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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what's the rudest thing a stranger has done to you?

704 replies

YoungScrappyHungry · 08/12/2020 14:48

Inspired by the lovely thread about kindest thing strangers have done for you, and also a chance for me to share this horror.

When I was 19, I worked on the tills at a supermarket in my holidays from university.

A woman I was serving was staring at me, trying to get my attention as I scanned her stuff. I looked up at her and smiled. She said, in still the most condescending tone I've ever heard:

'Don't you wish you'd studied now?'

I was so floored and ashamed, I didn't say a thing back and just carried on scanning her things. Fact was I was actually at university, but even if I hadn't been....aghh!....still gets me.

What are yours?

OP posts:
CorianderQueen · 09/12/2020 00:06

It is*

youvegottenminuteslynn · 09/12/2020 00:08

Saw a big scar (pretty huge) on my arm during a super hot summer and said to me "ooh I bet you can't wait til it's cold and you can cover that up!"

Totally uninvited, total stranger.

So weird and so rude!

Ffsseriously · 09/12/2020 00:21

So why all the people who say they dont disrespect retail or hospitality staff and did it themselves. Do you feel that telling rude arseholes actually im not thick i a have a degree puts them in their place. This suggests that those that cant say that are thick.
Surely with your plethora of phds, degrees and firsts from Oxbridge you can see that.

Topseyt · 09/12/2020 00:30

@youvegottenminuteslynn

Saw a big scar (pretty huge) on my arm during a super hot summer and said to me "ooh I bet you can't wait til it's cold and you can cover that up!"

Totally uninvited, total stranger.

So weird and so rude!

I have two large scars on my right arm from when an open fracture needed surgery.

I haven't had any comments yet, but I have already decided that if I do I will reply asking directly why I should be ashamed of something that is part of me.

You are right in that people can be very rude.

HollyCarrot · 09/12/2020 00:31

@Ffsseriously

So why all the people who say they dont disrespect retail or hospitality staff and did it themselves. Do you feel that telling rude arseholes actually im not thick i a have a degree puts them in their place. This suggests that those that cant say that are thick. Surely with your plethora of phds, degrees and firsts from Oxbridge you can see that.
Because people can be young and stupid and learn to be better. I was raised being told college was the be all and end all. My supermarket job taught me otherwise.
MrsXx4 · 09/12/2020 00:32

I posted on here quite a few years ago now in the relationships topic looking for advice, I was having a disagreement with my DP at the time but it was nothing serious and not relationship ending, I just wanted to get both points of view down and hear opinions.

A poster commented that they hoped I’d never get pregnant !!??

It was so uncalled for and I ended up with a lot of private messages from posters telling me to report and not to listen! Bloody awful thing to say considering my post was not about that topic at all and they didn’t know what I was going through privately.

And yes, I do remember the username! Bitch!

MoonPomme · 09/12/2020 00:36

I agree.
Customer is rude like why didnt you study.
Pp. Well i did im a phd at oxford.
Its not really dispelling their stupid ideas is it?
Oh I'd only do this job to get me through uni.
Good for you.
Some of us couldn't afford to go to uni..
Some of the people I work with have got degrees and they're thick as shit on a practical level, they may be book smart but cant even fill a mop bucket without step by step instuction.

Ffsseriously · 09/12/2020 00:39

@HollyCarrot obviously, but people aren't telling the stories with that tone, they still think what they said was clever. They don't seem to see how insulting it is at all.

UpHereForDancing · 09/12/2020 00:41

@YoungScrappyHungry and @WellTidy I think it's obvious the women were jealous of you both - younger and prettier etc!!

HollyCarrot · 09/12/2020 00:55

[quote Ffsseriously]@HollyCarrot obviously, but people aren't telling the stories with that tone, they still think what they said was clever. They don't seem to see how insulting it is at all.[/quote]
Absolutely, just saying that people can be idiots but not stay that way forever is all. Fwiw I despise people who are rude to retail staff. I think certain people use retail staff as a venting mechanism for their own failings.

Ffsseriously · 09/12/2020 01:00

@HollyCarrot oh definitely they know we aren't allowed to say anything back some people (luckily very few) are vile bullies.

NotPrude · 09/12/2020 01:36

I was in my late teens and passed out when I out shopping one afternoon. I had been having pains for some time and that afternoon it was bad enough for me to pass out because of it.

I was taken to A&E and explained the pains to the doctor and also that I was bleeding a lot rectally. She looked at me and asked if I knew the difference between period blood and rectal bleeding, and then proceeded to explain the female anatomy to me.

A month later, I was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer.

Also, before I discovered laser hair removal, I was quite hairy. As a teen, I was on the tube with a friend and these young men came on and starting pointing and laughing. We moved away, but I'll never forget how my friend told me she thinks they were laughing at her hairy back just to make me feel better.

