To think being called "A cock sucking bitch" is a bit much?!

[GuiltyAsAGirlCanBe]

I am still reeling from an encounter I had tonight, and need to vent.

I meet 2 girlfriends tonight at a restaurant. We had just finished our main course and my friend went up to get a round of drinks from the bar. So 2 if us remainded seated on one side of a table for four. With that, a group who were either waiting to be seated, or had finished, began accumulating,standing, around our table. A few of the blokes in the party, at least 40-50 in age set their pint glasses down on the table, where my friend who was seated opposite would be seated. At thus point we had not yet finished our meal, we had pudding to c

You poor thing. You just had the misfortune to encounter a giant, loser cunt. I agree the restaurant staff should have dealt with it better. If you can be arsed definitely review your experience online. If the restaurant has a facebook page all the better. But. Please allow yourself to be sad/angry/frustrated then give it no more head space. He is a ginormous twat who is probably despised by all who know him.

It's a shame as the food was really nice, was definitely going to go again before it kicked off!

Think I will go back again midweek or something.

How nice was the food? I'd be thinking about taking my trade somewhere else.

Was it a chain or part of a group? I would write to the Head Office and say that as a woman you did not feel safe due to staff apathy. And that you have a thread on Mumsnet about it.

I think you should name and shame the place here on this thread because I believe most people reading this would want to avoid this establishment in future.

Definitely write to the manager/head office and include the fact that the barman ignored your friend's request for help.

The verbal abuse was bad enough but the fact that the restaurant didn't even apologise, let alone try to protect you is disgusting.

YY to name and shame.

Yuck. The worst kind of entitled misogynist prick, with a skinful of beer and likely a nose full of coke as well.

You did absolutely nothing wrong. And you don't have a skill for winding men up. Some men are already wound and a woman claiming a little bit of space for themselves is enough to set them off.

I would potentially consider writing to the restaurant or, even better if they're a chain, their head office. Staff should have handled that a lot better, but at Christmas time you often get inexperienced people working who just don't have the skills - I suspect that's why the bar man dodged your friend's eye contact.

Misogynistic is right, they wouldn't have done it to a table full of men, I'd bet my last £1.

I do feel a bit mean naming and shaming, from a distance it probably looked as though we were just two people having a row, and as soon as his shouting became audible over the noise of the busy restaurant the manager did come over and usher him out. I guess the manager coming over and seeing if we were ok wouldn't have gone amiss, but who knows what the bloke said to him outside, he may have given a very different version of events to maybe the manager thought we were equally to blame or something?

And I guess I was wondering if we were actually in the wrong and were being a bit petty in the first place? It just felt so intrusive when we were trying to have a nice meal and chat just the three of us, and we had people sticking their drinks on our table as though it was an extension of the bar! (we were nohwhere near the bar - it was a table in the middle of the restaurant area). We did ask them nicely, but I guess it escalated when we kept asking them when they kept doing it again and again (nicely).

I spoke to my mum about it earlier and she thinks I should email the restaurant, however really I guess the only person who was to blame was the douchbag himself - and I'm not sure what more the restaurant could have done, they can't be held responsible for one idiot customer's actions, and they did remove him eventually...

Also I am in a "respected" profession which my title and email address gives away, and I guess I'd rather not draw attention to the fact I was almost involved in a bar brawl over getting possessive over a restaurant table!

Thanks for reassuring me I'm not a complete cowbag though you lot!

You have every right to expect not to have your space invaded by strangers dumping their glasses.

You had every reason to not anticipate someone being physically intimidating towards you over a completely reasonable request.

Not in the wrong, not at all.

You were not being petty. Nothing that you did deserved that sort of treatment so do not for a minute seek to blame yourself.

The main person to blame is the twatty bloke who ranted at you - the restaurant isn't responsible for that. What they are responsible for is for how they handle things like that, because it is something that they'd have to handle from time to time, as it's unfortunately part of running a bar, and it's more likely at this time of year.

It is not unreasonable to expect people not to put drinks on the table where you're having a meal in a restaurant. Even if you weren't having a meal, if the table's occupied, it would still be normal to ask if it were okay to put drinks down, if not from the same party. Your friend and you politely asking them to move the glasses is not being unreasonable. Unreasonable behaviour would have been pushing the glasses off the table and/or screaming, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" at them.

I would mail the restaurant to give a short summary of events, including how much you had been enjoying the meal up to that point. Point out the barman who avoided catching your friends' eye, and that when the manager came over, you weren't really happy with the result, to the point that you were scared to go outside, in case the man was still around, and paid for a taxi rather than the train, because you were concerned about your safety. This could have easily been avoided if the manager had come back to say, "His friends have taken him home/he's in a taxi, so there's nothing more to worry about." Probably if they'd done that, and got you all a free round of drinks or knocked something off the bill, you'd have all been feeling happy and SAFE.

