To want to punch people who say - "cheer up love, it might never happen"

[dawsonjunior]

Have an afternoon off with a friend, go to costa. I save a table whilst she ordered drinks.
Quite a queue so I was waiting, having a little think about life. When the man on the table next to me says - cheer up love, might never happen.

I must have given him quite the dirty look because he did apologise BUT it's such an insensitive comment for a stranger to make. For all he know I could have been told I had a week to live.

Wish people would keep their bloody comments to themselves.

[AnnieLobeseder]

I always pull people (yes, usually older men) up on it. I tell them it's a very imapproporiate thing to say to anyone and ask them how they can possibly know that something awful hasn't just happened. They usually get all defensive but tough shit!

[exoticfruits]

It was a man who said it to me- a market stall holder. I wasn't even buying anything- just walking past.

[reddaisy]

I hate this too. Someone said it to me when I was a teenager, I was walking home after my DM had rung me at work to say three friends had died in a car accident. A man said it to me too. I was too shocked by everything at the time to say anything.

[cory]

YAdefNBU and I'd go for it.

The conversation would go something like this:

Obnxious man: Cheer up, love, it may never happen.



OP: Oh dear, I see it already has. That's a nasty black eye you've got.

[ike1]

YANBU when I was 16yrs old I went for a walk to escape from the house where my mother was having a mental health assessment to be setioned for Psychosis tears were falling down my face. An old git said precisely that to me. Will always remember it as I felt I had to force a smile just to keep HIM happy!

[ike1]

I see you had the same builders bum treatment too Reddaisy-utter idiotic crap!

[Softlysoftly]

It goes alongside the "give us a smile love".

Irritating

Can't believe people have had this said to them in the hospital

[MissMogwi]

YANBU. It really pisses me off.

Are we supposed to walk around beaming all the time?

[FryOneFatManic]

I think Lottapianos has it; that it's the kind of blokes who don't see women as real people.

In my experience, it has definitely been blokes saying it to women. I can't recall any bloke who's said someone said this comment to him. It's always been blokes saying it to me, or female friends telling me a bloke has said it to them.

[lottiegarbanzo]

Exactly lottapianos, it's the over-the-hill man's version of the public leer. All about seeing women as public property, put there to provide decoration and entertainment.

[Alisvolatpropiis]

YANBU. I don't have a naturally happy face when it's at rest. I get it all the time. I've been saying "it already has" in the most miserable tone of voice I can summon for years now.

[PessaryPam]

The last time this was said to me I just replied that I had just found out my Mum had cancer which was true. I hope it stopped them from doing it in future.

[gloomywinters2]

yanbu thank god i,m not the only one i get this all the time or smile i,m sorry i cant change my face or my thoughts on how i,m feeling to suit you,>and breath

[joanofarchitrave]

susan hill is an author, she usually writes fiction but wrote a nonfiction book called Family and that story is in it.

'I felt I had to force a smile just to keep HIM happy!' - exactly. I do wonder what goes through people's heads when they say these things. I barely say hello without wondering how the person I am saying it to will feel about it.

[AnnaRack]

Yanbu. None of their business. Wish i had the courage to say, 'But it already has....'

[gail734]

A friend of mine lost his dad when he was a teenager. As he and his mum drove out of the hospital car park, the attendant (in a hospital car park!) said this to them. Anyone who uses this expression is as thick as mince, as we say in Scotland.

[RabbitsMakeGOLDBaubles]

I just tell 'em the truth. I'm in constant pain from arthritis and kidney disease and that this isn't my sad face it's my sore face. They usually look pretty contrite, then whenever I see them again they ask me how I am.

[missingmumxox]

or should you get another skin? I was asked this when I was buying the stuff for my Mums funeral, I was 27, and the lady at the till said it, I wanted to rage at her, and again when I missed my baby.
but actually the other thousand times in my life it had been said to me with what "I like to think witty retort", cancelled it out, I hope I wouldn't make someone who was only trying to be nice feel like a piece of shit for doing so.
if everyone wanted the world to revolve round them ,n people tippy toeing round the fact that any one they speak to could have had a tragic thing happen before they open their mouth, well sorry! not my world,
you all answer like the poor person talking to you was trying to make you feel like crap....NO! you are not the centre of the universe, they where just doing their job and where not picking you out to offend, grow up, and get on with your grief in the way most others do in private and not think the rest of the world should grieve with us just in case...what a miserable world that would be if everybody did.

[dawsonjunior]

missingmumwow are you for real?

I don't tip toe around strangers just because they might have had something tragic happen to them. But I would never say such an insensitive thing either.

They were just doing their job? The man who said it to me was a total stranger sat next to me in a cafe. He wasn't doing a job.

People should grieve in private? You are one sad cold hearted bitch.

F you and the horse you rode in on.

[LoopsInHoops]

I'm struggling to read that poorly written post by missingmumwow, but if my translation is correct, I think it must be someone who is trying purposefully to offend, so just ignore it (it might go away)

[exoticfruits]

I think that you just have to allow for the fact that she has a complete misunderstanding of the thread and pay no attention.

[Yarg]

Interesting that missingmumwow is the only poster who claims this was said to her by a woman.

Because in my experience it is always men who say it.

Why? Because, as others have said, it is a subtle yet unmistakably indication of a misogynist attitude.

I seldom get it these days. But when I do, I tell my interlocuter to Fuck Off. I've no patience with it any more.

[Yarg]

Drive me insane, this sort of sexist crap.

Would the man who says it to you, say it to a man walking past? 'Cheer up mate, it might never happen'.

Would a woman say it to a man?

Men who say this to passing women are always complete twats.

[CheshireDing]

YANBU.

I used to think it was just me, as a teenager I felt like I got it all the time "give us a smile" "it might never happen". Obviously as a teenager I would never have told them to fuck off. I don't think I look miserable, just normal.

Now I would but now it doesn't happen. Which does make me think they were just sort of picking on me because I was a young girl (yes they were always men).

The people with you always seem to think it's funny too, it's not bloody funny. If someone says this to PFB when she is older and I am with her I will tell them to fuck off on her behalf