Was I rude for dismissing a stranger who interrupted me on the platform?

[KookyLemonReader]

About a year ago I started a new job in finance in the City which has been very intense. The previous week I have been working very intensely to meet an end of week deadline. I am contractually required to be in the office at least one day a week so on Thurs I dragged myself out to the office. In the early afternoon I was at the local tube station platform waiting for the train and on my laptop deep in work mode when I noticed someone trying to get my attention in my peripheral vision. I turned away from my laptop removed my headphones and listened to the man. He was asking me where my handbag is from. I was very irritated that he interrupted me with this when I was clearly deep in concentration and replied in a cold way ‘I am working’ and went back to my business. A few seconds later I felt bad (also this man was an ethnic minority and I’m a white woman so I worried about that) turned back to him and said I’m sorry I was a bit rude what did you ask. He again asked where my bag is from. I told him the brand (vintage Italian designer). He made some random comment like oh I can’t buy that here I guess. I didn’t engage. Went back to my work. My concentration was lost and I was very annoyed by the whole exchange but also questioning myself. Was I awful or is it fair that he should not have interrupted a clearly full of focus person with a silly question?

WHY do we have to?
No one has the innate right to interrupt a woman quite clearly engaged in something else!
You say you are a feminist, but your post reeks of “let’s be nice to the random man trying to strike up a conversation because, you know, be kind”
Fuck that!

A few years ago, my dd was 17 and waiting for the bus home from town, in a bus station.
A man approached her and made a comment to her, being the polite girl I raised her to be, she replied to him.
He continued to talk to her, culminating in asking her what school she went to, could he take her out etc.
This man was in his late 30s.
My daughter was on her own in the bus station with this man, there was no one else around. She was scared and intimidated, and messaged me to call her so she could answer her phone and disengage from him.
Her bus came and she got home safe.
From then on, I told her she didn’t have to have conversations with random men because it was polite to do so.
She is now 21 and a complete badass, and would never tolerate that behaviour again.
So do I think it’s a “kind” to respond to random men trying to talk to you?
As I said, fuck that.

Edit to say, replied to the wrong poster!
But my message stands.

So it's true that modern feminism is just about being nasty to men lol. 😆

Decent men will understand why women who are strangers to them might be wary of speaking to them.

Wary is one thing - rude is another.

Rude is a man bothering a woman who obviously doesn’t want to be disturbed, in order to ask an inane question.

Lol its not rare for men to chat strangers up at all. You may not do it but thousands of men are.

Are you one of those men who frequent reddit slating women?

Exactly. Some of the responses on here demonstrate that some women have been fortunate enough to have led very sheltered lives. Those of us who have not, however, have had to become more than just wary to protect ourselves from danger. I’ve had some horrible experiences with men stalking me, and worse, which led me to prefer being rude to strangers rather than risking putting myself in a difficult position. A train platform is not a social situation.

No, modern feminism (whatever the hell that is, it’s just feminism) is about women not having to kowtow to men just because they are, you know, men.
And after a lifetime of random men trying to strike up conversations with me in order to hit on me, I’m done with it.
”LOL”

That’s a hell of a broad assumption.

@MovedlikeHarlowinMonteCarlo Lol its not rare for men to chat strangers up at all. You may not do it but thousands of men are.

It is indeed rare for men to "chat strangers up."

It's a tiny minority who do it. The man who "chats up" a woman will have done the same thing with hundreds of other women. That's why it looks like it's common from a women's perspective, but it's a tiny minority of men who are doing it to lots and lots of women.

Very few men "chat up" women because, as I already said, it is no longer considered socially acceptable.

Are you one of those men who frequent reddit slating women?

No.

It's not about "kindness" in such instances - it's about being polite (to man, woman or child, it's irrelevant) as a general default - to begin with. Just a modicum of basic courtesy in day-to-day interactions is easy, surely. I'd also find it easy to blank/ignore them or tell them where to go, if there was even a whiff of something that made me uncomfortable. But that would not be my standard reaction at the very outset.

