AIBU for confronting a stranger criticising my appearance?

[MarbleFox]

I left work late today, missing the bus I normally catch by a couple of minutes. This meant waiting half an hour for the next one. At the bus stop there were two women, roughly my age(20) and as I approached I heard one say to the other, "Oh my God, look at the state of her hair". My hairs currently a silver/lilac shade, it's been bright purple, blue and pink so I'm used to getting the occasional comment and stare. I shrugged the comment off as I normally do but for the next 25 minutes as I waited for the bus the comments continued. Criticising my hair, clothes and general appearance while sniggering while I'm obviously in earshot. I eventually snapped and said, "Sorry but what's the problem?" Neither replied so I said, "You really shouldn't mutter horrible things about people you don't know", to which one said she wasn't talking about me. She definitely was.

I know it's daft to let this bother me and I know they were out of order but should I have ignored them? Or was responding the right thing to do? I'm normally very shy and meek so this was out of character for me.

I think some people might tend to be more tipsy and forthright in early hours.

I had a woman on the bus say to her friend as I got on and sat down "look at her she's well fat" I wasn't I was a size 10 at the time. I turned to her looked her up and down and said "I've just had a baby, whats your excuse" her and her friend sat in sile silence the rest of the way. Bitches.

Very rude of them to comment loudly enough for you to hear - have they not heard of the Nudge-&-Eyebrow-Point method?

Good for you having a word with them!

Highway - ha ha!

I always admire people who are confident enough to dress/groom 'differently' would love to dye my hair one day but not sure I have the guts. Your hair sounds lovely OP and those women were horrible. I'm not surprised that you were upset.

One slightly-too-loud muttered remark = rudeness, 25 minutes is really nasty. I'm glad that there are people like you who confront nastiness like that. They might never have been challenged before and people like that need to be challenged in my opinion.

God made parrots, Harriot. I like to colour my hair as a tribute to his finest work.

you can dye your hair any colour, but can't stop people making comments about it.'

raining the point is people shouldn't be making the comments, at all.
What on earth gives anyone the right to comment on someones appearance, seriously?
Whether fat/thin/blue haired/no haired/dressed in bright pink flares or a business suit, no one should expect to have their looks commented on by other people.

Why is it anyone elses business??

I'm still shocked that anyone thinks that posting pictures of strangers to social media because they look different is fair game. For that reason alone I cannot believe that Harriet is a grown woman.

I'm not going to claim that I don't ever judge, I think we all do if we are honest, but you do it in your head.

I'm still shocked that anyone thinks that posting pictures of strangers to social media because they look different is fair game.

I agree Pipbin. It seems incredibly childish to me, the sort of thing cliquey 13yr olds do (and even then it's not right imo) not the actions of a supposedly grown woman.

HoneyDragon
I shall borrow that if I may!?

I absolutely agree people should NOT be making comments about it, BUT, I think we all know that looking 'different' will elicit some attention.

BUT, I think we all know that looking 'different' will elicit some attention.

But why?
I don't get it, at all?
Especially when our "cultural" dress is based on fast fleeting fashion trends.
To use my example above, I was called all sorts of things for wearing DMs at school, now they are the height of cool.
Ditto brightly coloured hair/punk clothing etc etc

The person who is todays "attention seeker" (ffs) is tomorrows fair game for the fashion industry, and the clothing they have worn for 20 years suddenly becomes fashionable and "on trend" so I just don't understand it.

I really hate it when people.take photos of people in public and then post them on social media. It's just horrible.

I have a friend who often does this and shares those 'Spotted in Walmart' photos of people dressing in um, not the most.flattering manner.

One day she did this with the caption 'Really? FFS' and I commented with a passive aggressive 'some of these people are just awesome, absolutely no fucks given!' and then she was all like 'I know, brilliant huh'. But she's not posted anymore.things like that since.

Oh and everything MrsDeVere said, with (brightly coloured) knobs on!

I would say victim blaming is clearly goady behavior raining. harriet deserved the responses she got and she probably wanted them.

Good for you OP! I love silver/blue hair and I would love to give it a go myself but I am a bit worried I'd mess up doing it and it would come out a different colour.

When I was 13yo I remember visiting London. I lived in Athens and Greek society was quite conservative at the time - everyone dressed the same and conformed to similar standards. I saw Punks for the first time on that visit and how they had to courage to go everywhere looking outrageously different. I didn't like the look but I loved the sense of freedom - a place where you were allowed to style yourself any way you wanted and express your personality through your dress, piercing, tattoos, hair colour, etc. I didn't want to be a Punk as such but I wanted to live in a place where other people were Punks.

Generally, commenting on anyone's appearance in a negative way is just rude and shallow and therefore best avoided if you don't want to look like a cockwomble. It really is that simple.

I was dressed as a Nun when I was 8 months pregnant and people were terribly British and polite about it.

Shave my head and bleach it and prople think they can pass an opinion on why you shouldn't. More often than not over my ability to within six job or career. But I find politely congratulating them on their career then gently pointing out I have over a hundred employees AND pink hair curtails such flimflam.

Oh, and one of my friends has bright pink hair. She has been a conservative dresser to date, but she decided to dye it in celebration of its return after chemotherapy and she looks great. She didn't do it to seek attention from others, but because she wanted to be reminded every time she looks in the mirror that she survived. She says she'll go back to brown after a bit, but to those who say such colours are mere 'attention seeking': you have NO idea of the personal circumstances of a stranger.

Good for you.

This made me smile this morning

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-35966311

I wonder if Harriet would criticise him?

A pregnant nun would make a fantastic observational psychology experiment! I love it HoneyDragon!