Why are people so rude & weird?

[Maryqueenofscots83]

I'm currently looking after a friend's house in a town on the South coast.

I've been here for several weeks and I can't believe how rude and deranged strangers are here. Normally I'm up north or overseas.

In Tesco, I got called a 'stupid cow' for dropping my keys on the floor after checkout, by a customer, a woman she was with laughed at what she said and they both sneered at me. I'm not sure if I was supposed to have heard. I didn't put anyone else out by dropping my keys, then they walked really close behind me whispering loudly. It was bizarre. I wondered if they were on drugs,. I said nothing because my instincts told me these women were asking for a fight somehow.

Today I was outside Aldi and a guy in a car made kissing noises at me as I got out. Then when I got back in the car after my shop, carrying flowers and he made kissing noises again and said "ah she bought flowers" in a silly, take the piss voice, stuck his hand out the window towards me, not sure why? and his friend in the car with him burst out laughing and then drove off. I just gave them a strange look.

A couple of other incidents like this involving men, total strangers, who appear to be taking the piss for no reason.

A man sort of blocked me in to a parking space, I had a hell of a time getting out of the space, I asked him to move and he wouldn't, with a sneering look on his face and then when I rolled my window down to give him a piece of my mind, he said with a lascivious look on his face "doesn't it feel so good to get in and out of tiny little spaces?"

I went out with a friend to a bar and a man came up behind me and grabbed my head for no reason. I shouted at him to get off me and he did. He kept approaching me after that trying to apologise, but it was like he was taking the piss, it wasn't genuine. In the end we left the bar because of it.

Anyone else get strangers doing this? How do you react?

This isn't a particularly rough place.

Just a bit!

Maryqueenofscots83 Well, for once in my life I was utterly speechless! I was horrified though - it was the middle of the morning and very busy. As if anyone would say “Yeah, sounds like a plan! My place or yours?”

@MissCharleyP

"As if anyone would say “Yeah, sounds like a plan! My place or yours?”"

Haha. I bet some men would probably say yes, if it was the other way round. Strange creatures!

@Craftycorvid That sounds about right for Barnsley.

@MissCharleyP "As if anyone would say “Yeah, sounds like a plan! My place or yours?”
That reminds me of another incident from when I lived at Goldthorpe. There was a lad, lets call him Kenny (because that was his name) and every evening he used to sit with his minions in the children's play area of the housing estate where I lived despite being at least 18 at the time. Every night I had to take my dog a walk past them and every night he would get one of his cohort to wolf whistle at me and Kenny would shout "That's from me!" This went on for about at least a year and a year of me completely ignoring them. One afternoon I came home and they were sat there again and as I was walking away one of his friends ran up and asked me if I wanted to go out with Kenny. I replied (I thought) rather sarcastically "Yeah" while continuing to walk away from them. OMG the panic in this guys voice "He doesn't really want to go out with you." In the tone of voice. Like cool kenny would ever go out with a loser like me. Because of course jobless Kenny who spent his days downing White Lighting on a kiddies climbing frame was such a catch when I was about to go off to uni (but they didn't know that or anything about me)

Any way I digress my point is That after my acceptance he and his minions never bothered me again.

That’s horrible simply. But really they were just exposing what nasty people they are.

I have just been thinking this! I had brain surgery in May and am in the ( very slow) process of recovery. I have to take ridiculous steroids which have made me puff out and I'm still unsteady on my feet. I've noticed so many people just staring at me. I know I look ridiculous but it really does make me feel worse and even more self conscious than I already do, not sure what happened to manners .

Do you do your hair and makeup quite nicely/heavily/in detail? I find that hair and makeup is heavier in the north (generally) than the south - especially getting down to the south coast and rural/regional areas. Could this reaction be due to you standing out in that way and batshit crazy locals?

@PicsInRed - I don't wear much make up at all (just a bit of mascara and lippy) and hardly any of it... so quite subtle. I don't really do anything with my hair.

@LadyEv Kenny sounds like a catch - you really missed out there! Lol

I was wearing a nice summer dress in Aldi the day I was harrassed and a nice dress at the bar. But otherwise my look is very au naturel and quite conservative in that it's rare for me to wear anything revealing. I don't like to think I was attracting any of the harrassment because of what I wore.

A woman parked in my allocated parking space today. I left a polite note on her windscreen and she ripped it up and threw it on the floor! Charming. She drove off very loudly.

I’m not a religious person really but the priest who is marrying us is always saying to love other people and see the best in them. That reminded me of a bit in Call the Midwife. Sister Monica Joan says she didn’t become a nun for love of people - people are brutish and ignorant!

I knew this was going to be Boscombe. It is a drug adled shit hole. My mil lives there, left her lovely market town for a place with a sea view. Fuck me. Her house is worth a bucket load, but we hardly go to hers because it is so grim.

If you're going to retire to a sea side town, think bloody carefully!

There's a drug or alcohol rehab place near my office so occasionally encounter some characters. The man who asked me to push his wheelchair up a hill whilst talking about his dead girlfriend, and asking me how old my youngest friends were springs to mind.

Today I did hear "Ah my God she's so beautiful" on my way in. I wasn't sure if it was the guy with blood smeared across his face, or his friend who was scrubbing blood off his hoody with one hand, can in the other.... Still, a compliment's a compliment I guess? 😆

I knew you were talking about Bournemouth from your description 😂

@JADS Yikes... Boscombe would not be my first choice for retirement either

@Basketofkittens - yes I agree with Sister Monica Joan...therefore it is especially nice when you come across a person who is quite lovely and not ignorant and brutish at all.

Street harassment is fucking horrible.

I don’t actually think there’s any rhyme or reason to it.

I’ve known people who feel it’s because they look a bit too “posh” or too young or too out of place....maybe if you’re a big bald bloke with tattoos you think you’re safe, but then I know big guys can get “started on” by little guys looking to make a point.

Thing is you can’t control when or where it happens (eg I think sometimes after you’ve been harassed you victim blame yourself and think “if I lived somewhere more expensive or looked or acted different this would never happen....)

Wherever you are or whoever you are or however you react you’re not immune to it - wasn’t there some posh guy on a train who got done for screaming at and abusing an articulate and assertive lawyer in First Class? I mean she knew how to stand up for herself (and did) but he was just weird?

Or the only time I’ve had a waiter be really rude to me was in one of the (alleged) silver service top restaurants in town? I was on a date so it wasn’t like I was “standing out as woman on her own”

I was walking down “local leafy university expensive street” and there were some chavs who’d got into a tower building and were throwing glass bottles from the top floor at about 2pm on a weekday afternoon Not AT me, but these people are out there.

This isn’t regular stuff thank GOD but it is just weird everyday shit.

AngyPangy - I think the articulate and assertive person you're referring to was a WOC with her 4yo son the abuser was the lawyer?
Unless there's another case - which there almost certainly is!
www.scotsman.com/news-2-15012/transport/glasgow-solicitor-fined-for-racially-abusing-woman-on-train-1-4357622

Oops - missing some punctuation there!
...a WOC with her 4yo son; the abuser was the lawyer?

@Mirrivan - I didn't think you were suggesting it particularly. But it had already crossed my mind.

No idea.

I was walking my dog the other day and a car drove past with the windows down and the two men inside barked and howled out the window.

Actually panicked me a bit as I was horribly bullied at school and one of the things they did was bark as I got on the bus.

Walking the dog in my quiet village is my safe place. Twats.