To have laid in to this old man?

[knobheadex]

Something happened to me yesterday and I've been stewing on it ever since.

It's 3pm and I'm on the way to pick up the kids from school. I nip in the the local garage because I'm slightly early and need to pick up a few things anyway.

It's pretty busy so I wait my turn in the queue. When I get to the front I ask the friendly young guy for some low nicotine e-liquid. As part of the chat I mention how I usually buy Elf Bars but I'm trying to quit vaping now. Suddenly I'm aware of someone behind me shouting something, so I spun round to see what's going on. There's a tall, rotund white haired man standing at the back of the queue booming 'They'll all kill your anyway, love!'

I reply that I'm aware it's not healthy and that's why I'm trying to quit before turning back to pay for my stuff and get the hell out of there. But he's still shouting 'I don't drink and I've never smoked! You know why??! Because I'm the boss of this!' And he proceeds to tap the side of his head. 'I can do anything I put my mind to!'

I say 'thank you very much for the unsolicited advice random man' and carry on with the transaction. But he won't shut up. He's really belittling me now and suggesting that I am weak willed and pathetic for being addicted to something. I'm done paying now and turn to leave and he's yelling at me that his wife has emphysema because she smoked 40 a day. I say loudly 'Now I feel doubly sorry for your wife' and march towards the door.

He's still going, although I'm not sure exactly what he's shouting about now but I'm raging by this point. Who does he think he is? Would he be saying all of this to a man buying cigarettes? So I get to the door and then shout back at him 'Can do anything apparently, but can't mind your own fucking business or put down the pies long enough to drop a few inches off that waistband of yours'.

A few people in the queue gasped and I left feeling like I'd gone too far. Did I? Or did he deserve it, just a little bit?

Wish i had the balls to do this in similar situations

I am proud of you OP!

No.

@knobheadex , just wondering how old you are , when I was younger I was subjected to the same sort of crap constantly from older men , policing my body and actions, insufferable! 😡

I love that, thank you. Definitely one to remember.

Being a young female smoker seems to give people the urge to comment constantly!
I switched to vaping years ago , made a real difference, well done!

Good on you. Men really don't like the tables turned on them do they!

Surely if we (women) all wander around ‘keeping our dignity’ when men verbally abuse us in public then they’ll just carry on getting away with it. I doubt it’s the first time this man has done this. The more we call it out the less likely they’ll do it again. More so if they are made to look foolish in public.

I get it. Some people hate confrontation so they’d tell themselves they had the upper hand by walking away and saying nothing. I just disagree with this though. But then I’d call out any abusive behaviour in public - to me or anyone else.

The more we call it out the less likely they’ll do it again. More so if they are made to look foolish in public.

He’ll do it again. The sympathy of the queue would have been for him and he wasn’t the one who looked foolish. I’d rather keep my dignity than look like a fishwife.

Exactly. The women on here telling OP how vile she is for answering back...they're just so socialised in the tradition of be nice, be kind, make excuses, don't raise your voice, don't answer back, don't draw attention, don't be rude. They're so far deep in it they socialise others aggressively.

Some of us have been actively fighting against that socialisation. We well not be quiet and nice and feminine any longer!

The fact "a few people in the queue gasped" speaks volumes to me.
I think you have to be there to see it in person to really grasp it.

I know I was BU to mention his weight
not at all, you should have gone straight to 'oi, shut if fatty' then walked off laughing.
However, he was clearly a nutter so prob best ignore, but it's very hard to do when you've been (understandably) triggered into a rage!

I wouldn’t have stooped to his level TBH.

He was ‘doing him’ so you had every right to ‘do you’.

You were there in the moment so you have more right to decide if he was demented, anxious or just a bloody rude random man!

If it makes him think twice before giving an unasked opinion, you’ll have done some other woman a favour. (Because it is always women random man gives his opinion to)

Who's suggesting she "suck it up"? It's perfectly possible to meet this stuff assertively without being as rude as the perpetrator.

And if you want to do that, great. If OP wants to meet rudeness with rudeness, she can do that too.
Don't police other womens responses.

Good for you, I would have done the exact same thing.

He was in the wrong, no matter his reason for it he should have kept his mouth shut.

I think your reply was spot on, ignore all these posts telling you different. No one should put up with being shouted at for no reason by some random person

I doubt this happened. It sounds like you got back in your car and then thought of all the things you should have / wish you had said! Lol! …..and I doubt he even said all that he supposedly did either. Cool story though!

I had a woman on a recent flight have a go at me because I was 'disrespectful' in that I didn't let her go to the loo before me - I wish I was joking!

It's not a gender specific issue, there's plenty of cunty people of both flavours around.

Yay! Go you, @knobheadex !!!

See my example above - I know this is MN so it's 'cool' to blame men for everything - but it's far from the case.

I think the same to be honest.

Rubbish. It's possible to challenge assertively and not be as rude as the OP was. Perhaps if more people learned to be assertive they'd realise that there is an alternative to saying nothing or a really rude response.

Agree, would love to see and hear the cctv.