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?

I agree. Thank goodness I don't live near many of those commenting on this thread. Where I live it's perfectly normal to make conversation with others waiting nearby, and men frequently speak to me - and I've never imagined that they fancy me or think they are important. My late DF used to say good morning/afternoon to everyone he passed while out walking, I much prefer someone like that to these MNers who think they are so special that they don't have to speak to people they don't know. What a closed little world some of you inhabit.

Yes OP, you were rude. It really takes very little time to speak to someone for a few seconds.

🤣 she wasn’t remotely rude.

and I've never imagined that they fancy me or think they are important.

Ah ok so when that creepy guy I encountered on a train tried to engage me in conversation that I didn’t want (I mentioned earlier in this thread) and then asked me about my bra size, commented on my breasts and asked me if I would suck his dick, it wasn’t really about sex at all, and he was really just making conversation was he?! 🙄

I think you know perfectly well what @SquirrelGG is saying.

Me too. There are so many red flags in OP’s post.

Oh hilarious. Yes, I am him and he is me. You got me. Well done you.

No I don’t. She is implying it’s actually arrogant to dare to feel uncomfortable when random men approach you. As if feeling uncomfortable they might have a sexual agenda means you think a lot of yourself.

That is wrong on so many levels. Geez. No wonder so many women get sexually harassed and are too afraid to speak up

I KNEW IT!!! 🤣

Give over. This is getting pathetic now.

Speak for yourself.
I am enjoying it enormously.
Now who’s being a little ray of sunshine eh? 🤣

It was rude of him to disturb you when you were clearly deep in something. Don’t give it another thought.

Where does she imply it’s arrogant to dare to feel uncomfortable when random men approach you, please? When she says this? -
I much prefer someone like that to these MNers who think they are so special that they don't have to speak to people they don't know.

I don’t think this bit means that at all. I think she’s saying some people on here don’t want to speak to anyone they don’t know, not just to men they don’t know.

This doesn’t reflect well on you at all.

Definitely! I would call what he did Street Harassment, i would have completely ignored him, and would have told him to feck off if he'd persisted. It infuriates me that men think women have nothing better to do than lusten to them chatting crap in public spaces. And any bloke who thinks it's ok to "chat up" women who are just trying to get on with their lives is dodgy I'd say. Why would any woman want to waste her time on creeps like him.

She literally said it “and men frequently speak to me - and I've never imagined that they fancy me or think they are important.”

Good for her that she’s never had a man who made her uncomfortable try to engage her in conversation but plenty of us have in this thread and it doesn’t mean we are imagining they fancy us like it’s all in our heads. Some men get creepy and scary when you don’t wish to talk to them and women are not obliged to talk to men they don’t feel comfortable with.

It has absolutely nothing to do with being rude

I think you’re reaching a little bit there. She’s talking about her own experience. She’s not suggesting anyone else should feel the way she does.

If she’s reaching then so am I because I read it exactly like @orangesandwich did

Well, fair enough. I guess we just need that poster to clarify what she meant.

No you’re right- saying this: Thank goodness I don't live near many of those commenting on this thread

and much prefer someone like that to these MNers who think they are so special that they don't have to speak to people they don't know. What a closed little world some of you inhabit.

Are really not at all judgemental and indicate a very open minded and respectful approach to other people’s experiences of being harassed by strange men. 🙄

The funniest part of this thread is the people loudly congratulating themselves on how kind, warm and polite they are while absolutely laying into the OP for… briefly sounding irritated on a Tube platform 🤣

She didn’t tell him to fuck off. She didn’t humiliate him. She answered curtly because she was stressed and concentrating, then actually apologised afterwards because she felt bad.

Meanwhile, some in this thread are calling her rude, self-important, anti-social, living in a “closed little world” etc.

Apparently a woman being mildly abrupt for 10 seconds is unforgivable, but pages and pages of sneering moral superiority towards another woman is “nice.”

I hadn’t realised you were also on the tube platform with the OP. Sorry for my misunderstanding.

No, I wasn’t there on the platform. But judging by this thread, some of you are apparently able to reconstruct a woman’s entire moral character from the fact she sounded a bit fed up on the Central line for seven seconds.

Quite impressive, really.

Wait…I thought you were the creepy man??
Were you…lying about that?

Right. Okay. That’s quite a leap you’ve made there.

You won’t get anywhere with right foot lady.
Shes absolutely determined to stick up for random creepy man, and nothing will dissuade her.