to tell this nosey mother to shove off?

[theBOD]

long sorry but need an opinion.
i was meant to be playing football with mates and my lectures finished about an hour early. now seeing as i lived about an hours drive from where we were playing it made no sense for me to go home so i decided i'd just drive to the park where we play and do some work(play solitare) on my laptop for the hour and listen to the radio.
so i parked on the road beside the pitches, which also happens to be opposite a playground. after about half an hour some woman came over to me and knocked on my window asking me "what do you think you're doing" and telling me to move as it was "not right" and i was making the parents "nervous".
apparently i should not be parked and on a laptop near children as a man on his own as this obviously in her mind made me some sort of sex predator.
so i told her that what i was doing was none of her business and told her to get away from my car. she then threatened to call the police (she didn't) and get her husband out (which she did).
anyway was i unreasonable to use some very choice words to her and her husband when they came over to me the second time claiming they didn't want trouble and just thought it was best if i left?

I think cocolepew gave the best example of how a genuine conceren should be dealt with: The old guys at her local playground did report someone but....."They watched and made a reasonable assumption over a few weeks. Not within 5 minutes. And not because somebody was sitting in their own car looking, not at any children, but his own computer. "

I'm not sure what he said would have made much difference. Sounds like she had made up her mind about him beforehand and I doubt if he'd said he was waiting for some mates it would have made her any less suspicious.

perhaps yes, pb. although she didn't report him, did she? she just asked what he was doiing, and he responded by being all arsey.

wow, where are you reading all this stuff?

I think that my husband would be insulted at what she was insinuating.
Is saying 'don't worry, I am not a paedo' or words to that effect really comforting?
I am sure there are paedophiles who seem very reasonable in casual conversation.
I don't think the onus should be on men to prove they are not pervets, should it?

i think anyone would be insulted by the insinuation. how they respond to that perceived insult is key, imo.

you've read the OP again, have you? he wanted to teach her a lesson etc, was well aware that by responding the way he did that things would escalate?

Have you read the OP again?
He only used choice words after being approached a second time with her husband in tow.
That is quite threatening in itself.
They attempted to bully him into moving.
I would hate my sons to grow up in a world where they are not allowed to be anywhere near children ' just in case'
If we allow this kind of behaviuor to become acceptable and the norm then we will alienate our young men from society.

"so i parked on the road beside the pitches, which also happens to be opposite a playground. after about half an hour some woman came over to me and knocked on my window asking me "what do you think you're doing" and telling me to move as it was "not right" and i was making the parents "nervous".
apparently i should not be parked and on a laptop near children as a man on his own as this obviously in her mind made me some sort of sex predator.
so i told her that what i was doing was none of her business and told her to get away from my car. she then threatened to call the police (she didn't) and get her husband out (which she did)."

i couldn't really give a fuck about the choice words, tbh, or the fact that she brought her husband out. that all happened after he'd escalated the situation, i doubt any of them had covered themselves in glory by that point.

i think he was behaving unreasonably from the start, and he's been quite clear about why that was. he wanted to teach her a lesson. i doubt he succeeded.

Once again, she wanted to him to move. If he was jolly and polite would that have reassured her?
If he declared he wasn't a paedo and cracked a joke would that pacify her?
The situation had no way of ending reasonably.

see, i feel that if he'd answered her first question politely she have had no reason to ask him to move. asking him to move, in light of his refusal simply to point to his football kit and say 'i'm playing footie in half an hour' was presumably her next move, rather than her first.
actually this thread is depressing me, i can't believe the rudeness here. it's not acceptable to ask someone what they're doiing so it's fine to act like a nob when they do? i really hope not.

But Aitch, can't you see how ridiclous that is?
A paedophile could have a football kit in his car, could be polite and charming.
If someone is paranoid enough to approach a man in this way, do you think anything other than him leaving would pacify them?

i do, because the whole situation is ridiculous. she had some worries, which he could have easily alleviated. she didn't want to hear that he was a paedophile, i'm guessing, who would want to be right about that fgs?

she just wanted to know what he was doing there, and he could have answered her honestly and politely and she'd have gone away. perhaps she'd have kept an eye on him, and if he hadn't played football and had repeatedly turned up at the park on his own for no discernible reason she may have been within her rights to contact the police, as prettybird said. as i see it, however, this first conversation could have been the beginning and end of it, but because of the OP's attitude it wasn't.

seems to me that you're all getting swept up in an inverse paedo-hysteria yourselves, tbh. very daily mail.

she asked him to move at the outset didn't she? so I don't see (again) why he could have done/said to pacify her unless he'd driven off. do you think he should have done?

sorry no caps baby on lap

I think her behaviour was more Daily Mail than anything on here, though.
Lone man in a car, paedo alert!! kind of thing.

Anway, I don'y have much more to say on this other than let's agree to disagree!

no. if you read the OP she asked what he was doing, which was a question as we know he refused to answer in order to teach her a valuable lesson so having inflamed the situation she would presumably have asked him to move. would have been most odd for her not to wait for an answer to her question before insisting he move his car, imo. much the less likely scenario.

well, the great advantage that the DM has editorially is that it advocates hysteria and intolerance and doesn't much care which side it's on. i can completely imagine a DM story along the lines of 'innocent father targeted by anti-paedo bullies for sitting in car!!!' same as i can imagine 'innocent children targeted by paedo sitting in car!!!' a hysterical reaction is a hysterical reaction.

Aitch, I agree. I am sure that when she asked 'What are you doing?' if he has replied with 'playing football in a minute', she would have been embarrassed and moved along herself.

PS. Noone knows anything about this woman, she may have had good reason to be overly cautious of men near parks. A good life lesson is to make others feel at ease, not to battle.

"it's not acceptable to ask someone what they're doiing so it's fine to act like a nob when they do? i really hope not.
"

sorry but how did i act like a knob? a woman asked me what i was doing and i told her it was none of her business.

and how did i escalate the situation when she told me, before i'd said anything of an inflamatory nature what so ever, that what i was doing was "not right"?

and as for this teaching a lesson thing i think you are over thinking this. when i said "i definitely knew this" i should probably clarify what i meant. i didn't mean i had a set plan where i thought " brilliant,i can strike a blow for men everywhere". more that like when you are in an argument with your gf/bf sometimes and you know there is something you could say to calm it down but you don't because you feel you are right, it's not like you are thinking to yourself "great i can keep this horrible argument going for another hour".

so yes i probably knew how to calm the situation down but to do that i would have to concede that i owed this woman an explanation because of my gender, when in fact i owed her nothing.would you be happy to justify your being somewhere in a public place (other than a mens toilet) purely based on the fact that you are a woman, just so some sexist idiot could be appeased?or would you rightly tell these people to mind their own business?

actually, i would tend not to tell people to mind their own business, i think it's really rude and aggressive. i think that by not saying 'i'm playing footie' you knowingly acted like a nob. really, that's what i think. but hardly anyone else does, so you're fine to carry on as you are.

How do you know she wouldn't have asked a woman? Gender bias occurs because it is far more likely to be a man that sexually attacks or is sexually deviant.

how odd that theBod only answers people that disagree with him.

"Gender bias occurs because it is far more likely to be a man that sexually attacks or is sexually deviant."

does that make it right? i mean statistically in america you are far more likely to go to prison if you are black.does that justify racial bias?

"how odd that theBod only answers people that disagree with him.
"

sorry you are right, and thank you to all who have responded with positive messages aswell.