Rude or polite

[Dullardmullard]

I told him no

context is
a man approach me at the bus stop and said excuse me and I said no right away. He then came back and said you could of said I’m not interested.

no meant I wasn’t interested
no meant no

I stand by my no, but some friends/colleagues said I was rude and I don’t think I was.

ive said not interested in the past and got abused verbally.

I normally have my headphones in but I forgot them this morning

No she didn't say that, but she did know (as was proved by his subsequent remark) that he was going to chat her up. You asked how she knew, I'm just explaining how women can know these things. It's experience and observation.

This isn't about me personally, but if by serious feminist you mean committed to supporting and furthering the interests of women and girls, then yes, I am. As for trust in men, I have two adult sons, a male partner, male friends and I adored my late father. I don't mistrust every man. I do however have a healthy caution around unknown men. It would be very difficult to live in this world and see the atrocities committed by some of them not to, particularly given my work in RL with vulnerable women who without exception have suffered at the hands of men.

I don't think there's a need to fuss about a man saying excuse me, and I personally would have done the polite thing I think (my socialisation runs deep!) But nor is there the need to go at the OP for handling it in a different way. She has had experience of politeness backfiring and I don't blame her for wanting to avoid that again.

The thing is, none of this needed to have happened at all if the guy had just left a lone woman alone. The world is full of venues, sites, clubs where its expected that people will chat up other people. Minding your own business at the bus stop you shouldn't have to deal with it.

Politeness can get you killed. There's nothing wrong with saying 'no' and the sooner everybody accepts that the safer the world becomes for women

Rudeness is a lot more likely to get you killed

Doesn't happen often, but if a man tries to strike up a conversation, ask me when the bus is coming, say I look beautiful today, I'll be respectful back.

Im not interested in anything else, so anything more is 'thanks, but no thanks'. Polite, but assertive and clear. Non-confrontational or rude.

If you're afraid of male violence because of rejection, you've got a greater chance of being attacked by saying NO✋

And let's face it, someone who gets aggressive isn't going to respect op's NO✋anyway, so it's not a great safety mechanism. You're inviting more confrontation if anything

Exactly, it didn't say that anywhere.
People are just making shit up now.

You were exceptionally rude. To that man, and on the additional posts when others asked you to clarify your badly composed (incomplete) original post. Your Mumsnet user name is absolutely ideal though.

It's such a drama. He said excuse me. To be honest if my DS17 accidently said something polite and someone said no he's quite confident and polite to just shrug it off. He wouldn't want to know someone with issues.

'It's women who are saying she was rude'.

So many men think 'no' from a woman is rude. It is very depressing to have so many women chiming in on here and insisting that the OP should have been 'nice'.

It's not normal to say no to a man if he says excuse me.

As has been pointed out here, many women have multiple negative experiences of men approaching them in the street. The OP said the man approached her; no I don't think it is normal for a man to go out of his way to approach a lone woman at a bus stop.

'I don't even care if that's what some people do but OP asked if it was rude and some posters thought it was.'

Heaven forfend that a woman be rude.

'We can argue till the cows come home but I think it's rude.I get you are a serious feminist and do not not trust men.'

Ah a 'serious feminist' - the worst kind of woman. Or at least as bad as rude ones.

I actually trust a lot of men - my husband, brother, numerous male friends. They have proved to be worthy of my trust. But no I don't trust random men making a point of talking to me in the street - too many negative experiences I'm afraid.

'I can remember being in clubs when I was younger and telling men to fuck off for being annoying.'

So you're not that averse to rudeness then.

You’re accusing everyone of being dense and rude when you sound like an actual arsehole!

YES he came back and said ‘you could have said you weren’t interested’ BUT before that he just said ‘excuse me?’ So you had no idea what he wanted! Could be asking for time, directions, help etc.

You sound lovely!

I don't know what your problem is with men or your story but a man saying excuse me at a bus stop is making you angry.

@Livingtothefull I'm impressed with your quoting.

'I can remember being in clubs when I was younger and telling men to fuck off for being annoying.'

So you're not that averse to rudeness then.

You didn't catch me out here. They deserved rudeness.

I'm pretty sure that it won't be a man rushing anyone's aide if they fell over or passed out in public.

He was trying to chat her up.

How do you know that just from "excuse me" @RawBloomers?

Thre is a lot of projecting going on in this thread.

Very confusing
A person says ‘excuse me’ to you OP and you respond with ‘no’!
What are you saying no to, nothing until you know why he’s said excuse me.
He could have been asking for help, he could have been telling you you’ve dropped something….you don’t know.

The op said a man approached her at a bus stop. That is a very different scenario from someone already at the bus stop casually asking her if she has seen a 275 bus has been along. As has been stated, context is everything.

I don't have a problem with men, I like a lot of them. But I have learned from long, bitter and downright dangerous experience that a few of them have a problem with me & other women.

people of all sexes rush to help others. With the exception of those that chose to record on their phones…women as well as men.
Empathy really isn’t so exclusive to women, far from it.

The thread really brought those angry guys out of the woodwork who have been a pest to women in public and then got knocked back.

If someone approaches you and says "excuse me" there's a whole spectrum of responses from "no" (rude) to "be kind".... not quite sure why everyone defending the OP is assuming that those saying she was rude are saying she should sit and converse with random man for the next 2 hours......

Yeah but how does being rude protect you dangerous men?

Best case scenario, you've just been unpleasant to a perfectly nice bloke asking you t time.

Worst case scenario, you've enraged an aggressive man who's now going to punch you in the face

^ 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🤣

Painful to read. A bit of context about whatever the fuck happened first would’ve been good.

Just saying "no" to "excuse me" is not a normal response though in any situation.

How can you know what someone wants to say to you just from those two words?

Out of 400 posts anyone who disagrees with you is a man? And an angry one at that?

These sorts of ad hominems are hilarious. Op was rude. She acted in a way that is a faux pas and unnecessarily unfriendly. It is what it is. Nobody grew a penis because of it.

Wow. Rude.

OP, ignore the people telling you to be kind.

You knew the guy was trying to pick you up.

You said no.

He berated you for not explaining, when a simple no was clearly enough to get the message across. He just didn’t like you saying no.

I think the people telling you you were rude are the ones who get themselves in a muddle trying to be kind to strange men.

I agree. I think what’s got them angry is OP was right. The man was trying to hit on her, and got rejected and what’s worse he’s one of those men who think women owe him their time.

Some people here should really learn from OP’s no nonsense approach.

Very true.

It's the expectation of empathy that is very heavily weighted toward women.