Annoyed by random man incidents

[IfYouLikePinaColadaaa]

Yes it’s not much in the scheme of things but I’m becoming increasingly annoyed by men in public (I’m sure women do these things too but 90% of the time it’s men in my experience).

Only today I was paying at the self service in Tesco, had the baby (in pram) and 4 year old with me. 6 checkouts, every other checkout was free. The second I tapped my card this man barged between me and the checkout I had used and started scanning his shopping, leaving me flustered as I gathered up my shopping and tried to pack it away while moving the pram and my other child away. The way it happened he’d clearly been waiting to do it, although why I have no idea.

Second occasion we were stood in another shop, a very big tall man comes round the corner of the aisle and rather than wait the split second for me to pull DD towards me so he could pass (was already doing this) he barged past her and almost knocked her over shouting ‘SORRY, SORRY’.

Gah. Yes it all sounds a bit petty written out but I’ve got PMT and have had a few of these incidences lately and am fed up.

My boyfriend moans about this too. It is always a man that does this.

Unfortunately, lesbians still have to deal with random men in the wild too! We can just avoid them in our homes.

But men are in a hurry - they have IMPORTANT things to do!

DH and I both go running and we're always mindful to be the ones to move out of the way. I have to regardless as people carry on walking 2/3 abreast at me, but DH has always said it's striking how often people naturally move out of his way quite a distance ahead. He's a fairly small skinny bloke so doesn't look in any way imposing, but as he's a man running people just assume he'll run straight at them..

@Springpug my god, that bus story - what a horrible experience. It reminds me when I first read the insane statistics of the percentage of woman who have been sexually assaulted.

My initial reaction was to be sceptical but I sat down and thought back over the years, I’ve been grabbed in the street and told I was going to be raped, trapped in an enclosed space with flashers, some of whom were wanking, terrified by various cab drivers and of course harassed and followed in the streets too many times to count. My daughter casually mentioned at the weekend that she always gets a friend to go with her to the car wash because the male attention makes her so uncomfortable.

It really is shocking what women face.

That is so fucking weird. I just cannot see why anyone would think that is a good or reasonable idea.

It reminds me of a time that I went to the gym and did squats for the very first time. My bf told me exactly what to do as I was nervous of doing it wrong and people watching. For some reason I did it side on to the squat rack as the safety bars were in the way, or so I felt. A guy came in. Looked at me. Said nothing. I went home and told my bf proudly but he told me I wasn't supposed to be sideways. I was mortified. The guy that saw me was part of a group of three that trained there and one was really nice and friendly, not in a weird way. I saw them the next day and said I was so embarrassed he saw me and he said he didn't want to interrupt and tell me as "you looked in the zone and were doing your thing. It still got the job done".

They are the only men I've felt comfortable in the gym around. I wish more men were like them. It's 10 years on and I've had so many ask how many sets I have left or try to tell me how to improve. I don't mind if it's clear they know better but they never seem to. I have also had women ask how many sets I have left. It's not an unreasonable question but it can be asked in an unreasonable way.

@FoxBaseBeta that's probably because a lot of men do expect women to get out of their way (catch 22 I know).

I had a big man in a car be an absolute knobhead in a small car park recently. He was pulling out of a space, I had just arrived, so hung back giving him plenty of space to manouever so I could eventually drive past him and into the space he was vacating. He didn't like that I didn't drive past him (to the full spaces in the rest of the car park!) in the split second that he paused reversing for me to do so, and he decided that I was stopped In His Way and had a paddy about it. He reversed at speed, hitting the Range Rover behind him, got out to check it, got back in, got out again to storm over to me to shout at me for being in his way (I wasn't, I was hanging back giving the guy some space, and when he was eventually going to be facing the exit/entrance I could have moved forward to pass him & let him past), got back into his car and drove forward with anger so that he hit the car in front this time, came back over to swear at me (at which point I did lose my otherwise calm and polite facade and raised my voice to tell him in these exact words "Go Away you silly man"). Third time was a charm and he managed to complete his manouever and race out of the car park while leaning on his horn. I held my breath waiting to hear a crash shortly down the road, but happily none happened. I was left shaken up though, all because A Man blamed me for his temper.

I was waiting at a temporary cab rank outside Birmingham New Street years ago - relevant because it was on the street and there were people walking by rather than it being a separate area. The cabbies knew it was where the cab rank was and one pulled up next to me so I could get in. Random man appeared from nowhere and started yelling that I had nicked “his” cab. He hadn’t been waiting by the sign. Just seen a cab, stuck his hand out and assumed when it stopped it was for him. Cab driver said he’d stopped for me. I said I’d been waiting by the sign for the first cab and it was mine. Fair enough he hadn’t seen the sign but the instant aggression was remarkable. It was also followed by a refusal to back down. Unfortunately for him I was travelling for work and had a giant wheely bag. Opened the cab door and whapped the suitcase in, possibly barking Cab Stealer’s shins on the way, who can tell. Yelled very loudly “how dare you try and steal my cab”, leapt in and off we went.

I tend to have my (pointy) elbows strategically placed to be the first point of contact with anyone who jostles me (particularly useful when on public transport).

What tend to happen to me as that some men will be walking toward me on the other side of the pavement and deliberately change path so that they are now on a collision course with me. I know some people weave but this had happened so often and yep it’s always a man. They tend to quietly shift back to the other side when the realise I’m not moving though.
Men walking walking past so close that when I don’t stop dead I kick them just by walking. So I assume I’m just supposed to stop dead? Or maybe some men are not very spatially aware. God help us if they can drive.

oh and cheer up love. I must be to old for that now but when I was younger every. bloody. day.

