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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:
Whattheactual20201 · 08/12/2020 16:54

Haha @Purplehatsandflowers
I still get mistaken for the au pair and my eldest is now 13 !!! 🤣 when We went to visit his secondary school before he started they asked me if our mother couldn’t make it 🙈

TheYearOfSmallThings · 08/12/2020 16:54

A short but stocky woman once knocked me off my feet on the concourse of Liverpool St station. It was an ordinary workday morning and she just rammed me and stormed on leaving me winded and floundering. No idea why.

Coldilox · 08/12/2020 16:54

@YoungScrappyHungry it was a few years before I joined the job. He saw us holding hands, looked us both up and down, then as he passed on my side leaned towards me and spat directly at me. I have no doubt it was homophobia.

Brainfogmcfogface · 08/12/2020 16:58

First time I’d worn shorts in years and years, was walking down the road with my children, 2 lads in a car drove past shouting abuse at me, about me being fat, then turned off and doubled back to do it again, then a third time.. I was finally feeling some body confidence and it completely wiped it out. I’m now back to dressing like a nun, covered from head to toe. Clearly my body is too hideous to be seen in public!

meow1989 · 08/12/2020 16:59

I was on holiday once when I was about 20 with my now-dh. I was wearing a bikini top and shorts as we walked along the beach and a vendor pointed and yelled "oh! Operation!" At me.

I had recently recovered from appendicitis which in turn lead to sepsis needing further surgery and left a gnarly ugly scar. I was heartbroken. (Have since had corrective surgery which has improved the appearance somewhat. Plus with the wisdom of age would have been much less meek now a days

flaviaritt · 08/12/2020 17:00

Brainfogmcfogface

I know it’s 1 degree outside but I think you should put your shorts on and go out right now. Grin

Their behaviour was hideous, doesn’t mean a thing about you.

BriarNorth · 08/12/2020 17:02

I was buying a pair of leggings at our local Sainsbury’s.
The cashier scanned them, looked at the leggings, looked me up and down, hooked her fingers into the waistband and gave them an experimental tug before looking me dead in the eyes and saying “Just so you know, these are really fitted...and the sizing is accurate” in a saccharine voice before folding them and sliding them down the little metal ramp to me with a smirk.

I’d recently lost 2 1/2 stone and was feeling pretty good about my size 10 self- I was absolutely crushed, couldn’t think of anything to say, paid then went out to my car and cried!

(Later I thought of all the things I SHOULD have done/ said but hey ho, that’s always the way!)

LoveMyKidsAndCats · 08/12/2020 17:04

My sister got spat in the face while pregnant by someone that ran into her. She told him to watch where he's going, he told her shes a fat cow and spat in her face. She was literally 8 months pregnant and stood and cried.

Evans800 · 08/12/2020 17:04

The funniest/most bizarre was when my boyfriend and I rented a 2 bed maisonette in a street that was mainly three bed semis (I think this is relevant as I think the woman in question felt superior to us because of this). This woman (parent's generation) always friendly and encouraging to us - I think she liked the fact we kept the front garden nice. One day we were chatting and she asked what we did for a living - I was a postgrad student at the time. She didn't look happy with that answer for some reason, then my boyfriend arrives home and, whilst he is parking, I tell her what he does for a living. WOW! She almost spat at me that he wasn't that (doctor) and I was lying - then he got out of the car with his stethoscope round his neck still and she scowled at me before storming off into her house. Completely blanked us after that (we moved out 2 months afterwards).

DynamoKev · 08/12/2020 17:06

Out for a bike ride in the country once a car passed and the kids in the back threw litter out of the window at me - whole family was in on it laughing away.

Once approached in a city centre by a teenage girl who started to ask me something very politely whilst her friend had gone around behind me and smacked me across the back of the head as hard as she could.

In London waiting to cross a road and being jabbed in the face by some bloke's umbrella I said "don't me me" after about the fourth time my accent must've given me away as he just said "yuh ain't from round ere are yah?"

Also in London and on Paddington Station - every train was delayed. My winter coat was similar colour to the train company uniform, a bloke walked up behind me and started muttering on about what load of cants we were and how we couldn't run a facking barth

Ffsseriously · 08/12/2020 17:07

All the people saying how customers were rude saying you will end up like this if you dont study. They then gleefully point out they were studying. You really are agreeing with the rude people. You are quick to point out you are more than just bar staff or shop workers, so you are just as rude. Its no come back or challenge to the ingrained snobbish in the remark.

