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?

Yea you were rude and your snippy follow up (ie referring to people who misunderstood your odd context as not paying attention) solidifies that

'Some of the responses on here demonstrate that some women have been fortunate enough to have led very sheltered lives.'

This!!

The hubris of correcting a woman when she asserts her boundaries. How very dare she. She's 'arrogant', 'rude', 'suffering from main character syndrome', 'man-hating' ... 'a Londoner'. I mean ffs. 🙄

The OP has left the thread. And you should read it properly.

Ooooh! Who’s in a grump tonight @Ilovemychocolate

Not one of the other lovely men in the carriage attempted to help me at all.
Not one fucker on the tube, men or women give a shit about any one in distress. That's a and horrible perfect example . I honestly don't believe that it was as cold when I live in London until 2007. I remember people in London quite friendly on the whole, more relaxed and more humane. Now you could spontaneously combust on the tube and people would just look at you with disinterest or disdain. I remember when LU staff were largely helpful, warm and approachable by and large, now they act as if they were trained in a maximum security prison in El Salvador. Anyhow, I digress. It was rude of th guy to chat to OP randomly. It's not ok.

You've missed the point.

You don't owe some random man your time and attention. And headphones are the universal sign for 'please don't interrupt me unless there is an emergency'.

Yes, I’m obviously in a “grump”.
And not at all distressed about the very recent posters describing their rape/sexual abuse/stalking experiences at the hands of men.
Like I said, read the full post.

I value politeness and also try to be decent and polite - but have learned from long experience that that does not extend to my needing to entertain every random male who insists on trying to engage with me regardless of my wishes.

I don't agree that her supposed 'rudeness' outweighed his in interrupting her peace in the process. By the sound of it he may not have meant any harm as it turned out - but it could so easily have been different. And who cares if whatever she was reading was important or not? It was important to her at the time..ergo, it was important.

I would rather respect every woman's gut instinct in deciding whether an interaction is appropriate or not. I'm afraid that I have sometimes tried to give some of these people the benefit of the doubt, and yet been disappointed. On a recent occasion a random man came up to me when I was walking down the street, obviously in a hurry. My back was up straight away....why was he trying to talk to a woman who was actually on her way somewhere? But I thought I would give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he was just asking the way to Tesco?

Without going into detail it became obvious very quickly that this wasn't a conversation I could let continue so I ended it - my keyboard falters as I write it - rudely. His parting words, as I walked smartly away was 'Are all the women in (town name) as fucking rude as you you fucking cunt?'. Pots and kettles.

Certain posters will be perturbed to learn that I temporarily lost some of my joy in life and goodwill for humanity; prior to this exchange I had plenty of both. And it didn't go unnoticed that he referred to 'women' being rude rather than just 'people'.

@Imdunfer Are you joking? It happens all the time.

I just explained this.

There are very few men who "chat up" random strangers, because it is not socially acceptable. The reason why you see it happening all the time is because it's a tiny minority of men who each talk to hundreds and hundreds of women.

If one man talks to hundreds and hundreds of women, then something that is not common for men to do appears to be common to women. Do you understand this?

Seriously? You ever been in a pub? Loads of men chatting up women every weekend.

Decent men don't chat up strangers unless there's something that initiates the conversation and decent men are then able to judge if its welcome and back off quickly if its not. However there's plenty of stats that show that a large minority of men are not decent, it's probably tipping into a majority who don't view women as equals.

I've stories galore of strange men coming on to me inappropriately. All sorts of locations all sorts of men.

It still doesn't excuse a man who was obviously not decent disturbing a woman who was obviously busy, yes in ear headphones might not be seen but the bloody laptop could be.

Stop chatting shit dude. I've been chatted up so many times I've lost count and its certainly not by the same 10 men over and over again.

@MovedlikeHarlowinMonteCarlo Seriously? You ever been in a pub? Loads of men chatting up women every weekend.

You see loads of men. But it's still a very small percentage. Most men in pubs are not "chatting up" women, and of course, most men are outside of the pub.

Also, in a pub, men usually talk to women that they know, or who they are acquainted with. I was talking about men doing a "cold approach" on a complete stranger (like OP being spoken to by a man on a train platform). The overwhelming majority of men do not randomly talk to women who are complete strangers.

Stop chatting shit dude. I've been chatted up so many times I've lost count and its certainly not by the same 10 men over and over again.

Even if it's hundreds of men, that's a tiny percentage. There are millions of men in the UK and very few of them talk to complete strangers.

Yet oddly enough this thread is about one who did

Oh shuggles you have to be trolling so I'm just ignoring you which I suspect you're used to women doing given your snippy attitude.

Please mate.
I am pretty sure you are click baiting, or a teenager, or a bloke randomly trying to rile up women, but let me tell you my actual lived experience as a woman.
Raped at age 12 by my father.
Sexually abused, harassed and assaulted throughout my 20s by numerous men.
Endured decades of sexual harassment ever since, by many many men.
Still getting harassed at the grand age of 58.
Your posts are disingenuous, ridiculous and downright insulting.
Slink back into your misogynistic life and perhaps try to educate yourself a little.

He’s got form for annoying mansplaining.

😂😂😂 I know!! Jeez, I'm tired and reading with one eye closed and I got the fact it happened on Thursday ffs.

Shuggles is missing the point in terms of his maths.

I don't care about the actual percentage of the male population who might be likely to come on to me. That statistic is irrelevant. Could be 0.1%, 1%, 10% - its irrelevant. Because, as he correctly says, I'm unlikely to meet most of them.

What IS relevant to me: the likelihood of any given male stranger who strikes up a conversation with me being a wrong 'un.

Now I haven't conducted detailed research but I have enough personal experience, coupled with the experience of all my female friends, relatives, colleagues and posters on this thread. Most of their experience tallies with mine, that the likelihood of the random chatter being a wrong un is overwhelmingly high, like 80-90% kind of high.

Attempting to shame women into being less cautious around strange men is unlikely to bring the women anything but hassle and danger.

Incidentally, there was a survey by, I think it was a major newspaper, after the Giselle Pelicot case, asking men if they would rape a woman if it was guaranteed they'd never be found out. Sickeningly, about 30% said yes. When the word 'rape' was removed and the question wording was changed to something like 'force a woman to have sex' it became around 50%. And that's by their own admission and talking about rape, not just 'feeling entitled to a woman's attention when she's made it clear she's not interested', which is what we were discussing.

Why can't some people see that its all part of the same continuum. It all starts with ignoring her boundaries and thinking his wants trump her needs.

I can pretty well guarantee no man comes up to a woman working with headphones on and asks about her bag, or asks her what she's working on, or if she's reading a book what she's reading, when she is over a certain age.

Not on certain lines or stations they don't.

@GingerdeadMan I completely agree that a stranger trying to "chat you up" is very likely to be a bad person. I did not suggest that women should try to be less cautious around strange men, and I did not take the discussion in that direction. I also do not dispute that there are a lot of men who ignore boundaries.

All I said was that the vast majority of men do not try to "chat up" strangers. Nothing else.

How can you tell it's AI generated?

Do you think it reads as if it were written using human creative skills?

It's the unnecessary back story about the intense new job in finance in the City, deadlines, blah, blah, contractually obliged, dragged myself, blah, blah, deep work mode, Italian designer bag. It's supposed to add verisimilitude but does the opposite.