(Some) men and their ridiculous comments

[crimsonpeak]

AIBU? Please tell me if I was totally reasonable or a grumpy antisocial knackered mother who needs to be nicer.

I’m in a local convenience store, pushing my DD in her pram. She’s fast asleep and covered up, with the hood over her. She therefore can’t be seen. I’m minding my own, thinking about what to have for dinner tonight when a store assistant looks at me and says ‘I hope there’s a baby in there somewhere.’

I suppose I could have laughed and said ‘oh yes, my daughter, she’s sleeping hahaha (you’re really funny) etc’ but instead my brain chose this -

‘Well yes, of course. Otherwise why would I be pushing a pram.’

He then launches into some prattle about ‘you’d be surprised, the people that come in here with empty prams’ - which then made me think he was talking about shoplifters (again, thanks brain).

I just wandered off while he wittered on.

Am I awful? I just CBA with men and their need to say anything to lone women minding their business.

People in Britain have lost the art of conversation. It's not a man/woman thing. It's conversation. Why is everything turned into a battle and negativity ?

That's all very well, but women do get sick to death of having their attention demanded by random men when women are out without a man accompanying them.
Surely you understand this?

This is well put and I'm inclined to agree! I have had plenty of shit comments from men, but the ones that aren't necessarily shit (like this one), I find its better for the world to not be a cynic and have a pleasant convo 😁 maybe I'm saying that because I enjoy talking to everyone

I think maybe your intuition picked up that the ‘baby in there somewhere’ comment wasn’t entirely innocent (body language/tone of voice gets a sort of deliberate edge; you can tell).

Maybe he was screening for possible shoplifting, like when they check and count your items at the self-checkout, and wasn’t as discreet as he thought. It’s never very nice to be an object of suspicion, even less pleasant to deal with an inauthentic encounter like this, and when it’s a man in a position of (admittedly tinpot) power dealing with a woman feeling a bit wary and vulnerable, it leaves a very sour taste indeed.

It’s also worth noting that mothers have their intruder radar on high alert when their children are tiny. It’s a hormone-driven survival mechanism.

How many times when you pass people in the street do you actually need to talk to them ? Close to zero. Because if you actually needed to talk to them, you would have gone round their house, or texted them, or phoned them up. Most casual social interaction is just that, casual. There is no requirement to do it. We do it because we want to, because we feel it polite to do so, because we feel "normal" people want to interact and make small talk with each other.

How would you have felt if in the shop situation the person talking to you was a woman ? Would that alter your feelings about the situation or would you have been equally angry ?

There's a difference between conversation and the tedious inanity of some idiot who thinks the world needs to hear their pointless mutterings.

Some do, some welcome the conversation from anyone. It doesn't make either party the devil

You'd be surprised. There's a corner shop near where I work that doesn't allow prams or buggies in at all, because of all the shiplifting.

shoplifting, 😊

I couldnt agree more tbh. I was in the postoffice/shop queing last year, a random bloke was behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, He said I like your bag, I said my handbag? He said no your shopping bag. It was a star wars one from tesco, part of a set. I looked at his bag and he was using a winnie the pooh bag which made me laugh. He told me my bag was the only one in the collection he didnt have.

I mean I could have came home and instantly jumped on MN moaning about how dare a man speak to me uninvited, but instead I asked him if he wanted to swap bags, we swapped, chatted about some bollocks then both went about our day. We often see each other about and shock horror often stop for a chat

Not all men are pedators seeking out women on their own just to speak to them. I mean I speak to everyone, man, woman, children even bloody cats if I see one in the street. I guess it depends where you live but I dont feel scared or pissed off every time someone speaks to me. I have spoken to some really interesting folk over the years just in passing.

Not sure this is a good example of this. Yes think people have been caught shoplifting with prams.

He's trying to make convo.

A man pushing an empty pram would even more so elicit random comments.

Let's try not to turn everything into something when sometimes people are just trying to be friendly

You may have a case if it wasn't a shop assistant. Luckily I'm old and fat, will chat to anyone and find these sort of posts very sad.

Good grief.
If you don't want to cope with normal social interaction, don't go out in public.

"Personally I'm sick of pandering to (some) men and their ... desire to insert themselves where they're neither needed nor wanted."

This. 100%

You would think the bloke tackled op to the floor and starting searching her pram the way some people are going on. He was working, doing his job and literally spoke to her, thats it, opened his mouth and words came out

Probably trying to flirt

Ah, you've encountered one of those "Men who say (un)funny things to women"

I think they like making women feel uncomfortable. They'd never say anything like it to a man in case they got their head knocked round.

Why does that vindicate it? If she was planning on shoplifting she was hardly likely to hang her head and say 'it's a fair cop, Guv'.

OP, your reply was right on point. All the protestations that 'it was just a joke' are wearily predictable. It wasn't funny. So why do you owe him polite laughter and an obligation to humour him? I liked best of all the fact that you turned on your heel and left him in mid-flow. Kudos!

I'd go full-on bombastic if anyone dared to tap or touch me as a PP above has stated. IDGAF if that makes me uptight or 'one of those pesky feminists'. Just. Fuck. Off.

I agree with you, OP. All I want is to go about my day in peace. This is not too much to ask; in fact it's asking exceptionally little. But men are seemingly incapable of extending women even this basic courtesy. It's as though we are not seen as autonomous fellow-humans, and the assumption is still that we owe men our time, attention or conversation.

As I get older I'm less inclined to humour this BS. So they'll think me rude? Good.

He wasn't joking. He was checking if you are not shoplifter as others said.

Would he say that to men? No. If potential shoplifters looked like they could deck us we were supposed to alert security to them.

Bad example of an actual issue here.

That's just his get out when you responded to him rather than being uncomfortable and cowed.

Why does that vindicate it? If she was planning on shoplifting she was hardly likely to hang her head and say 'it's a fair cop, Guv'.

Actually in some way yes. It's basically a warning that someone is eatching so the shoplifters can change their mind and often do from what our security used to tell us. Prevention without any escalation

But it's not possible to 'check someone is not a shoplifter' if they're not behaving suspiciously or have done nothing wrong.

If he had evidence of wrongdoing then he should have acted on it. You can't just go around treating random customers as would-be offenders on nothing more conclusive than the fact they are wheeling a pram. And they should be careful, if they are thinking of using that as a general MO. It might be viewed as discrimination.

I think some people are well naive about shoplifting and how shoplifters present...

Yeah, I sort of know what the OP means. I know a couple of men (not very well) who always comment on my appearance. It’s weird and not needed. This reminds me a bit of that.