Today I was harassed by a homeless person. AIBU?

[CopeWithChange]

Today, I was in a popular coffee shop in a big city, with my husband and children. Someone approached us - who appeared male but possibly a transgender woman. They said they were homeless and asked me to buy them a drink. I have always tried to be good to the homeless, and a drink seems to be a reasonable request so I said yes. I instructed my DH to wait with the kids and walked this person to the queue. I quite quickly began regretting this decision. My DH was watching carefully, but this individual quite quickly started saying things to make me feel extremely uncomfortable. I’m late 30’s and would say very feminine in appearance. They started saying to me that I was transgender and asking what surgery I had had done. They then looked at my husband saying he sickened them. That he was disguising and he would make sure I was free of him soon. He kept saying “just look at him, watching you. It’s disgusting! but you’ll be free of him very, very soon! My husband could tell by my face that something had changed and walked closer, between where we were and where my kids were. I rushed over to the cashier and said “I need to pay, I need to pay now.” She could see me being uncomfortable and being followed by this individual, who appeared to be possibly on drugs. I made sure my face expressed my fear. It wasn’t hard, as I was genuinely getting frightened. The cashier sent me back to the card readers, where a colleague was working. I said, “can I please pay for this persons drink. I need to pay and I need to leave.” The assistant had me wait while they served the current customer, and the other lady continued making drinks for other customers. There was a lady in the queue I was looking to for help. I’m in my 30’s. She looked very uneasy but avoided all eye contact with me. I paid and left. The individual shouted abuse at my husband as we left and threatened him with assault.

I feel shaken up. No one in ear shot helped. No one cared. Everyone turned a blind eye, despite me knowing they could hear and see. My husband was worried but also fearful to walk my children over and was genuinely out of ear shot. If the man had become visibly aggressive, he would have intervened in a shot. I don’t want him to be flamed here. But the individuals right next to me all did nothing. I feel shaken and upset over this. AIBU to hope that people would do more?

Would you really all turn a blind eye if you saw a frightened woman being harassed by a man? It only takes one person to pretend to know the OP and just start chatting to help diffuse a situation. Nobody had to go in all guns blazing.

But this is the issue.
I don’t think anyone realised she needed help.

OP was with her DH and she voluntarily agreed to buy the man a drink.
She continued to stay with him and order a drink for him.

She just hoped that others would pick up on her body language - which unless you know the person is pretty difficult to do and most people are in their own world.

I would have assumed that OP was this man’s carer or she didn’t need help considering she was buying him a drink.

If her DH didn’t think she needed help, then how would total strangers.

OP please remember that you did a very kind thing.

Many of these homeless people are there through tragic circumstances and so many are decent people but they often do inappropriate things like steal because they are trying to survive.

Never feel bad for doing something kind.

Your body was in fight or flight mode because it sensed danger.
That is also nothing to be ashamed of.

In hindsight there are lots of things you could have done differently but what’s done is done and it’s just a lesson for the next time if anything like this happens again.

Did the people in the shop know you had just met the homeless person? You may have thought your facial expressions were saying certain things, they may have just thought you were a bit unstable yourself.

Op sorry but the irony of your latest post getting angry that people are finding fault in you…your original post is trying to find fault in the people in the coffee house.

It’s great that you know you got it wrong now and it can just be a lesson learned for next time. But I think you may be getting a hard time here because you tried to blame other people for not helping, when it seems if the tables were turned, you wouldn’t be confident enough to help someone else in trouble.

My husband could tell by my face that something had changed
I made sure my face expressed my fear
I expressed with my face I needed to quickly pay and leave

Goodness you must have a very expressive face! Did you do any acting or drama in school/college?

Yeah the fact OP went onto order AFTER the unpleasant behaviour started may
have thrown the staff a bit.

Coffee shops are quite fast paced and the staff may not have had all the time in the world to assess the situation. So this may have appeared to them to be a strange but consensual interaction and they were just keeping things moving really.

Since Op is a grown adult who chose to engage with this person , they were probably thinking who are they to object?

Had she clearly articulated the problem maybe they could’ve called the police or threatened to.

He does not deserve what is being written here and I know would have been right there if things had turned physical

OP, the people in the queue might say the same thing - they would have been “right there” if things got physical. But they didn’t, so they did what your husband did which is nothing.

It still doesn’t make sense you expect from random women what you weren’t demanding from your own husband. You are holding them to higher standards than your own life partner.

Just shake it off and take it as a learning experience.

If I were you @CopeWithChange, I'd take from this that I shouldn't interact with people who beg/ask for things on the street. I tell my dc this, that when they are travelling around on public transport or up in town - do not interact or engage with street people. Don't make eye contact, don't be seen to be looking at them. If they ask you for money or anything else, blank them - you haven't seen them, you haven't heard them. Just move on where possible.

