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?

@vickylou78 I'm from the North and it would be rude to interrupt someone wearing headphones, engrossed in a laptop, especially somewhere like a train station.

"I am working" is a perfectly valid response.

No, of course it would have been different with a woman - they are statistically less likely to assault, batter, sexually violate you. You’d be annoyed at the interruption but you’re less on guard

I grew up in the SW. A bloke talking to you there on Yeovil high street is a bit different to a confined space Tube platform with the live tracks right there. I’ve seen someone get deliberately shoved forward towards the tracks - you keep your wits about you.

It’s normal to interrupt someone who is clearly working on a laptop with their headphones on? Come off it.

Likewise all the other obvious signs that someone doesn't want to be disturbed, i.e. reading a book, earphones, not making eye contact, etc etc. It's not a male/female thing either. When I'm reading or listening or watching something, I don't want to be disturbed by anyone, male or female, unless an emergency and certainly not for meaningless idle small talk. People need to read the signs!

Yes, same here in the north east. we’re always striking up conversations with people who are wearing headphones and busy with a laptop. Completely normal 🙄 Oh sorry, my mistake, no we aren’t, we can read basic body language and aren’t rude and intrusive.

Yes, but the example you’ve just given is not at all what happened in this situation 🤨

A rude action was met with a rude response.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I don’t understand what you mean here. This is all exactly what I said in my previous posts. He was rude and she was also rude.

The point of her OP though is not whether he was rude but whether she was rude, because that was her question in her OP.

ETA: I still don’t understand why you gave a completely different example in your previous post to illustrate your point? Your example is absolutely not the same as the OP’s, so it doesn’t really apply here.

I'm trying to explain why the scenario I described is the same as what the OP described. I'm not agreeing with you. I'm saying you're right on a very basic level.

I'll be honest with you, you seem pretty set on your opinion being the right one and I don't have the energy or inclination to change your mind.

Enjoy the sunshine 🌞

The scenario you described is not the same though, because it involves aggression, and this scenario did not involve aggression. I’m not set on being right. I just wanted to understand your line of argument, because it makes very little sense.

You're not set on being right...

There are 87 mentions of your name on this thread. 87. They can't all be you telling the OP she was rude; no, some of them are you telling everyone else they are wrong and she was rude, and some of them are posters refuting you or objecting to you rudely telling them they are wrong and she was rude.

Nobody is this invested in a small situation, that has been long resolved for the OP, unless they are absolutely set on being right.

I wasn’t rude at all! How was I rude? Wow.

I think you were very rude. Why did you need to mention his race? Regardless of skin colour, you should treat people how you would like to be treated. By posting this you are looking for some to jump on your bandwagon, saying how right you were. For all you knew at the time, this person may not have spoken to anyone all day...How sad...

No not unreasonable... I wouldn't bother asking anyone anything who has earphones in or looks like they're working .
To ask a question about a bag id see this as odd behaviour tbh.

It’s not a woman’s job to be the therapist or emotional support pet for men. Once more for the seats at the back!

Not saying it is, but she didn't need to be rude.

Treating people the way you want to be treated is a foolish tactic if they have already walked over your clearly communicated boundaries - as this bloke did.

My Aunty and Uncle lived in London for many years (Uncle is from London) and we were telling them one time how much we loved visiting there. (We live in the north).

My Aunty looked us dead in the eye and said ‘You know what, they wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire in London, they’d step over you because they are so rude’.

That has always stayed with me and the next time we went made me take more notice of the people in suits around me. Sure enough, on one visit, a guy in a suit shoved my daughter out of the way so he could get to the tube turnstile before her saying ‘come on, move!’ My husband almost come to blows with him.

So yes, you were rude. You fit into that narrative. You may have been busy working but the guy was just asking a question. If you felt uncomfortable then that’s on you. Take your headphones off and put your laptop away and have some awareness of what is going on around you.

Lots of people on this thread should also take note. Kindness costs nothing, you could have been the first and last person that guy ever spoke to that day and you’d never have known. It wasn’t a silly question, it was a question and he was interested. Doesn’t make him a bad person or a stalker, or he was distracting you etc…

If you were genuinely concerned for your safety, you need to take your headphones off and put your valuables away. He never did anything to you. He probably just liked your bag. People can do that. You just chose to look down your nose to him and complain about it after. But obviously this post has been written because you have a pang of guilt. However, not all of us are going to agree that ‘you did the right thing’.

In a world where you can be anything, be kind’.

In a world where you can be anything, be kind.

