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?

It's not a relatively new job. She started a year ago, as she tells us unnecessarily.

I have never seen anyone working on their laptop on a tube platform.

Or (heaven forfend) go to Ireland. You will be forcibly talked to and it's bloody marvellous.

How is anyone supposed to know when you’ve got headphones on. I have short hair ( above ears ) and people don’t notice when I’m wearing in ear headphones. Assuming most of you have longer hair than me people just don’t know. Even if it was irritating did
it really necessitate all this angst. ?

I am from "up north" and would be surprised if someone interrupted me when I had headphones on and was concentrating, I would be civil but I don't think it was very mannerly of him.

Weird people who think the only place you can ever work or concentrate is a "library or an office."

I wouldn't interrupt somebody with headphones on unless it was something urgent like being about to miss my train and needing directions pronto. But if somebody asked me this I'd spare a minute to talk to them. If they waffled on I'd probs say something like "OK, better get back to this. The boss is on my case".

So disingenuous. I have lived in Ireland many years on and off and love that aspect of it but don't do the "OP's a cold, mean southerner/ english person who never wants a stranger to talk to her!" shtick when you know perfectly well the issue is that she was concentrating and busy.

What? Why should a woman have her thoughts interrupted by random man?

No. Read it again.

No it wasn't. Try to be more polite and a less unskilled reader in future.

And IME a lot of women expect men to rush to their aid when they need help with something. Like, if a bloke was to leave a female colleague in the car park with a flat tyre and not offer to change it he'd be slated to hell and back but the reverse wouldn't generally be true.

The fact you’re still thinking about it over a year ago… probably tells you all you need to know.

You’re wrong. It’s not her job, it’s her choice of wording and unnecessary information.

I also work in finance (in the big city too!) and I found her language amusing.

It never is, when it comes to an irresistible opportunity to put a woman in her place.

Makes you wonder about the kind of demographic that populates this site these days. But some women have always been eager to put other women back in their boxes, particularly when they dare to assert their own autonomy or refusal to kowtow to the usual female conditioning.

In these respects, MN can be quite the eye-opener.

I always wear big over-ear headphones so it's obvious, plus I hate the in-ear ones. I used to wear them and kept getting ear infections, got some over-ear ones when I couldn't have the in-ear ones in during one ear infection, preferred how they sound and never went back. I also haven't had another ear infection since then, so they were obviously irritating my ears.

1. The man may well have not realised you were wearing headphones - if someone is facing away from me, I wouldn’t know if they had them on.
2. if you had to ‘drag yourself into the office’ one day a week, why were you not there ‘early afternoon’?
3. who in their right mind works on their laptop on a tube station platform?
4. how was he supposed to know you were a Very Important Person doing Very Important Work seeing as you were on a bloody tube station platform?

I have mixed feelings. Yes you were rude and you are definitely showing off about how important and well off you are but I definitely don’t think men should insist on engagement from women on public places. I would have continued to ignore him.

I think it’s rude to interrupt someone wearing headphones. I’m from the famously chatty north east - I’m happy with chatting to strangers, but interrupting someone with headphones is ignoring the signals and lone women don’t like that. We all have to exist in the public space and we should read peoples signals and be respectful. All too often men don’t think they need to do that with women.

So women are to assume every strange man approaching them has autism are we? Did the guy who pushed me into a bush after making ‘polite’ chit chat have autism I wonder. Maybe I shouldn’t have reported it to the police. Maybe the man who followed me around town then denied it when I confronted him had autism, maybe I shouldn’t have shouted at him to fuck off. My apologies to both those men for me not putting them before myself and just assuming they were up to no good.

Sorry about your brother but he needs to be made aware that it is unsafe for him to approach strangers. The next man he approaches could be violent. That is not me being flippant but he is putting himself in danger when approaching male strangers.

It is so long ago now that I may well be remembering wrongly, but I think that on one occasion decades ago when a man said to me: “Smile, dear, it may never happen” I replied: “It has, my father’s just died.” If I didn’t say it, I should have.

Yes, I agree with this, except I’m not from the north east and nor am I that happy with chatting to strangers, but the rest is spot on!

When that happened to me on one occasion I did say, quite truthfully, “My grandfather’s just died”, glare at him & keep walking.

After my mum’s death I sort of wanted someone to say something like that because it would have given me an excuse to let rip. Probably a good thing they didn’t.

People's comprehension on here is absolutely terrible - or they don't mind making themselves look dim in order to try and put the OP down. She never said she was "wondering if she was racist" but she may have worried that he thought she was being racist.

Yes, that you haven't read the thread properly. It was last Thursday. It’s in the first bloody post,

Right? It doesn’t matter if she worked in Lidl