Restaurant row who is at fault?

[Polishedshoesalways]

Out with friends in a restaurant last night - six of us in total. Two of my friends were light heatedly disagreeing about gender politics between them. They were not bothering anyone else.

Friend x suddenly shouts at them quite aggressively and loudly to ‘shut up’

Loud enough for the tables around us to stop and stare.

Would you think this is rude? She was not part of the conversation at the time.

The table sat in stunned silence after that. It’s now really awkward. She hasn’t apologised or acknowledged that shouting or shutting a conversation down like that isn’t cool. The friends in question seem offended.

What do you think? Do they have a point?
Are you okay with being told to shut up?

Regardless of the appalling, never ending tide of horrific news, it’s not ok to shout shut up at people. And these are her friends.

She was incredibly rude and should apologise. She isn’t queen of the conversation. She doesn’t get to say what her friends should be discussing and when.

As for her filter eroding due to solitude, maybe, but moreover it does seem like something is wrong for/with her. That’s no excuse right now though.

It’s very awkward but someone needs to tell her it’s not ok. She can either apologise or add to her solitude.

I think you have to tell her. Sounds like she has got too used to her own company.

‘ X it was not ok to shout at the others on Saturday night. Please apologies and don’t shout at people again. ‘

or one of the Poole who got shouted so just tell her it wasn’t ok. ‘I didn’t like being shouted at in public, it made me feel like a small child and I worry you’d do it again. Please don’t’’

Of course you don't. Luckily most people I know who I've told this story to do.

I just don't think telling people to shut up is the massive issue you're making it out to be. Especially when you say it's a one off.

But then I happily tell DH to shut up when he's wittering on about the same thing again because it's bloody tedious.

She told them to shut up, not you.
And although it must have been awkward for you, I wouldn’t get involved.

If the other 2 feel they deserve an apology then they can choose to message her and explain how they feel.
It sounds like she deserves an apology from them too.

It sounds like they could do with a chat anyway.

You say this friend wanted to talk about other things but the other 2 ignored her and carried on.

It sounds like they were all as rude as each other and the one that shouted shouldn’t be singled out.

Unless you were also ignoring this friend then I wouldn’t get involved, as you could be forced to try and take sides.
Let them sort it out between them.

I like her boldness and her character, love that part of her but it tipped into something else. It was really aggressive and almost dominant. She didn’t like the conversation so she would shut it down. The other two said nothing else beyond mumbling a goodbye. Thank goodness it was almost the end of the night when it happened. I think she has hurt their feelings yes, one in particular has so much crap on her plate, I was just happy she had come out.

It's not OP's place to intervene IMO - if the friends who were offended want to say something that's different.

I was considering this because it was awful for them. I think they did feel like scolded children tbh

If their feelings are hurt then they're free to speak up and say something - I'm not sure why you seem to be getting in the middle and getting offended when it was nothing to do with you?

I organised the night. I do feel caught in the middle. We are supposed to be booking a trip, now that is difficult. I am annoyed she ruined the night.

Thing is, even if you don't like a conversation, you need to deal with it tactfully as an adult. Not scream "shut up" like a toddler.
And if the other two people were enjoying their chat then as an adult you simply speak to someone else, you don't tell them what they can and can't talk about and you certainly don't shout rudely at them in public.

Did she really ruin the night for speaking up, or did the friends re-hashing the same old debate ruin it by being totally oblivious to what was going on around them?

What did the other two friends (you say there were six of you) think of what happened?

@Polishedshoesalways if she can give it out then hopefully she can take it. I suggest you be just as blunt with her and tell her to think about how she speaks to people otherwise she's going to lose friends.
It's often remarkable how thin skinned these so-called blunt people are though.

Who has shouted shut up at their friends as an adult? Obviously we have said far worse to each other as teenagers, but it was really loud as well, and she meant every word. They are not children, and I don’t think they are pleased to be spoken to like that at all.

Where does it say she screamed?

I think whether you consider telling someone to shut up "rude" or not is down to personal opinion. Personally it doesn't really bother me.

Good question. The other two friends are divided on the issue, we got a cab back together and one said it’s fine no harm done friend x is always direct. The other friend said it was out of order and insanely rude.

Maybe she felt they were oblivious to everything else and behaving like children by dominating the conversation?

I tell DH to shut up when he's boring me tbh.

Mannerless. Dont go out with her again.

I tell DH to shut up when he's boring me tbh.

I'd be beyond offended if my DH ever spoke to me like that.

Well, that's my point - everyone has different definitions of "rude".

I wouldn't tell a colleague to shut up, or a stranger in the street, but I'm quite happy to tell DH to stop blithering on about something - and he's happy to say the same to me. We both know where we stand and neither of us need to sit there and get bored to tears lol.

You seem to have already made up your mind that your friend was in the wrong. Anytime someone empathises with her you present a counter argument.

Yeah they've been going on so much about it then

It certainly seems like the OP isn't willing to consider that the two other women were in any way at fault.

Did they even acknowledge that she'd tried to change the topic of conversation or that they had perhaps got carried away with their discussion.

It's rude but I can't imagine anyone in my group being that delicate about 1 out of character shut up that they'd be thinking about cancelling weekends and that, they'd more likely be self reflective if that situation were to occur.

I told a mate to shut up once because he was barking at me and I was trying to think, he took it a bit worse than expected but I explained he was being loud, I was doing something, it was more polite than saying fuck off, and our friendship carried on

It’s really important to say that friend x did not try to change the conversation before, nor did she even seem to notice what they were saying - from what I could see. The shocking part of this is there was no lead up to it, she wasn’t on the surface getting annoyed before this happened.