Ways middle aged men have told us off this week

[Siblingsadness]

I've got 2 today and it's not even midday yet
I swim every day at 6am . There's normally about 6 of us, today I had the pool all to myself. I swam in one of the lanes as i am working on staying straight during certain strokes. After about 20 minutes a man got in the pool. I've seen him before, he always goes in the unlaned bit and does physio walking up and down.
Today he came over to the lane and said I shouldn't be in there as its the fast lane and I wasn't fast. I thought he was joking so I laughed. He then said he wasn't joking and I needed to move. Of course I told him not to be ridiculous, no one else was in here and if someone fast wanted it, I'd move. He called me a silly batch.
Then just now in tescos, I was in the pasta aisle and a man picked up a jar of pasta sauce and said "is this any good" I said I wasn't sure sorry, I normally just get the passata and put onion and garlic in it. He sort of mocked me and said "ooh good cook are you" I said yes, I'm OK and I enjoy it too. He then said "well at least I can parallel park you silly cow"
Now I know I just encountered 2 nutters (maybe a third is on the way) but I'm a bit cheeky and a cow before lunch today despite just going for a swim and buying cheaper pasta ingredients. 🤣🤣

It is so annoying that men don't try this shit with me. I am so confrontational and I am generally up for violence.

A man once asked me not to breastfeed in a café (I was covered) so I pulled my top up and got both boobs out on full show and just stared at him whilst feeding. After 5 minutes, he got up and left.

I don’t do the polite response thing now, as it seems to invite further interaction which leads to mansplaining and bossiness. Or a proposition.

So I effectively grey rock everyone. Which is a shame as I used to be quite sociable and helpful. But I realised it was always men. Always men commenting unasked on my appearance etc.

Oh no, I didn't think you were 'telling me off' at all! My tone was also clearly off too, sorry. What a pair 😅.

In the last week one man accused me of almost running him and his child over in a local park car park. He threatened to run over my dog. I’m not proud but as I was actually nowhere near them, I told him to tell someone who gives a fuck.

Yesterday a man in a poxy BMW sports car pulled past me dangerously at a left turn. He then turned round and shouted ‘have you actually passed your test?’ I was completely in the right and his manoeuvre was dangerous.

What is it with men? It’s always the same, idiot men telling women what to do.

I usually react with 'what a strange thing to say out loud'

I wasn’t told off but I had how to use a treadmill properly explained to me recently. I was, apparently, running too far forward. I had to stop my run to have this explained to me. I couldn’t be bothered to tell him that I had run 1000s of kilometres like that or argue with him so I just smiled brightly, said “thanks so much for your unsolicited input!”, put my headphones back on and continued running exactly as I had been before. Twat.

Not long ago I asked a lady in s’market a stupid question ( hormone probs 🙄), she listened a moment, then just said she was deaf & couldn’t help.
Now I’m gonna use that excuse myself. Maybe OP, you’d like to try it out too 😁.

One of the most irritating things about MN is that some people genuinely regard this to be a cutting and witty retort.

The first one id have ignored and if he had kept on, I'd have told him to complain to the management.
The second one, I'd have briefly said, never tried it.
The problem lies in your trying to be polite and reasonable. As you are expected and conditioned to be as a woman. Be more "bloke". Practice shrugging and saying "dunno mate" . You aren't their help.

I think I love you

Oh Wow. I would have replied, actually I am a * so I think I can cope thanks

*Haulage lorry driver
*Fast response police car driver
*No 47 Bus driver

I have in the past seen men struggling to park vans in car parks and asked if they needed help with parking before. That's especially effective if they are workmen with their colleagues in the van with them - always gets a chuckle and a red face

Excellent 👏

Oh good I'm glad I didn't upset you, we're a good pair of examples of misunderstanding other people's motives.

I always love the faux surprised, "well, this has never happened to me" and "women can also be rude, don't you know" comments. Anyone on the receiving end of these has an instinctive understanding of the underlying misogny.

I haven't had many of these moments recently, but I have recently been workin gin the City more often and have been shocked to be reminded by how on the commute men walk along expecting everyone else to get out of their way ALL THE TIME.

There are similar moments of entitlement with other groups - eg DH works in a service industry for wealthy people and he says the older women are the WORST for thinking they can say or do what they like and being very entitled. But that doesn't make what OP is describing any less valid.

I hope you and him also realise that most women don't do this, especially when no-one is around, out of fear of escalation, we are quite easily killed by men.

Yes, there does seem to be this phenomenon of middle aged men trying to exert power.

But I've encountered quite a few crazy middle aged women too. I was shopping with my now husband not long after we'd first met, her was wearing chinos and a blue polo. A woman came striding up to him demanding to know when the next bread delivery was due. He politely explained that he didn't work there and that she should speak to a member of staff, but instead of laughing about this, she asked him why he was wearing the uniform if he didn't work there. He pointed out that the logo on his shirt said GANT not TESCO, and she still wouldn't accept it!

Germaine Greer was right when she said women truly have no idea how much men hate us.

You've only got to look at some of the social media posts about the England women's team winning the Euros to see just how true that is!

The worst part about parking-space-wavers is that they usually position themselves in or immediately at the entrance to the parking space exactly where you would run them over if you just totally ignored them! Of course, if you did hit one it would be proof that you can't park because you are a woman.

There's this very strange thing on MN (and probably more generally) that people seem to think that their experiences are universal so therefore, if something hasn't happened to them, it can't have happened to anyone.

I hope your day improves!

My all time favourite of a man trying to tell me what to do was when I was pregnant. At the world's most boring event where I didn't speak the language, making it worse. I was pregnant. I ordered a coke. A man sitting next to me said, "You do know coke has caffeine in it don't you which you shouldn't drink when pregnant".

I said, "Yes, I know. that's why I'm ordering it".

He was taken aback. His wife looked thrilled by my comment (they got divorced a few years later!)

Not today, but last week. Came to a roundabout where there was a stalemate with three cars... all three lanes came from/led to 20mph roads so nothing fast - it was a late weekend afternoon too so people wouldn't normally be rushing.

I looked at the guy to my right who was angrily waving and shouting at me to go (he had got to the roundabout first and had right of way to me!). His wife looked embarrassed. I went, but shouted "it was your right of way?!" out the window at him. I mean what the heck?!

I mostly come across this whilst driving - randomly seems to have got worse recently :( constant expectations to wait for them regardless of whether right of way or whether i was first or not. Yesterday even my husband was shocked as two male cyclists - cars parked on their side of travel - they then rode side by side one across my lane - i carried on but then they swore at me? Plenty of space on their side of the road if they followed each other.

I then arrived at a mini roundabout my right of way - but apparently not as the man drove at me beeping :(

Why the intimidation- not nice experience.

I would reframe this mentally in my head to feel sorry for the 2 wankers.
If this is their only way of feeling good about themselves then they have very small penises worthless lives

Well for him it's a driving thing so he's probably safe in his metal box. He walks with two sticks so he has weapons to hand if needed but thanks for the unsolicited advice.