It's just not worth the risk. There are way too many people out there who are mentally ill and may be carrying weapons like knives or dirty needles. It's best not to get involved in anything, so if they saw something like your scenario, I'd expect my dc to blank you both and not appear to be aware. I don't want my loved ones getting stabbed because you happened to engage with a random down and out, and discovered for yourself it's more hassle than good deed. If you want to help homeless people, donate to Shelter.

This is not to say that I think every homeless person is evil or unbalanced, just that you can't reliably tell which are the dangerous ones until it's too late. Better safe than sorry.

I was afraid to say no and his question was directed at me rather than my husband

OP you were in an unfamiliar place, presumably a city centre, with young DC and this was clearly an uncomfortable confrontation with a stranger from the off. You could easily have dragged your DC, your DH and others into a potentially dangerous situation. For your own and your DC’s future safety learn to act on your instincts by saying NO and walking away.

You’ve never heard of trying to signal something via a facial expression when you’re either too far away or feel unable to say something? Or are you just trying to stick the boot in?

If it’s the latter, you can stand down because you’re one of many on this thread that seem to be enjoying it.

OP, I think your DH didn’t realize how naïve you are, and neither did you. It would be fine to say no, or else you tell the person you are helping that you will come back, you do your thing and then bring a drink to them. I do not think anyone in the shop had a duty to help since you didn’t ask for help/the danger was feeling scared not anything more explicit. No reason to serve you early.

In future....

1. They'll get plenty of people coming in who are upset, or in the middle of arguments. You need to make it clearer you are not just in distress or upset but that you FEEL IN DANGER.

1. Ask for Angela. Say you know you need to speak to Angela and she's definitely on duty. And it's urgent. Please can you go behind the counter and wait for Angela. Be pushy if you need to be.

1. Just shout "GET THIS MAN AWAY FROM ME" if you need to.

1. Kindly, if you're so unused to cities and not in a position to make sensible or rationale choices when you get upset then you really shouldn't be leaving your husband's side. I'm not being nasty, but you need to wise up and accept that it's ok not to be polite. Until you're in that mindset then you shouldn't be walking of with people you don't know and leaving your immediate safety zone.

Well it's annoying because weird solicitous behaviour like yours encourages blokes like this to hassle the rest of us.

No not sticking the boot in at all but I can’t say what I really think on here as it’s against MN guidelines (but I have clicked on the three dots in the OP message and conveyed my thoughts…)

He'll just stand by and watch ...

...but it did escalate.

@CopeWithChange just in case you are still here

Obviously, I've expressed my sympathy

Just to add, people around you probably won't listening to the conversation. And to be honest, hearing crazy conversations in a city coffee shop is not unusual. So they would not have realised that you were feeling threatened or intimidated. Add to that half the people probably have earbuds in, or even sound reducing earplugs, they just isn't a way anyone would've known that you were feeling threatened

I have intervened in a bookshop where a man was aggressively approaching a woman and I was extremely clear that she was uncomfortable and I could hear every word being said. It's also a very familiar scenario, being approached by an aggressive man who thinks he's chatting you up so I was confident in intervening there - but if I had overheard this conversation, I would just be baffled. I would probably assume you knew each other, otherwise why would the person be saying nasty things about your husband, if you see what I mean

So there are definitely times where people will intervene, but unfortunately this wasn't one of them.

People are like robots these days if I saw someone distressing about paying I would allow them to go sorry this happened to you

So... He was watching close enough to see her face that something was wrong.
Moved slightly closer.
Saw her turn her back to him, ... Then just watched as she then anxiously jump out of the queue, rejoins the queue exuding a nervous manner still (and apparently is out of earshot) but carries in watching his wife struggling....

And never once thinks to do something about it because the kids were there?

There were plenty of women and staff around to mind his kids if needed.

Was he just going to stand by if the person physically attacked them?

I genuinely don't understand why he didn't do anything at all to help his wife in this situation.

How nice (!) The OP was trying to be kind, she naively thought it was a good thing to do. But obviously she's not been thinking of how her actions are impacting others 🙄 and she was only doing it to make these homeless blokes hassle every other woman more....!

Be a bit less harsh, the OP has had enough horrid replies already.

Sorry you have been through this.

I think the best thing to do was to give the homeless person the cash for a drink and leave but it sounds like you didn’t have it and were committed to buying the drink on card .

It was very kind of you but I would advise anyone not to do this, it’s simply too much of a leap into the unknown and puts you in a vulnerable position.

The op thinks too highly of herself and too little of everyone else

OR… she had a scary situation that she’s trying to make sense of. The way people here expect some perfect behaviour from someone under a nasty online onslaught is something else. Not that any response she’d make would be accepted when the fun is in the onslaught.

More fun for you then.

I’m sure you have.

I would accept "fair play, I was acting the charitable Billy big balls but on reflection I should stop doing that" as a response.