AIBU to think this lady was nuts? Share your WTF interactions with strangers here

[BarbaraVineFan]

In the park with 4 year old DD today and she became fascinated with a ladybird which she found near the path. We were standing by the side of the path as DD let the ladybird crawl over her arms and hands. A lady went past with a little kid of a similar age and was looking over, so I said 'we've got a ladybird!' (Not sure why really but I felt the need to explain.) Upon which this woman sort of sniggered and went 'ah..,Chlamydia!' And then just...went on her way.

Having googled, I see that apparently ladybirds carry all sorts of STIs, which they transmit to other ladybirds and not humans. So I guess that's what she meant. But at the time I was like 'What the actual fuck?' 😂 Who even says that to a stranger?!

Does anyone have any similar stories of batshit interactions with strangers to share?

I live near a big forest, lots of lovely walks, unfortunately over holidays there can be a bit of extra rubbish so every now and again me and DH talk a litter picker and a bin bag when we do our walks. Some people say thank-you and we have actually noticed that other families have started doing this which is lovely!
Anyway walking down woodland path and a well attired lady ( think babour jacket etc) walks up to us with dog and say ' oh thank goodness your here can I give you this' and presents us with a leg from deer which presumably her dog has just found ( hope it didn't kill the poor deer). We try and decline the deer leg by explaining we don't what to take it home to our bin. She says we have to take it because she keeps trying to throw it away but her dog fetches it back 😂. We were somehow forced to take the dead deer leg in that way that some middle/ upper class people can be soo persuasive. The interaction was like our only reason for being in the woods that day was to collect her deer leg!
She didn't even say thank you!!

@Rosscameasdoody Interesting that you both think this and I can totally see where you're coming from, but I'm almost certain he wasn't. The "deaths" were very pronounced and spouted so randomly during the conversation. I'm fairly convinced it was his tic.

I assume race was mentioned because the poster was accused of being racist. If anything it was their dog that was racist!

I would has replied "it smelt fine before came in. You should may be go and have a wash" 😂

No one on earth is cutting off their dick to listen to you fart through a cubical wall. well, about 97% of (trans)men don't have any surgery, - most don't even cut their beard off, (while maintaining that they are 'women') so what are the odds of them cutting off anything more valuable to them?

And don't tell me that they have to be in the women's toilet, as it's so unsafe for them in the gents. They don't get to feel 'safe' at the expense of women's safety. Men - Sort the Gents out.

Women's toilets should be for women. Single sex spaces should be single SEX!

No confusion.

I would love to see proof of your (wildly made up) stats.

My eldest or second eldest son was in the buggy with a chocolate bar. (I know, perfect parenting). A dog comes running over and takes a snap at it. Dog starts eating it. Owner runs over and tells me off for allowing my son to feed her dog chocolate. u was trying to comfort my son, who had just lost his chocolate bar to a massive (to him) dog. All I wish was the dog did a dump on her carpet when they got home.

Next one was a bus one. My youngest was walking at the age of 11 months, so by the time she was about 15 months she was tiny but fully walking and stable. Her dad takes her on the bus, and she toddles in front, and finds a seat. Her dad is about 30 seconds behind. Man jumps on the seat next to her. Her dad was a bit shocked at that and stared. “Oh sorry mate did you want to sit down”.

Then a McDonald’s one. 3 kids with me, I get up to grab the order. Someone is sitting in my seat. “Oh I thought this table was free”.

Studies vary quite a bit. One paper states that trans identified males surveyed in the US reported that 5% had undergone "bottom surgery" but that other studies had placed it as high as 13%.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6626314/

I haven't been able to find the stats for Scotland or the UK, but surgeries among predatory men who claim to be trans are vanishingly low - as one might expect.

That's the problem: as soon as various bodies went down the line of "Acceptance without exception" - which in Scotland means that transvestites have been included in the trans umbrella - we basically finished up with a predators' charter.

Before anyone says it - yes, there's a problem with predators everywhere, including churches and schools. That's why (in schools at least) we're supposed to have safeguarding procedures in place.

I feel sorry for men who genuinely suffer from a form of body dysmorphia. I feel sorrier for the women and girls who have suffered because of the Scottish authorities' safeguarding failures.

If you are referring to my story I can assure you it 100% did happen. I still even have the text messages I sent to my mother when it happened expressing my shock. My hair was shorter then (currently growing it out) I was in an oversized hoodie, jeans, baseball cap and trainers - from spending the entire night in the airport. I also have the misfortune of being fat and lumpy, rather than curvy and womanly (unless I am wearing a padded bra - 6 stone weight loss seems to have left my boobs first - and I didn't happen to be that night). I left out one detail - for fear of being piled on that it wasn't relevant or I was racist - about the woman's attire, but the rest was as it happened.

Thankfully it is the first and only time so far it has happened to me, although I had had parents several times refer to me as man/boy to their children. Short hair, fat and don't wear makeup unless on a night out apparently equates to male.

I had similar. In my 20’s travelled into London for a training course. I got a bit lost trying to find the right exit from the tube station to the street I needed. I approached the ticket inspector on the gate to ask him and he immediately smiled at me and opened the gate. When I explained I was lost he laughed and said “what are you talking about Sue!?” and gave me a kind of side to side one armed hug.
when I replied that I wasn’t Sue, he said of course you are! When are we going to have another lunch chat? Then we had an awkward few seconds of going back and forth saying “I’m not” with him replying “yes you are”. Another ticket inspector came up and I thought I was finally going to get some help. The first thing he said to me was Hi Sue!

I just gave up and walked off bewildered.

