Stranger discussing my "pregnancy"

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I am 55 years old, menopausal, 5ft 6" tall and 1 stone overweight.

Whilst walking the dogs this morning with my friend, a woman with a shy dog asked if she could join in our walk for a bit to help build her dog's confidence. We say yes and say a few friendly things to the woman. She then talks about my pregnancy bump.

When I say I'm not pregnant she apologises. AIBU that you should not assume people are pregnant if they are 55 YEARS OLD (I have a bit of grey in my hair) and one stone overweight??? I thought this was incredibly rude and it really hurt my feelings. How can this possibly be a genuine mistake?

Has anyone else had this happen?

This. And if to her you genuinely looked pregnant then why wouldn't she say so. I mean according to her eyes you were. Doesn't make her nasty, just a mistake. I have done this, mistaken someone for their dh's mum.

I was standing on public transport not long ago, slumping, wearing an empire waist dress. A youngish man jumped up and offered me his seat. I realised afterwards he must have thought I was pregnant, which was flattering as I was 53 at the time!

I have had this happen to me a couple of times.

Most embarrassingly, I was standing on a busy tube and there was a woman standing nearby who looked to be in her 50s/60s. She made a comment to me like "can you believe nobody is standing up? It is so rude!".

Initially, I thought she was saying they should stand up for her, because she is older (not that I thought she looked old enough to be stood up for) and so I just said "yeah" in a non-committal manner.

She then proceeded to chastise the entire carriage of people loudly for not standing up for me (a pregnant woman). I was not in any way pregnant and I was mortified. Everyone nearby looked at my belly, some with slight suspicion. One woman angrily replied that she hadn't seen me and then got up for me.

At this point, I was too embarrassed to point out that I was just fat so I sat down, my face burning and then got off at the next stop.

Just to add, while she might not have meant anything bad by it, it does surprise me that people seem quite happy to assume. Personally, someone would have to be otherwise quite slim and very far along for me to confidently assume out loud they were pregnant.

I am quite overweight and 8 months pregnant now, and I've not had a single stranger ask me about it or assume I'm pregnant. While people who know me think I look very obviously pregnant, I am big enough that strangers don't assume (although don't look surprised when told).

I was with my mum once and an elderly man stopped to talk, and says something like she needs to be careful “in her condition”, gesturing to her stomach area. She was in her mid 60s!

She’s always been an apple shape, but even so he must have had real eyesight problems to think she was young enough!

I once asked a workmate when her baby was due - I hadn't seen her for a while and she was wearing a navy-blue polka dot smock dress with a Peter Pan collar and she looked like an advert for Mothercare.
Of course she wasn't pregnant, she had just put on weight. I felt mortified and I have NEVER commented on anyone's pregnancy or otherwise since - 22 years ago.

Some posters do love to use the word DEEPLY on mumsnet don't they?

The woman deeply deeply did NOT think the OP was in her 30s!!!

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps who reads a post about something that clearly upset someone and thinks "I think I'll have a pop at their sentence structure" 🙄 dick

I'm over weight with a big menopausal gut .

Im not pregnant but look it and I'd be really annoyed if somebody mentioned my pregnant bump

When i actually was pregnant and somebody said: only a few weeks to go now! You must be excited!

I had five months to go!

No she didn't say it to be hurtful, but it can be deeply, deeply hurtful and people need to learn to be more thoughtful and not to do it. If that means they get an abrupt response in return then that's perfectly reasonable in my opinion.

Yes. People are dismissive of these kinds of comments because they assume the worst harm you could do is make someone feel a bit self-conscious about their weight (which is unpleasant enough, but certainly not the worst outcome).

A friend of mine had struggled with infertility for years, had multiple rounds of IVF, finally conceived twins, then went into early labour at around 24 weeks and both twins sadly died shortly after being born. The first time she found the courage to leave the house after burying them, some dickhead stranger asked her when she was due. I can't even describe how damaging it was after everything she had been through. (IMO "deeply, deeply hurtful" is an understatement if anything - to the PP who took some kind of bizarre issue with that phrasing 🙄) It's not always just "embarrassing foot-in-mouth" territory.