Bella43 · 08/12/2020 17:10

I work in retail. I'm also a student teacher. When I'm at the till and people say demeaning things about not studying hard enough, I don't correct them. Instead I say, 'These are very difficult times and I'm very lucky to have a job at all. Who's next please?'

DynamoKev · 08/12/2020 17:11

Oh - when I was kid walking along a backstreet in Cornwall with my DM and Dsis - some lads coming the other way just looked at us and yelled Fuckin Emmetts.

foxyknoxy30 · 08/12/2020 17:11

Threw a crab claw at me

Santaisironingwrappingpaper · 08/12/2020 17:12

On the bus with a new baby and my other dc a lady said I should have kept my fucking legs shut...
I got off the bus in tears..
Then learned to drive!!
Spurred me on!

BreadSaucery · 08/12/2020 17:15

I’d saved up from my part time job as a student to buy a sweater (from M&S, it was years ago so they had some nice stuff then) and went into town early to buy it.
As I came out a woman came up to me and asked in a sweet, interested voice what I’d bought, so I told her. She shouted in my face that people were starving in the world and I was a fucking bitch to be shopping in M&S looking so fucking pleased with myself and that I should take it back, get a refund and donate the money to charity. I was only 17 and genuinely felt awful that someone should think so badly of me for no reason. Now I’d recognise she probably had mental health problems and it was no reflection on me. She only stopped when a man came up and asked what the problem was - he must have seen how upset I was, bless him.

Ohalrightthen · 08/12/2020 17:18

Shouted "i want to lick your cunt" out of the window of a van at me. I was 11, and in school uniform. I didn't really know what he meant but the tone was clear and i will remember for the rest of my life how dirty it made me feel.

I'll also remember the boy who came out of the corner shop just as it happened, shouted at the man to fuck off, and threw one of his shoes at the van. He was probably about 14 and i think he knew exactly what the man meant.

iwasacceptableinthe80s · 08/12/2020 17:18

@BriarNorth I'm afraid I'm vindictive - I'd have done everything I could to get that little bitch sacked.

BashfulClam · 08/12/2020 17:19

@YoungScrappyHungry

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?

I had very similar from an old bat when I was part time in Asda. She crowed ‘I bet you wish you’d stuck in at the school and you wouldn’t be here!’ I just smiled and said ‘oh I did stick in at school, I graduated with a first class honours degree last week with in business management! What is your degree in?’ She just huffed and stormed off probably annoyed that she hadn’t managed to pull someone down. I hadn’t actually graduated by that point but fuck her!
HMSSophie · 08/12/2020 17:20

A GP told me during an appointment that it was a shame I was overweight as I had such a pretty face. I was absolutely furious but being about 25 I said nothing about it.

Sitting having a quiet pint alone at the bar one Friday evening in my then local pub - rural and quiet back in prehistory when one could smoke in the pub - an old bloke turned to me and said "your husband must be ashamed of you". As I was by then about 40 I was not speechless, oh dear me no.

AriesTheRam · 08/12/2020 17:20

@YoungScrappy thats fucking awful of her

Dillo10 · 08/12/2020 17:21

Spat in my face because I wouldn't let him jump the queue for a nightclub because his son was the DJ... I just asked him to wait 1 minute while I let another group in

FurloughOrNo · 08/12/2020 17:23

@Ffsseriously

All the people saying how customers were rude saying you will end up like this if you dont study. They then gleefully point out they were studying. You really are agreeing with the rude people. You are quick to point out you are more than just bar staff or shop workers, so you are just as rude. Its no come back or challenge to the ingrained snobbish in the remark.
Totally agree! Basically saying “I will be better than this”
WellTidy · 08/12/2020 17:23

Browsing the children’s books in WHSmith one day. Someone asked me if where the glue was. I explained that I didn’t work there, but I think it is in the next aisle. They had a right huff saying why was I wearing ‘that’ (a blue and white gingham shirt which I admit did look like their uniform) ‘in here then if you don't want people to think you work here?’

LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett · 08/12/2020 17:24

My 18th birthday, I was at a club with a vintage 50s dress with a big frothy skirt and a man turned round and said 'lift that skirt and show us your cunt then.' What's worse is I didn't hear him first time so I said 'pardon' and leant in so he could repeat it. Ruined my night. I'd break his wrist now.

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