If you were sat in your car in a carpark after finishing your shopping and looked up to see an angry man who was the owner of the car parked directly in front, pink in the face, shouting "your car is touching my car" and asking you to get out of the car. What would you do?
My first reaction was fear.
I knew I hadn't bumped his car because I know I parked up very carefully and I would have noticed if I had touched another car.
When I got back, I was then sat in the car for a minute or two replying to a text, with the car switched off, handbrake on, so it certainly didn't ever veer in to this man's car afterwards either.
I didn't feel there was any reason to get out as I knew there was absolutely no damage or any contact with his car but I recognise this would have been the polite thing to do. At worst, my car must have been very close to his. Which isn't an issue in this kind of carpark as we will both be backing out of our spaces.
The main reason I didn't get out though was because I felt scared. I was on my own and this man looked and sounded angry!
I shouted from inside the car that my car was NOT touching his, and I left. I felt a bit shaky afterwards.
I then wake up to a public post on Facebook group from this man's wife saying "to the lady who bumped into my husband's car in your BRAND NEW car and then weren't kind enough to check for any damage...then drove off swearing at us bla bla blah..." (I said "oh sod off" or something like that, to myself, under my breath, as I drove off...my windows were up... He was obviously good at lipreading....oops! It was very very mild swearing. The sort of thing I'd say if the kids were in the car even. I'm not proud of this but I was just worked up.
Also my car is nowhere near brand new. I feel like that was added for dramatic effect?
I'm not sure why this guy got his wife to post this. There was no damage to his car because no such impact took place. There was not even a speck of damage on my car either BECAUSE IT NEVER TOUCHED HIS!!
Its made me think though... Should I have got out? The only things that stopped me were mainly fear and feeling threatened by this man as a lone woman...and knowing for a fact that my car had not bumped in to his.
Now I'm thinking I handled this badly. And there is now a public post accusing me of bumping into someone's car and making it sound like I left shouting expletives.
I feel so ashamed and upset by it because I'm generally quite a gentle shy person and would never dream of driving off if I had damaged anything..
So AIBU for not leaving the car to check for damage when I feel threatened by a man? Especially in the context of knowing there will be no damage.