But they didn't, and I think they should be aware that because of the way they reacted over it, you have changed your mind about going back there to eat again - i.e. they've lost future custom.

You can report this to the police. It is illegal to harass, alarm and offend someone, and make you feel threatened by his behaviour, he doesn't need to actually threaten to hurt you.

Of course YANBU. If you were a table of men or a mixed group, particularly with large men, this wouldn't have happened. They wanted your table.

I understand why the bar staff didn't intervene but sorry, however unpleasant, it's the manager's job.

I agree with the poster on the first page who said that xmas trade can be awful. She was a waitress but I come at it from the perspective of a regular customer.

I hate pubs and restaurants at xmas. Far too many people who do not know how to behave.

I like January when they're all on the wagon to try to pretend they don't have a drink problem and are desperate to save the money they've spanked.

Places are quiet and grateful for your custom.

I know what you mean about being grateful for your custom. They wouldn't let us book a table as they said the won't do reservations for parties smaller than 6 people. So we had arrived and chanced our luck, and got a table. But it was still ours!

It did feel that they weren't really fussed about our custom as a table of three with all the xmas parties etc that they had going on in there.

Sorry for your unpleasant experience, OP. You did absolutely nothing wrong. Shame on his group and the restaurant for not doing more. I had an experience on Friday with an angry man called me a fucking prick for questioning why he and his stationary wagon were blocking the one way system/access to two thirds of a carpark by parking in a non space. Turned out he was eating his lunch and that was more important than anything else! It's impossible to reason with some people.

Don't give it another thought. Just don't go back again.

There are really nice places. I will always remember the manager at the Cork and Bottle, Leicester Square who got a belligerent man to cough up £20 towards dry-cleaning when his girlfriend barfed on my clothes and in my hair. He was very authoritative and threatened the police.

The boyfriend blamed me for being a bitch for complaining and in the way of her trajectory . His girlfriend was unavailable for consultation, being almost comatose at the time of the row. Unbelievable.

That's not naming-and-shaming the place but naming-and-proclaiming.

They cleaned me off as best they could but when I got home I found dried vomit in my ear.

Ffs again with the police THEY DO NOT CARE,
OP dont bother with the police they wont do nothing, i promis you that.
What you do is write a strongly worded letter to the company, they will give you vouchers in return. There done.
The guy wont be found and nobody will care to find him, people like that get their karma, leave it at that.

Oh and you are in no way to blame for this. He wouldnt do it to another man because hes a pussy. Like i said he will get his.
Dont let this experience make you doubt yourself.

No Y.A.N.B.U. He was a prick. This is the second thread within 24 hours where I have seen these "men screaming at and bullying women.
It's strange you never see these men standing up and screaming at other men though.

Gilbert. Never mind my last £1. I'd bet my 6 winning lottery numbers. He'd would not have opened his mouth to a table full of men.

Guilty, what will happen if you do nothing now? Nothing. The place will continue to operate as it does, and there will be a repeat of the occurrence. And aomebody else's night will be spoilt.

If you write to the restaurant/pub, and leave feedback on Trip ADvisor, and the pub's fb page, then something will change, and it will be less likely to happen again.

As far as I know, they'd be in breach of licensing laws for serving someone who was obviously inebriated - so might be worth getting in touch with local authority licencing people.

Delarosa - this is the second thread tonight where I've seen you pop up saying "the police won't do anything." Do you have some sort of personal issues with the police?

My experience is that the police do take this sort of thing seriously if they're called at the time, and it's worth reporting even after the event because this guy may well have gone on somewhere else leaving a trail of mayhem behind him (many years ago we had a gatecrasher at a party - managed to get rid of him, but later on that evening another friend came across the same guy being arrested in the local hospital A&E department, having physically assaulted someone in between being persuaded to leave the party and rolling up at the hospital) and they may be interested if he got into mischief somewhere else later on.

'I do feel a bit mean naming and shaming, from a distance it probably looked as though we were just two people having a row, and as soon as his shouting became audible over the noise of the busy restaurant the manager did come over and usher him out. I guess the manager coming over and seeing if we were ok wouldn't have gone amiss, but who knows what the bloke said to him outside, he may have given a very different version of events to maybe the manager thought we were equally to blame or something?'

Why? They allow their customers to be verbally abused in their restaurant! I would like to know who they are so I never patronise them.

Name and shame them! I would tweet away, put on their FB page, name them here, Tripadvisor and Yell page, every which way possible.

They could bloody well see it going on in there.