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?

@Ilovemychocolate if you think I’m a man because of my username, I just want to say women can like football too.

I'd wager it very rare a random guy was so blindingly curious about the bag that he had to interrupt for OP's attention. Headphones are pretty universal for leave me alone.

Are you male? If so, go to a busy station on Tuesday and look for guys with headphones. Get their attention, motion to remove their headphones, then ask where they go their belt from, or shoes, or tie. See what kinds of responses you get. Report back.

Storms in teacups. Inconsiderate man intrudes on a busy woman and a bit of minor nastiness ensures, but then quickly quietens down.

Tame stuff indeed compared with what goes on in the dog-eat-dog world of the City finance sector, to which the OP is presumably accustomed.

Why are people assuming I’m male because I said OP was rude? I am not male - I’m a woman in my mid-thirties and have been the target of horrible behaviour from men:

• A man tried to forcibly kiss me on the cheek and hug me on holiday when I was six and alone
• A man on a course I was doing snuck into the room I was staying whilst I was asleep and fall asleep on the bed next to mine, and when I found out and called him out on it the next morning, he just laughed
• Another man on the same course told me I was ‘not like the other girls‘ and tried to kiss me
• A man shouted at me in the middle of a public park and waved a knife at me and told me to ‘get out of here, you crazy fucker’
• A man sat next to me on a bench in a public park and tried to chat me up and to force me to give him my email address and phone address

And as @Maxstress3 says, it doesn’t kill to be nice.

I do find it interesting that we know OP works in a finance role in the City and has a vintage Italian bag, given those details aren’t exactly essential to the thread…

I did say I thought the man was thoughtless. Maybe he also had special educational needs and wasn’t very emotionally intelligent. He wasn’t necessarily about to do something awful to OP on a busy train platform - and he didn’t.

So why couldn't the man have been nice to the obviously occupied woman and have left her the fuck alone.

Even in the North West headphones are a universal symbol for fuck off and leave me alone.

Because maybe he was thoughtless or not very emotionally intelligent, or maybe he had special educational needs, or maybe because of something else? It could be down to loads of different reasons. And yes, I agree that headphones are a universal symbol that show you want to be left alone

The rando wasn't nice.
Nice guys respect women have different experiences and leave them alone.
Sorry for your weird experiences - but it wasn't necessary to share. You don't need to prove anything. 🤷‍♀️
And women should understand that the guy's behaviour was weird and not demanding of a polite response. Women who default to etiquette can find themselves vulnerable.
ie guys gets closer, could have been a distraction technique etc

YANBU, he was being rude interrupting you when you were clearly busy. .... I would have probably thought he was part of distraction theft and was going to rob me 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’m not trying to prove anything. I want to share my experiences here as a woman. This is all part of the broader conversation though.

To get us back to the point, OP was rude. The man was not nice, but that is not the point. The point was whether OP was rude, and yes, she was.

It’s okay, this kind of situation can be quite triggering. A lot of these situations result in the man being creepy and then we are put in an uncomfortable situation. Maybe that was the case and you sensed it. I bet if it was a woman that asked you about your handbag you wouldn’t have felt annoyed, I know I wouldn’t have 😁

Well I’m a woman in my mid 50s, and when you have had another two decades of shit behaviour from entitled men, maybe you will change your stance.

Sorry, what do you mean?

What don’t you understand?

Reported it.
Something is not quite right.

Women should beware of posts wanting specific details. Some people enjoy drawing out the trauma experiences of others.

I don’t understand what you said about changing my stance. My stance is that the OP was rude. I didn’t say the OP needed to be more polite, although it wouldn’t have gone amiss!

And the unsolicited hug and kiss from a male stranger I had at six was quite enough sexual abuse, thank you. I don’t want another two decades of that.

What did you report?

Reported ME?
What on earth for?

And I was exactly like you in my 30s, oh let’s be nice, let’s be polite.
And then you realise in your mid 50s, fuck that shit, I’m done with accommodating men that thinks it’s (for example) perfectly acceptable to interrupt a woman, clearly occupied, to ask an inane question!

Who has asked for specific details of anything though?

I am not always nice or polite. I am sometimes rude. Please don’t assume anything about my life or the behaviour I can and should be prepared to put up with.

I am also saying it doesn’t cost anything to be nice, and there is a place for being nice.

I am also saying the OP was rude.

Your comment in your post above - copied below - was very wrong;

Well I’m a woman in my mid 50s, and when you have had another two decades of shit behaviour from entitled men, maybe you will change your stance.

Londoner here.
20% chance he wants to chat you up.
80% chance trying to distract you.
I wouldn’t speak to anyone on the underground unless I knew them

That’s your opinion, which you are entitled to, as I am mine.
And now I am in my mid 50s, I won’t and don’t entertain men and their pathetic attempts to engage me in conversation, and I couldn’t give a shiny shit if that makes me a rude fucker.