More like, in a world where you can be anything, be a doormat.

Why does your "be kind" not extend to being kind to someone who clearly doesn't want to be interrupted?

I genuinely want to know why so many people who endlessly preach #BeKind are some of the nastiest, most sanctimonious and aggressively unpleasant people online.

They will rip a stranger to absolute shreds over the most trivial thing, write essay length takedowns dripping in contempt and superiority, and publicly shame someone for having boundaries all while preaching #BeKind.

What’s especially hypocritical is the way they bend over backwards to imagine every possible vulnerability or hidden suffering in some random man on a train platform, while showing absolutely no concern whatsoever for the mental state of the woman they’re trashing online.

Apparently empathy only flows in one direction.

If “he might be lonely” or “he might be struggling” is enough to excuse his behaviour and demand compassion, then the exact same logic applies to the OP too. She could be anxious, overwhelmed, grieving, she's already stated she is neurodivergent, exhausted or dealing with problems nobody else can see. But strangely, the people screaming loudest about kindness rarely extend any to the actual person they’re attacking.

Its really horrible and not in the least bit "kind".

In fairness, OP could probably do well to not use her headphones and laptop on the underground, but not for the reasons some PP have stated (my first thought when I read the OP was "distraction" given the randomness of the question):

Most thieves will strike when their victims are distracted, so the best method to keep your phone and other belongings safe is to be aware of your surroundings and keep your valuable belongings hidden when you are not using them.

London Underground mobile phone and accessory theft soars by 400% in three years

Oh please, take a walk round any major city and see how many people have an iPhone stuck in the back pocket of their jeans.

And most of the rest are walking along looking at it instead.

The OP was doing nothing unusual, she was using the laptop, and thieves aren't riding their bikes up and down difficult-to-escape-from station platforms looking for tech to nick.

I work in a major UK city that I also lived in for over a decade. I might have kept my phone in my pocket once, but I don't any more due to the increase in mobile phone theft (which has been well documented). I'm also much more aware of when I do and do use noise cancelling headphones.

Anyway, that's not my point.

My point is, I think it more plausible that the person who initiated the conversation with OP was using a "distraction technique" (given theft at London Underground stations has increased exponentially and this is a common tactic) than, as other PP have suggested, that this was a poor, lonely man who saw OP as his only opportunity for human interaction that day.

You make a good point.

Here’s my guess at why use of BeKind is as you describe. BeKind is actually nothing to do with kindness or respect and is in reality used by people to police their view that the hierarchy of oppression ladder should determine all human interactions ie the people deemed to be higher up the ladder (because of race, sexuality, if they are trans etc) are by default the ones whose needs are most important in the interaction. So someone lower down the ladder (OP, white woman) is expected to put her own needs second (BeKind) and the man’s (ethnic minority) first. Hence why her particular circumstances aren’t of any interest to people who use BeKind. She is a privileged, more powerful person, and so her backstory is irrelevant. He on the other hand as the oppressed person in the interaction is a full human being who deserves sympathy and understanding.

I said earlier that I think the responses on this thread would have been very different if OP hadn’t mentioned that she was white and the man of an ethnic minority. I’m struggling to imagine if the races were reversed that anyone would be saying she should BeKind.

Interesting. I think being performatively kind and being actually kind are not the same thing at all.

A lot of online “kindness culture” has evolved into moral policing and public shaming.

People can become quite cruel while believing they are righteous, because they frame their hostility as justified. Once someone decides they are defending empathy, safety, inclusion or kindness, they often feel licensed to attack whoever they’ve cast as the “bad” person.

The strange thing is- OP is neurodiverse, has diagnosed ADHD and is literally asking if she was rude and even apologised to the man, therefore you'd think people would not be so nasty towards her considering all of this. Its such a ridiculously minor incident as well, the way some people are scolding her for it, you'd think she had spat in his face.

What’s especially depressing to me is that #BeKind became so prominent after the death of Caroline Flack, when there was so much discussion about the damage online pile-ons, public shaming and relentless criticism can do to someone’s mental health.

Yet now you constantly see people weaponising the hashtag while behaving in ways that are openly cruel, hostile and bullying towards complete strangers online.

They’ll preach compassion and awareness of mental health one minute, then publicly humiliate someone over a minor mistake the next, with absolutely no thought for the damage that kind of mass online hostility can actually do to a person. None of them know what someone is already carrying privately, how vulnerable they are, or where they might be mentally.

It feels like the actual message was completely lost. People learned the slogan, but not the lesson.