

And then the age old question “where does the hair come from?” Like they'd never seen a ginger haired kid before. If I had a pound for every time I had heard that one. Anyway, I would look confused for a minute like I was as puzzled as them, and then I have a aha moment like I knew the answer and I would say “Im not sure, but I think, I think it grows out of her head”. More confusion on their part as they couldnt work out if I was simple or taking the piss.

That was my first thought, too!

Oh my hen do in Milan, a very aggressive (seemingly coked up) man sat himself next to me in a bar and was overly complimentary about my outfit, telling me how he worked high up in the fashion industry and that he thought my blazer dress was absolutely amazing (I am not a fashionable person at all so this alone was weird). He just wouldn't stop going on about how beautiful it looked. But then he just switched to my shoes and spent 5 minutes going on about how utterly disgustingly ugly they were, and that they ruined the whole look. OK pal, thanks. He suggested for us to go somewhere else with him and we politely said no, so he got up and almost threw his chair and stomped out.

Whooooooosh

I understand your point, I genuinely do. However, it was not the first time not shall it be the last. I genuinely believe it is due to being judged on my lisp and assumptions being made.

At 17 I was in a meeting as a rep for a local youth council. One of the officials literally said, when you first say hello, you would not think you could be taken seriously until you have said your first paragraph. I am considered to be well spoken and exceptionally polite.

I am now mid-forties and it the same. There were jokes made about this type of thing in TBBT, about Bernadette being short with a high pitched voice, throw in a lisp and you get the idea. I tend to be more self deprecating as a defence mechanism and laugh at as part of my autistic masking. It is exhausting and exceptionally rude though to be constantly judged for having a lisp.

Leave her alone.
This story has made my day🤣
#teamginger

It is honestly exceptionally rude and judgmental. In psychology images are often used as an example of stereotypes. Think of the Keeping up appearances episode, Hyacinth is visiting a Stately Home, and is hiding in a garden for some reason. Turns around and there a man standing there in gardening clothes looking a tad worn out. She is being her judgemental self, saying she is a friend of his Lordship. Cue the man being rather baffled as he the Lord of the manor.

I was on a train, sat at a 4 person table. A man sat elsewhere saw that I was alone and decided to move seats and sit opposite me...
He then tried to make conversation which I engaged in minimally as I was feeling uncomfortable.
He then pulled out a carton of orange juice, took a swig then offered it to me. I politely declined. He then said 'Well, you ARE fat, aren't you?'
I was taken aback and then asked 'sorry, did you just call me fat??'
He nodded and smiled!
I got my stuff and moved seats.

A friend and I had this from a Turk too. We were travelling on a bus to the Metro Center and this guy asked us where we were from (he was from Turkey he said), we said Spain. And he said definitely not, because we were too light eyed, light skinned and light haired. We just looked at him and thought he was bonkers. It must be some kind of national pastime in Turkey.

I was selling handmade jewelry at a craft fair and a lazy said to her daughter (that washed a necklace) "I'm not buying you that cheap tat" 😬
I just said have a nice day and gave the fakest smile

Went to pick up a Chinese from a local takeaway. Took DD and ds with me both severely autistic. I'm sure she meant well I guess it's her culture. But the Chinese lady who served me I think she owns the takeaway. She told me to read chapters from the Bible to heal them. 🤔🙄. I've never stepped foot in there again. Shame because it was a nice Chinese.

On my first out the house pop to the shops after giving birth and feeling absolutely horrendous in myself, a delightful old man in the car parked next to me wound his window down and went “beep beep wide load coming through”. Got back in the car in tears and didn’t do my shopping lol. I hate that I was so hormonal and just cried