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?

A woman doing the asking would have totally changed the power dynamic in the interaction - as I'm sure you are aware. It would be much less likely to be a come on (and if it was, less likely to turn aggressive).

A woman would be subject to the same female socialisation as the op and more likely to have read the 'leave me alone' social cues - 'female entitlement' as a result of socialisation isn't a thing. Men are taught by society - implicitly and sometimes explicitly - that their desires override women's.

It would still be rude though, if a woman had done it.

A PP made the excellent point, which is you can bet he wouldn't have interrupted a man to ask about his bag.

🙄

I’m from the north, I will and do, talk to anyone, stranger or not. At a push, I’d have tried to catch her eye, apologised for interrupting her and then said something like, “I absolutely love your bag, where is it from?” Then would smile and thank her for her time, then leave her alone. In reality, I’d have seen the headphones and wouldn’t have done anything. I go to London for work quite often and know if someone is in their laptop in the platform it is probably for something quite urgent, I wouldn’t want to interrupt. It’s all about assessing the situation first, not about whether I want to be friendly.

As a general rule I find that people on the tube are just as friendly as northerners when they are spoken to, some look shocked at first, but are more than happy to interact when they get a chance.

This was a year ago??

why on earth are you doing work for a financial services company in public - even if you were tethered to your phone and not using public wifi? You might want to check your IT policy!

Yeah, that seems pretty dubious. A rookie mistake that someone with an 'intense' job would be unlikely to make. I take the tube all the time and am not sure I've ever seen anyone actually on a laptop in the station.

Are any threads on here real anymore?

@BaronessEllarawrosaurus What predictive text do you use? I've certainly never had my iPhone capitalise man unless it was the start of a sentence.

They most likely would not be asking someone with headphones on. But if they did then yes they are rude.

OP started the job a year ago. The incident took place on Thursday.

Why did you engage in the first place if you didn't want to talk to him? You should have pretended you did not see him.

My phone would capitalise Male and lowercase female. Just why?

I'm on android and yes the default setting is/or was to capitalize man but not woman. I've had this phone a couple of years now so it might have changed.

No you weren’t rude OP. And being white doesn’t mean you need to respond positively to ethnic minority men trying to chat you up on public transport.

Some of these comments are a bit odd.

No is entitled to talk to anyone. Least of all to a man! Some of them are entitled enough as it is.

I'm from up north and yes, people do talk to strangers. But equally, I wouldn't interrupt someone clearly busy with their ear phones on!

I think it's manners to leave someone alone, who clearly doesn't want to be bothered!

I thank every day I drive and no longer have to deal with people who don't understand when a conversation has naturally dried up...

I wouldn't bother someone wearing headphones and typing, for goodness sake! Remember there was a thing going round of men telling other men how to talk to women wearing headphones? (Which some women do because we want to avoid talking to people! Me included.)

I remember being interrupted in the library by an old man (cue accusations of ageism) while listening to music and writing, who tried to push my stuff off the table, because he thought I was selfish for taking up room on said table. It was an eight seat table and I was taking up about an eighth. (He literally called me a selfish teenager, I was 27 at the time.) He went and sat at that other end after failing to bully me and took up about the same amount of room. The lady sat there after he left took up far more room sorting out some paperwork, but I didn't have a go at her because I'm not an arsehole.

Surely putting headphones on is a clear indicator that OP didn't want to be disturbed. A lot of neuro diverse people I know do it when feeling anxious to avoid social interaction.

I seem to be in a minority of 1, but I would have assumed he was trying to work out the value of the bag and whether it was worth stealing so would have downplayed it's origin 🤣

Well, you were both rude.

Have you got a photo of your bag?

You're surely not suggesting that its the woman's fault that the man behaved badly?

Jeez the 1950s called, they want their opinions back!

This. And if you felt you were in the right you'd have not re engaged in tge conversation.

How odd, he asked her where her bag was from, if that’s behaving badly in your view then I’m not sure how you get through the day.

and again, it was a year ago, imagine still thinking about it a year later.

It was on Thursday.

This is shaping up to be the next cancel the cheque.

Oh RTFT!

The thing is, OP was a bit rude to start with.

The man was a bit gauche talking to her in the circumstances, but we've all been guilty of not assessing the situation before opening our mouths.

When KookyLemonReader thought about it, she realised she was abrupt, and so apologised and briefly answered the man's question; a perfect correction from her.

Sounds like a completely normal human interaction to me.

@KookyLemonReader you did not end up dismissing the stranger at all, even though your thread title says you did.

I don't know about you, but from my experience I always try to do the nice thing on public transport (because social conditioning) and if I indulge men when they are trying to get my attention I always, ALWAYS regret it. He saw you were occupied and tried to chat anyway, red fucking flag. I've been touched, I've been harassed, I've been followed, shown a penis...need I go on. Ignoring is absolutely correct and you were quite nice actually.

Pretentious or what... deep in work mode for your big job in the City 🙄

Perhaps if you managed your time better you wouldn't need to work on a railway platform

This is a very high level of annoyance at just normal life in the world.

one might ask
Why are you needing to work on your journey?
Why are you going into work in the afternoon if time is pressing?
Why not consider he may have psychological issues and not understand boundaries?
Why mention ethnicity?
You can’t arrange the world to avoid irritating you
In my opinion he is no less important than you. Even if he wouldn’t ask a man.
This level of fury at the world must be exhausting.
Compassion for him would at once give you more compassion for yourself.
Where is your heart in this exchange?

You've thought about this for a year?