None of us knows if it was clear that she was occupied in something important - her headphones might not have been visible. She could have been casually reading something unimportant (like a Mumsnet post ...). He didn't try to continue with the conversation, or to pester her in any way - so by interrupting her, I think he was at most thoughtless. As would also be the case if it had been another woman who'd asked about her handbag.

I am indeed a feminist, & I also try to be a decent polite person. Who says feminists can't be nice or kind??? Fuck that!!!

You sound like the policeman who attended my sexual assault report. I wouldn’t give a strange man following me from Maida Vale tube directions, so he pushed his way into my block of flats. I should have been friendlier and kinder and given the guy directions, and then I wouldn’t have been attacked, according to this policeman.

Or how about the bloke who followed me from Farringdon tube and kept cutting in front of me, insisting I had been to university with him. So I politely enquired what university was that, then, and he got rather abusive and told me to stop being a bitch. All the while continuing to follow me and cut in front of me until I ducked into a restaurant to get away from him. That was a humdinger of an evening, actually, because I was later on accosted by another man in Angel who tried to get me to buy a handbag off him. My polite decline met with another barrage of abuse and following me down the street.

Who else? I know, heavily pregnant on the tube from Bethnal Green to Liverpool Street - yes the City! I was leaning against one of the high seats by the door (because god forbid one of these kindly men sitting on the tube stand for an obviously pregnant woman). One man came right up to my face and asked me something I didn’t understand. And when I said, I’m sorry I can’t help you, he started screaming abuse into my face. Not one of the other lovely men in the carriage attempted to help me at all. That was a very long 3 minutes.

I have countless other examples. Being polite or telling them to do one: the outcome is the same. So I don’t give any man the benefit of the doubt.

Hurrah!!!
Thank goodness we have a man along to explain our female lived in experience to us all!!
Because he definitely will know what it’s like to live as a woman in society!!!
Oh…wait…

I’m also nice, and kind.
To people I wish to engage with mostly.
Not random men who approach me at a tube station.
But you do you.

@Ilovemychocolate Thank goodness we have a man along to explain our female lived in experience to us all!!

My statement was about men rather than women. As I said, there are very few men who "chat up" complete strangers.

Because he definitely will know what it’s like to live as a woman in society!!!
Oh…wait…

So do you think my statement "it's common from a women's perspective" was incorrect? So are you saying that women are not commonly "chatted up" by strangers?

I’m so sorry this happened to you, and I, and thousand of other women on here, have had similar experiences.
The utter arrogance and entitlement of some men never ceases to amaze me.

Listen mate, you are a bloke, and have absolutely no idea what women have to experience/put up with/ tolerate in a patriarchal society.
I have absolutely no wish to converse with you further, nothing you say will be of any consequence whatsoever to me.

Thank you; and I am sorry for you too and every woman who has to be on guard constantly because men think they are entitled to our attention.

It’s just never ending isn’t it?
I am so glad you got through it all x
Sending you love x

I am sorry you had to go through all of this, and I understand you completely. Reading this post has reminded me of several unpleasant incidents both with strangers and men in my workplace, which I had forgotten about because, you know, I’m old, these things happen, they’re part of life and you just get on with it, don’t you. (I’m not including being raped by a supposed friend who thought no means yes.) Your last paragraph has given me huge pause for thought, you’re right: "being polite or telling them to do one: the outcome is the same. So I don’t give any man the benefit of the doubt."

I have. Humour in tact, kind and considerate to my fellow woman and still loving London. But always wary of men, and teaching my daughter to be the same, because I would rather she be thought of as rude than be harmed.

Thank you and sending love back to you, the poor OP who has no reason to doubt herself, and to all the women who have been through similar experiences

I taught my daughter the same x
At least we seem to have seen off the random bloke off the thread! (Small victories)

Best wishes to you too, and I am so sorry for your experiences . And you know, you are so right about all these experiences with men almost being normalised. Apart from the SA (which went to court, after he attacked 2 other women and the police decided to take my report seriously), my other two examples were things that I’d all but forgotten in the sea of crappy experiences with male strangers. It’s only because OP’s experience was on the tube that my memories of tube related incidents came to the surface.

My statement was about men rather than women. As I said, there are very few men who "chat up" complete strangers.

Are you joking? It happens all the time.