Going NC for this as have told the story IRL. in my oldest DDs class, a new child joined maybe 3rd class. The mammy asked to be added to the class WhatsApp group. It’s generally used for questions like does anyone know if it’s non uniform day tomorrow, what was their maths home work, stuff like that with some general chit chat. Within a few days of joining she asked if anyone had seen her cat. That was it. Literally has anyone seen my cat. One of the other mammies replied asking where she lived and did she have a picture as that may narrow down the search slightly. Days later, she posted a pic of her DDs backside (in knickers) and the backs of her legs saying she had a rash and could anyone advise what it was. She got no responses to that question as tbh don’t think anyone knew how to respond. But I felt that posting a half naked picture of your 9/10 daughter to a group of strangers was bizarre and thought surely there was someone else she could have asked

She also randomly replies with questions or answers that make no sense to the conversation. So say someone will ask, do you know if they have to wear runners tomorrow for sports day. She’ll reply tesco have a great sale on balloons.

But strangest interaction was a few months later. The school runs an afterschool program, stuff like art, cooking, sports etc and I was sitting in the car in the school car park waiting for DD to come out. It was a dreary drizzly November afternoon and this mammy comes into the school grounds, sits down on the wet ground and proceeds to eat a share bag of boosts 🤷🏼‍♀️. Why she couldn’t stand, go into the school reception or even wait outside at the bus stop where it was dry I’m not sure? but her choice was to sit on the wet ground in the rain.

Thing is when you speak to her one on one she comes across quite normal but the messages are always strange

At the bus stop with my 14 year old daughter taking our kitten to the vets. I’m from the midlands, ( he was from Acton apparently) a man walks to our stop and sounding exactly like this says ‘hello ladies I’ve just had the best banging time of of my life, went to London got naked and lost all my clothes. Women I fucked years ago told me on Facebook she had her lady garden done for me, so I fucked her good. I did magic mushrooms it was bangingggggg babes. Best night of my life everrrrr. Then proceeded to show us both his magic mushrooms. Got on the bus, when he got off screamed nice to meet ya ladiessss take care then waved

@housethatbuiltme I know. I'm from county Durham and often get mistaken for. Geordie. When in Staithes a while back got chatting to some people who were staying there. One woman was hyper excited at my Geordie accent. I said If you hear me next to a real Geordie you'd get a shock at the difference. I did call her pet though to make her even happier 😂
I once heard someone talking in a queue at Disney and couldn't work out which country they were from. They were full on Geordie. Talked very fast though.

I rarely watch TV so no idea.
My neighbour calls himself a geordie, he has a thick accent.
My DP is Scottish and when he talks to his siblings or parents I can't understand him either. And if he were to have imbibed a few drinks, I could not understand him then.

And I split my time between UK and Canada and canadians cannot understand me.
And if I go to Quebec, my French is woefully inadequate, and my quebecois is non existent, but in France I'm mostly understood.
What can you do about people not understanding some accents?

He'd be right to call the police, that's assault by beating, shoving someone almost to the ground is a crime, and there's probably CCTV of him doing it.

@PotterHead1985 apologies, I did not much like the responses your OP attracted from a certain section of MN.

I think people who mistake a female for a male must have some limited perception, since I have never had that problem.

Also I doubt very much I would challenge someone at the loo even if I thought they were a man. No matter how much i disagree with men using women's toilets.

Just wish that the issue had not come up on this thread, as it gets heated.

Understandable. I most definitely didn't post it to start an argument of trans people in women's spaces. I wish the thread hadn't derailed with that. It was just a weird interaction that had happened to me. I know the debate is a divisive issue so, much like politics and religion, I tend to try and avoid it.

@PotterHead1985 I go on FWR for that debate there is a thread there at the moment. lol

must have been horrid for you

You post was absoloutly fine and perfectly in line with the thread, it was the people who go out of their way to be enraged that grasped at some pretty wild straws to turn it into their agenda.

I mean a woman dressed in somewhat unisex clothing used a womans toilet and someone pointed out 'this is the women toilet' so of course on MN that translates to 'a bearded intact man is putting on dress to invade women's bathrooms'.

I mean its literally the EXACT opposite of what you said happened to you.

Omg she left them on the forecourt. But there could have been a fire/terrorist attack/petrol explosion, etc, etc, etc ...

What makes you think they'd be any safer in any of those situations if they were out of the car?

Anyone who has worked at a petrol station will tell you, children are safer left in the car, than out of it.

lol the geordie comments are making me think of an encounter I had a couple of weeks ago in a bar. It was late and we were all leathered.. this young woman comes to our group and screeches ‘Do I sound like a geordie?!’ I said, ‘yeah, you do a bit’. She said ‘Well I’m from Durham!’. “It’s all the same to us love, I replied’. Thought she was going to go for me but she wandered off lol.

Haha. It was clearly like a hot wood smell and the actual sauna, not me. I think he was possibly trying to be funny but it is definitely the weirdest thing a stranger has ever said to me.

Imagine a Donald Sinden lookalike walking past, upright, slow stroll in the sunlight, moving slowly, languidly, yet deliberately.

A powerful looking, leonine beast. Then a curl upwards of the right cheek and the mouth uttering a 'roar' with the same strength and intensity that the pharmacist might use to ask you if you have taken the migraine tablets before. Like the Lion King cub might sound, when locked in the fridge.

@Thurien Ha ha ha ha!!!! You should write for a living if you don't do so already....your post has made my day. I can picture him now. What a character. I love people like that....they truly are the stuff of life. The Lion King cub locked in the fridge. I almost died of laughter reading that. Ha ha 😂