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?

Absolutely @orangesandwich

Yes, I would react the same. Don't interrupt someone looking busy unless it is actually important.

You might as well tell her to 'cheer up love'
🙄

Woman: explains why she doesn't encourage every strange bloke who attempts to interact with her - it has had negative consequences in the past.

You: insults her.

Fucks sake.

Are you really of the opinion that women are obliged to be bright, cheerful and friendly to anyone who wants our attention - otherwise we're rude harridans?

Maybe actually read the thread, you might learn something. Sometimes politeness to the wrong man comes with a big cost.

No ok it's not normal to interrupt someone with a laptop and headphones do id find it a bit odd but can't say it'd bother me that much to be so rude to them that I need to write a thread about the incident!

I am a woman. I have been polite to men, and they have mostly been polite back, but sometimes they have not.

It's absolutely fine to be politely short with people when you are busy and caught up in something. You don't owe a random your attention for such trivial reasons.

Men don’t care where your bag is from. He just wanted attention.

Caroline Flack had a documented history of mental health problems and should have been subjected to trial by jury/magistrate, not media. It's also worth bearing in mind that Flack was quick to admonish others to #BeKind but was allegedly herself a domestic abuser.

And so the pattern repeats itself, and I've also noticed the ironic pattern that those spouting this slogan are often the last people likely to be associated with the adjective 'kind'. #BeKind translates as 'be kind to me'. 'You don't know what terrible things people are carrying with them' translates as 'look at how hard done by I am'. The performative element as well as the embarrassing lack of self-awareness is manifold with such people. Of course the idea that they could extend that commodity they apparently value so much in the direction of other people never even seems to occur to them.

Instead they come to women's discussion boards to tell other women off for failing to conform with their social conditioning and asserting boundaries of their own.

How dare these women wear headphones in public? What do they think they're doing in refusing to wait on stand-by until some bloke (it's always a bloke, and the woman is always a lone female) decides he wants their attention? Entitled bitches.

It is extraordinarily odd to castigate a woman like the OP, who is kind enough to apologise to a pest, and has come on here worried she wasn't perfectly kind, for not being kind. When castigating the anxious OP is deeply unkind in and of itself.

So well said!!

Completely agree 👏