The lovely giggling mums - AIBU?

[CorneliaLouise]

Another thread this morning has reminded me of an incident that happened to me although details are a bit different.

2 years ago I went to an evening concert at a concert hall in the city centre.

I noticed there were 2 mothers of 2 girls I’d grown up with also at the concert. I’d lost contact with their daughters - our ‘school group’ - some 5 years earlier - so we weren’t in contact at all at that time.

When I went up a level to where the toilets were at the end of the concert interval these two mums were standing outside the toilets and giggling to each other in an exaggerated manner as I walked by. There was no one else around.

Looking back - I feel this was an extremely cruel thing to do. One of the mums was extremely cruel on one occasion to me when I was about 7.

For context, these mums at the time were around 60. AIBU to feel hurt by this?

People can laugh together in public.

I think you're overreacting to a non event.

So what, though? She's the mother of a school friend you've lost touch with. What she thinks of you is as irrelevant as the opinion of someone you once walked past on the street.

Mumsnet is weird the world just seems to full of women stood around laughing at other women as they walk past and still remembered years later.

This can't be real life 😵‍💫

I'm not even sure I'd recognise my DD's current friends if I saw them on the street, let alone someone I've not seen in years and who has in the meantime become an adult.

That's ridiculous. We have no idea why these women were laughing. The OP, who sounds incredibly self-conscious to the point of paranoia, thinks the laughter was 'performative' and directed at her, but they could have been laughing for any reason -- they were drunk, they were happy, one of them just told a funny story about someone else etc etc.

It's really not a kindness to encourage a clearly very thin-skinned and self-conscious OP to think that other people's behaviour is always about her. Or that a school friend's mother who was mean to her when she was seven is still being mean to her 20 years or more later.

A lot of people on here are not well-adjusted socially, and as a result are terribly self-conscious about perceived side-eye on the school run, 'cliques' shunning them etc. Most people wouldn't give any of it a second thought.

@IllMet not ridiculous.

I didn’t say they WERE laughing at her.

I said women who do that are pond scum. Generic statement but it does happen, groups of women who feel safety in numbers do laugh loudly hoping for a reaction.

It was to be fair a generic comment

I’ve been in close proximity with one of the mothers when she was on her own and she looked uncomfortable but I just strided past confidently

I think that's ridiculous. Women shouldn't laugh loudly when another woman is around in case they make that woman self-conscious? Right.

This was TWO YEARS ago. Why are you letting these women live rent free in your head? None of us can say what they did or didnt mean. You really need to move on.

@IllMetyou do you.

they can laugh as loud as they want, but if it’s deliberately designed to make someone else feel uncomfortable then it’s shitty behaviour.

I think you know the difference

These people (and it seems to be mainly women who behave like this) are horrible. They should just be ignored but that's sometimes so difficult.

I once worked with two women like this, constant sniggering and side glances, it made me very stressed at the time. Eventually another (much nicer) colleague mentioned that she had been out for lunch with them and would never go again, they were so bitchy and vile she felt really uncomfortable. I knew that some of that was certainly about me although I wasn't their only target. I think she wanted me to know that no one else in the company thought they were funny, or even nice to be with.

Eventually the bigger bitch of the two was made redundant. The company did need to do a bit of streamlining but I'm sure that her vile behaviour was a significant factor in her being picked - it had not gone unnoticed by senior colleagues that she was just a shit stirrer.

It was a happy day! Her other victim and I sneaked out straight away for a coffee so that no one could see how wildly pleased we were.

'One of the mums was extremely cruel on one occasion to me when I was about 7.'

It's so difficult to comprehend how any adult could treat a child this way. If they were laughing at you, OP then there is a reason that lies within them that is very ugly (probably envy of you, your family or your life). You obviously bothered them a great deal or they wouldn't have recognised you; which is a positive. If someone else is bothered by a persons mere existence - that is envy. Idiots.

She was also a primary school teacher !

My point is that we can in general have no idea whether people laughing in our general vicinity are doing so because there's something they're amused by, or in a deliberate attempt to make us feel uncomfortable. Obviously, if it's colleagues or people we're in frequent contact with who appear to be suddenly terribly amused any time we're in the vicinity, then, sure, it's worth challenging, but I simply cannot get excited at the laughter, however motivated, of two randoms, the mothers of old school friends, encountered by the loos after a gig.

This.

With respect, this was two years ago. You will be occupying no space at all in her head today. Don't give her space in yours. What she does is hers to carry. Don't you carry it.

This has happened to me before, I was coming up 18 with my boyfriend and a woman, and her mother, walked past us on the other side of the road and the young woman screamed at me for talking about her. I denied it strongly and eventually the mother apologised to us.

It really shook me up, and I felt embarrassed too. Looking back I can see that the young woman had significant social and emotional learning difficulties.

Perhaps this was the same for your experience?

How was she cruel to you when you were 7? Of course she recognised you. She wanted to make you feel uncomfortable. Age is no barrier to nasty behaviour

Well I was a fat kid and she said at her daughter’s birthday party and as the food was served she said - “oh look Cornelia’s eyes are popping out - that’s why she’s so fat”

@CorneliaLouise They were definitely laughing at you. Once a cunt always a cunt

I’ve just started reading a book ‘The Let Them Theory’ by Mel Robbins. Might be useful for you OP.

My kids' friends often come up to me to chat but they ALWAYS have to tell me who they are - except for my kids very closest and best friends because I've seen them throughout their growing up. I would not recognise kids my own children were at primary school with because children change so much, particularly at puberty.

So are you absolutely certain that these women knew who you were? I'm sorry if you were bullied when younger, I was chronically bullied myself at secondary school but I doubt very much if I could pick even the bullies themselves out of a line up now.

Yes they knew

Thank you. I think so too