I haven't included sexual assault and harassment in the above, including the times I've been groped or fingered through my underwear and no one came to help despite me screaming at the guy in all those occasions.

theThreeofWeevils · 09/12/2020 02:35

@DuesToTheDirt

I was 8 months pregnant. There were three people sat around me that were neither pregnant nor disabled

You should have said this. We need to stand up for ourselves!

Or in this sort of case, sit down for ourselves.Xmas Smile
Nomnomarrgh · 09/12/2020 03:25

When I used to work in an office, I had people tell me that it was a bit stupid that I had gone to uni as I was working there. Couldn’t see there was value in learning for learning’s sake. And then when we needed some temps, they decided the temps needed to have a degree (they did not).

Soubriquet · 09/12/2020 05:24

@elfycat

I was 23 (early 90s) and had just finished taking a nurse exam and my colleagues and I went to the local pub for a celebratory diet cola. Small pub in the middle of a hospital complex which grew up around it over the years.

Standing at the bar chatting with my friends I felt someone touching my bottom. I initially thought it was one of my male friends pratting about and was going to give them a firm backhanded slap and tell them sternly not to try that again. Only as I turned I realised I didn't recognise the man sat on the bar stool biting my arse.

When I hit him it was somewhat harder that I'd planned (automatic reflex to being assaulted rather than a planned punch) and he, the stool, and his pint went over. I'd knocked him out and had to quickly put him in the recovery position. His friends came down and started apologising; they'd dared him to do it - bunch of pillocks medical students who were very lucky I didn't put in a complaint.

There's a second one, also involving my butt. 2000s now and on the Jubilee Lin in London. Standing room only. Felt someone cupping my bottom and squeezing gently ewww. I'd read something in a magazine and dared myself to do it. I counted to three, reached behind grabbing the wrist across the bones tightly. Raised the hand up and very, very loudly said 'Has anyone lost a hand? I found this one wandering lost on my arse.'

Never did turn to look at him, but worked out who he was at the next stop when everyone else in the carriage watched him get off. Funny coincidence that the next stop was his.

I can’t believe you knocked him out!

Well done!

Frenchdressing · 09/12/2020 05:44

All of these are awful but some are’t rudeness they are sexual assaults.

sammylady37 · 09/12/2020 06:38

@shinynewapple2020

Those comments are horrible *@sammylady37*
They absolutely are. Unfortunately, if you’re an obese woman you’re seen as something less than human and fair game for all sorts of assholes to belittle and humiliate.

It’s a cliche but I now take comfort from the fact that I’m no longer obese but they are undoubtedly still monumental assholes!

Frieswithanythin · 09/12/2020 07:52

MoonPomme

👏👏👏

shinynewapple2020 · 09/12/2020 08:43

@HollyCarrot
No I wasn't referring to your post but an awful lot of posts earlier in the thread where the posters didn't make the acknowledgment you did .

leiaskye · 09/12/2020 08:43

I was overweight as a teenager. When I was 18, I bought a bike determined to get exercise.

First time out, I stopped at the traffic lights, & heard a young voice from behind me say ‘look at the far girl on the bike’. Although I didn’t turn round, I’m pretty sure the voice belonged to a young boy, maybe 10-12 years.

I pretended I hadn’t heard, cycled round the corner & got off the bike, I pushed it home, going a different way.

I didn’t ride it again, & sold it instead.

I did lose the weight in the end, no thanks to that little git!

shinynewapple2020 · 09/12/2020 08:48

@HollyCarrot

shinynewapple2020 it can be hard for people to adapt to a foreign accent at times. Not rocket science.

@HollyCarrot
Of course I understand that . That was exactly the point I was making . The issue was that the poster had referred to the person as having a 'bad accent'. Think about it!!

wimhoffbreather · 09/12/2020 09:00

Was on my bike trying to pull out on to a busy road, car on one side stopped to let me through, white van pulled into the space really fast nearly knocking me off - I shouted ‘what the fck’ out of fear and surprise, and the man in the van leaned out of the window and yelled ‘fck off ill fckin kill you stupid cnt’

Really made my morning

Labobo · 09/12/2020 09:08

An old man leaned over to me on a bus once and said with a leer, 'You didn't waste much time.' He was referring to my babies - one of whom looked one year old and the other looked newborn. They were twins but the 'newborn' one had severe illnesses which meant at one year he still only weighed eight pounds.

Aethelthryth · 09/12/2020 09:19

Apart from all the sexual assaults:

I was crossing the road in a sensible place, having looked left and right, when a MAMIL cycled at speed round the corner without indicating and crashed right into me, knocking me over. I said "I'm terribly sorry", so he said "you stupid fucking bitch".

CorianderBlues · 09/12/2020 09:24

A couple of years ago I met a "new" very senior colleague for the first time. Before I even introduced myself, they asked "Are you French?". I am actually half French, so said yes, only to have him counter with "Thought so, the nose gave it away". CF.

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