Had a weird and annoying thing like this on a train the other day. I was sat around a table with my two DC (pre booked seats), there obviously was one spare seat at the table, but loads of other spare seats in the carriage, some pairs of spare seats next to each other, (quiet on the train for once!) Anyway random man chooses to sit at the table with us, not because he needs a table (didnt use the table at all). He then coughs and splutters constantly for the rest of the journey. Didnt cover his mouth once. I was seriously considering moving us but it would have meant splitting us up. Why the hell did he do this?

I had a horrible man refuse to move when I was running on the canal towpath. I always run on the left hand side of the path, I was brought up to think you walk on the left, and on this occasion the water was on my left. An older man and his family were walking 4 abreast down the path towards me. Four!! He saw me and immediately started to point and mouth off about the path being for WALKERS. It's not, it's for everyone and actually forms part of a National cycle route which I use to commute to work.

Anyway, I had nowhere to go as the water was on my left! I stopped and he STILL barged into me as he went past!

I yelled to him that he could fuck off with barging people as he carried on striding ahead. How were his family not embarrassed?!

There was an interesting experiment before where a women didnt move out of the way walking down the road, and it just showed her constantly being smacked into by men.

I had a guy who came through a no entry and got very verbally aggresive because i wouldnt move. 2 things didnt occur to him was 1 i am in a citreon grand picasso and he was in a small old looking bmw i literally could have driven over his car and 2 i had just been dealing with my mil who could drive the pope to become an alcoholic so i was in just the right mood for him as turns out he ended up backing down

https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2017/08/169441/manslamming-experiment-personal-story

Another example is female refs. I would share an example but it's all TikTok and it says who shares it or long YouTube videos.

A quick google shows many male players exploding at women and a male ref having to get involved.

All these stories of fragile male egos being shattered regarding their height are making me laugh. I get this a lot being over 6'... just yesterday in our lovely little volunteer run library I had a fella creep up behind me until he was almost in bodily contact to say something like "I reckon you're at least 6'4"". When I stepped away and said "nope, 6'1"". He then tried to get in a debate with me about how I was wrong!

I just said (without thinking but I'm retrospectively proud of it) that men always over-estimate how big things are. I genuinely said this meaning height, and it was only when the lady behind the counter started laughing and the fella slunk away I twigged. I could never be that quick with a clever response if I was trying to be!

i had a man barge past me and my friends on a train with a suitcase, and then tell us that his suitcase should be on the shelf rather than ours due to his being a ‘proper’ suitcase (were ours not proper?!)

he then nearly whacks my friend in the head trying to force his luggage behind us and i told him he had a wanky suitcase and he marched off.

Amazing!

Honestly, people are clueless and hurried. I doubt very much he was literally waiting to barge you out the way at the scanner.

Personally, I'm fairly confrontation when it suits me (completely get that characteristic from my dad!), and I'd probably have given him a shove back and a "I'm still standing here!"

Years ago, when I was a baby primary school teacher, and probably about 24/25, a dad of one of my class took it upon himself to start yelling at me in the playground. This dad was very tall, probably 6'5ish. I'm 5'3 on a good day. He's getting all up in my space, all these other parents (including his wife!) standing around agog.
I say, "You know, it's really not appropriate for a massive tall man like you to be screaming at a tiny woman. Let's go and sit in the classroom where we can do this eye to eye."
WELL. He came with me like a puppy dog. Full of apologies, and "I'd never really thought about that before."
Never had another issue with him, and we actually became quite friendly.

Just this am DD20 walked to the Post Office. She was warm by the time she got there, so took her jacket off so she could take her jumper off. Random man (also massive dickhead) behind her goes 'woah stop there!'. Like what the actual fuck. No she turned up at 9.30 am to strip for the queue quite obviously you prick!
Where it was quiet in the Post Office and not being one for attention, DD just laughed nervously. I said if that kind of thing happens again, just stare and ignore (if you can't bring yourself to call them what you really want to).

Most recent example I have is I was walking along a foot bridge in our local town with baby in pram and nervous dog.

I made a point of keeping to the side because then my dog isn’t near people when we pass. And this man just kept his line walking towards me… it got to about a metre before he was going to collide with me when I shouted at him that I had a nervous dog I was keeping into the side. After saying that he scarpered to the other side of the bridge… but you could tell he was full on wanting to have an altercation with me.

If I’m a lone pedestrian then I generally try to keep out of the way of prams, dogs, wheelchairs, elderly people because it’s much easier for me to switch the side I’m walking on.

The worst example I had was on the train home when I commuted in london. A man chose to sit next to me even though other seats were free and proceeded to man spread… I was squeezed up against the window. My mind went into overdrive thinking it was somehow going to attack me or kidnap me. I ended up getting off a few stops early and getting the bus because I was so scared.

@IfYouLikePinaColadaaa just clocked your user name! Spooky 😄

Love it! I bet he didn’t know what hit him 😂

So nothing to say about the aggressive acts by the men but my response is aggressive? You sound like a misogynist.

Near where I live is a traffic llight junction, but there's a parade of shops to the left with a slip road that allows you to circumvent the traffic lights if you need to turn left (but only if it isn't rammed with cars parking). Early one evening I took this shortcut and a male jogger pointedly stopped in the middle of my way and slowly shook his head. Luckily I had a car behind me doing the same thing, so the combined sound of two car horns blasting at him soon had him scarpering off.