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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

I have just been clapped at by a jogger! Is this rude or what?

46 replies

5Foot5 · 23/12/2013 17:47

Walking home from work in the dark just now and I was on a stretch of pavement that is fairly narrow, though the road beside it is not desperately busy. Anyway, I thought I had heard a clapping sound, three short claps, but didn't really think anything of it. Then a few seconds later the clapping sound came again and I was just wondering "Who is doing that clapping, hope it isn't some drunken idiot messing about?" when the clapping sound happened right behind me and a jogger in hi-vis vest muscled his way past.

Is this some new sort of "etiquette" employed by joggers these days?

I must admit it struck me as rather rude. If he felt he couldn't get past me without stepping in to the road then what was wrong with saying "Excuse me". If I had heard an "Excuse me" then I would have known exactly what was going on and would have moved to one side, whereas a short series of claps does not immediately suggest to me that someone wants me to get out of the way.

Has anyone else encountered this technique?

OP posts:

dreamofwhitehorses · 23/12/2013 18:05

And some one slowing down behind me would definitely make me think I was being followed and much worse than just being passed

VivaLeBeaver · 23/12/2013 18:05

Dh is a runner and says they'd have done it so you didn't jump when they appeared. He says he sees people shit themselves when he gets level with them sometimes.

He says clapping will be heard more effectively from a distance as you'd have to really shout to make "excuse me" heard from the same distance behind.

He says the runner probably wasn't bothered about wanting you to move, just wanted you to know they were there.

wannabedomesticgoddess · 23/12/2013 18:05

Either that or he was happy and he knew it.

Hahahahaha. Laughed out loud at that! Has cheered me right up.

SofaKing · 23/12/2013 18:06

No Maureen, a footpath through a park with a stream at the bottom of the hill.
He could have cycled past on the flat grass on either side of the path, but clearly it was easier for him if I got out of his way without even a polite request to allow him to continue cycling along a footpath.
(Can you tell I need to let go given how long ago it happened!)

sydlexic · 23/12/2013 18:12

I know of someone who does that. He wears a iPod so doesn't speak as he tends to shout without realising it.

caramelwaffle · 23/12/2013 18:14

"...happy and he knew it"

Isthatwhatdemonsdo · 23/12/2013 18:16

Maybe he was clapping along to Pharrells new song. Happy.

BiscuitsAreMyDownfall · 23/12/2013 18:16

happy and he knew it.

SuperLovefuzz · 23/12/2013 18:17

Haven't read all the posts so someone might have suggested this already. Just thinking if the jogger is anything like me, they'd be too puffed out to speak to alert you. V rude of the jogger though! Surely they could have just gone into the road for the second it would take to pass you, where did they expect you to go??

Original poster

5Foot5 · 23/12/2013 18:26

Hmm! I get what a number of people said that he thought it was a way of not alarming me by running up behind me. However, if anything it had the opposite effect. As I said in the OP, my first thought when I heard the clapping was to think it might be some drunken youth arsing around so I felt slightly apprehensive at that thought.

"Excuse me" wouldn't have worried me at all.

OP posts:

Smoorikins · 23/12/2013 18:30

A friend of mine is deaf. He can make noises, but not speak. I could imagine that someone like him would find clapping a better way of getting noticed - assorted vocalisations would be more likely to freak someone out.

WholeLottaRosie · 23/12/2013 18:32

This reply has been deleted

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DrinkFromSantasFountain · 23/12/2013 18:33

Maybe he's deaf and just wanted to warn you he was there and not a mugger, but unable to speak and tell you?

fanjofarrow · 23/12/2013 18:33

I like shouting "Run, Forrest, RUN!" at random joggers, because I'm an arsehole.

lifesgreatquestions · 23/12/2013 18:37

I thought the etiquette was something like "on your left" or something that always confuses me and makes me go the wrong way into the jogger. This is weird. If he was mute I would think a bicycle bell would have been more effective.

LessMissAbs · 23/12/2013 18:52

Perhaps he called out and you didn't hear him, and this was the end of several attempts to alert you of his presence?

littlemisssarcastic · 23/12/2013 19:33

Did he clap as one normally would, or was it a deliberately slow clap?

Not quite the same thing, but I was in my car driving down a narrow road a few weeks ago and saw a car coming the other way, so I stopped to let him pass. (It was his right of way.)

Anyhow, as he passed, he put both of his hands out of the drivers window and clapped in a slow exaggerated fashion.

I turned around at the end of the road and was coming back when I saw him directly in front of me at the junction. A bus was on the adjacent road coming past, buses right of way because we were at a junction, and as the bus passed, the young lad did another slow exaggerated clap.

I could quite easily have snapped his hands off because it was obviously a sarcastic 'well done' clap and I wondered how often he did it and why no one had had words with him before, like a driver he was doing it to or a passerby?

aquashiv · 23/12/2013 19:34

Are you sure they weren't farts? If they had a windbreaker on its hard to tell.

FreeWee · 23/12/2013 19:46

I would have thought it was the jogger equivalent of a bell ring. I have often jumped when a jogger has come last me without warning so would have appreciated this, although probably only after I'd worked out why he was doing it. Also, when I used to jog I would have been too puffed of say excuse me. And most of the time I didn't need them to move per se, just be aware I was there and not do something daft right in front of me I would say no it isn't rude, it's unusual but not impolite. It got your attention which was probably its intention and you were not bowled over by a stranger in the dark/dusk.

FredFredGeorge · 23/12/2013 19:59

It is quite important to make a noise so people notice you and don't jump out their skin as you pass, particularly if the road is busy enough that you're a little nervous about spending too much time in it.

"Excuse Me" isn't generally a good one as people do then make a huge effort to get out of the way which isn't necessary at all and is a waste of effort for them.

Clapping is a bit odd though, evenin' (or Merry Christmas this time of year) but I still think it's unfair to read any evil intent, he just didn't want to scare you!

OpalTourmaline · 23/12/2013 20:01

That is a bit strange unless the person couldn't speak for some reason.

I was walking along the pavement not long ago when a car honked loudly to warn me they were about to turn off the road into a drive I was about to pass. It made me jump out of my skin and if I had been deaf and not heard them they would have driven into me as that is how fine they cut it. So rude. They should have waited for me to pass as I always do if someone is walking past my drive when I want to turn into it

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