The random comment men

[brokenbiscuitsx]

You know the ones, not the ‘leery car shouters’ but those who feel they can make comments about what you, a stranger, is doing when going about their business (and I’ll add not harming anyone!)

Just now I popped to the shop to collect a parcel, when I was there I grabbed a coffee from their Costa pod and a blueberry muffin. The man behind me piped up “You’ll get fat eating that” I was really taken aback so just said “thanks for your comment, random man” paid and then as I was walking out past him he said, no need to be so rude and mumbled ‘stroppy cow’ but I heard.

I wasn’t rude I just asserted myself and that is the issue isn’t it. He was expecting me to laugh along ‘oh I already am tee hee’ (I’m not) but no, I’m sick of it.

It happens too often as well. I have had a random man comment on how I could run better in the park when I was having a break and a man who saw my Led Zeppelin tshirt and said ‘what’s your favourite song then?’ So I said ‘Heartbreaker- you probably haven’t heard of it’ and he mumbled something at me and walked off (I knew he was trying to catch me out, hoping I didn’t know any songs!)

I don’t really know what my AIBU is, I guess, is it rude? Should I have just smiled sweetly like the passive woman I am meant to be. I’m just sick of these types of men! He took offence with me speaking up, perhaps he should learn not to make comments to random strangers.

Does anyone else get this, maybe I have that sort of face that men can’t help commenting to. If so, how do you cope with it?

Just, ugh, makes me angry.

Hooray! A Mansplainer!

(Said no woman in the history of humanity, ever).

Cunts they are all cunts

Sort of sums up DH's view on women in general.

Perhaps not quite as bad as that but close.

Actually, this makes me so cross. Sympathy Op. Recall being about 22, and in depths of an eating disorder. Very thin.

I decided to get myself a pastie. A big deal when I only ever allowed myself max 800 calories (on a kind day, recall 350 calories being my usual plan)…

Chat-up builder Bloke said “oh don’t eat that, you might get fat”. Worst comment ever. I worried about it endlessly. Probably didn’t eat the damn pastie.

Anyway, if it helps, with age, these dumb “chat up” comments decrease! Or at least have with me. A good thing about getting old.

I had this. I was charging the battery on my car from my neighbours car. I have done this several times (my car is old). I was attaching the jump leads and a man came over and said 'Do you know what you are doing?' I said 'Yup, have done it loads'. He proceeded to stand over me, monitoring me do this exceptionally simple job, WHICH I ALONE WITH NO HELP WHATSOEVER FROM HIM COMPLETED, had got my car started, disconnected the jump leads, put the bonnet down he tapped my bonnet and said 'There you go, you are welcome'. So I said 'Welcome for what?' and he rolled his eyes and called me ungrateful! I should have been grateful and thankful for his uninvited supervision on a job I was totally capable of doing apparently. And I thought to myself 'There really is still a need for feminism.'

@Taliskerskye

It’s power though They know that especially younger women won’t say anything because how do we know that random man isn’t a nutter who’s going to follow you down the street screaming abuse (happened a few times)

God, yes, you're so right about this. Loving "Thanks for your comment, random man." I wish I'd had that up my sleeve back in the days when I needed it, now, I am glad to say I am invisible to random man.

@Battleneck you are deliberately giving examples of pretty innocent comments to argue that men are not constantly subjecting women to worse.

"That choc muffin looks delicious": Fine.
"You'll get fat eating that". Not fine.

Not sure why this is so hard.

@LadyCatStark

I have a naturally miserable face 😂 and I always get, “smile, it might never happen!”

1. Why would I be wandering through Aldi car park with a huge smile on my face and
2. what if it already has happened?

I assume you've seen

Battleneck, if some of that is a joke or ironic, you do realise that we can't hear the irony in your tone of voice, right? 😂

@FatCatThinCat

As a man I think you're overthinking it. I think that for most men it would be entirely innocent, and that they would underestimate the potential for it to embarrass or fluster. And overestimate their wit, and underestimate the potential for certain things to be misogynistic or otherwise inappropriate.

Obviously some men must do it for power or impress mates reasons, or to deliberately fluster. Maybe they're the ones doing the vast majority of commenting, or the vast majority of the offensive commenting.

Phew, thank goodness a man has turned up to explain to us all how we're not thinking correctly.

Seriously - read what the fcuk I said.

"I think you are overthinking it." My perception here is that you are overthinking it, because MY PERCEPTION AS A MAN OF HOW OTHER MEN THINK IS THIS.

I did not in any way suggest that women are definitely overthinking it or wrong. If anything I was inviting women to explain to me why my perception of other men was wrong.

Jesus, @SafeMove, I think I'd have lamped him for that

@DrSbaitso

A couple of times when I've had the "cheer up" and "smile" comments, I've opened my eyes very wide to serial killer proportions and leaned forward at them, staring and resolutely not smiling. I have very large and sunken eyes and honestly, it can look terrifying. And they got properly alarmed and backed off. Fuckers.

You've just made me spit out my tea laughing!!

@BigFatLiar

Cunts they are all cunts

Sort of sums up DH's view on women in general.

Perhaps not quite as bad as that but close.

My cousin: I don't hate all women, just all the women I've met.

In response to me calling him a misogynist.

Women have very little idea of how much men hate them. G. Greer

Random man told me not to stop at the gym. I was doing interval training so the whole point was to rest in between intervals. It never seems to be a woman who comments.

Interesting thread about women's lived experience being derailed by a random man and his unsolicited comments. The fucking irony

@HarebrightCedarmoon

With you on this, OP.

Two I can remember. Getting a burger from a van on a Friday night "Bang goes the diet then, eh luv?" Didn't need to diet, I was nice and slim. I just said "Lucky that I'm not on a diet, then."

The most memorable one was when I was twenty and on a cross-channel ferry. Went up to the bar and ordered pints for my friends and me. A fellow customer, probably 30 years older than me gave me an absolute lecture about drinking pints, saying that I shouldn't drink pints as men wouldn't find me attractive. I said something like "I really don't care. If one less man find me attractive that's a good thing as far as I am concerned." The lads of my own age I was with laughed incredulously when I told them what he had said.

It may be meant as sociable, light-hearted or jovial but it's also trying to police women's behaviour in a paternalistic way, and they have no right.

This reminds me of a friend of DH who when i was drinking pints (which i am very talented at) commented it was unladylike and he would never tolerate his wife or his daughetrs doing any such thing. he got really exercised about it- quite aggressive.

2 weeks later his daughter was photographed (in Hello magazine) completely naked in GB flag bodypaint because of some competition or other.

I felt pleased that clearly she took no notice of her father's nonsence either.

Random comments/questions from random men are f**king annoying and an extension of the also annoying “Alright, darling? and “Hello, love!” from random men as you walk past them with your earphones in. It’s an attempt to demand your attention and to trample over your personal space. It’s because they think they can.

They never do it to men, do they? I’ve never seen a man sitting on a bench calling out to passing men. Of course not.

And women can tell the difference between friendly chat while waiting in a queue and chat from entitled men demanding we titter politely in response!

I now ignore them, or if feeling brave, turn and look them up and down wordlessly and ignore them.

What infuriates me is that they do it as a power thing - because they know we might be scared not to respond or laugh at their fuckwitted ‘jokes’. So, random men, know this: even if we smile or titter politely, inside we’re thinking “Fuck off, you sad little man!”

😡 😡 😡

I suppose, in conclusion, your words reflect the main reason I hang out on mumsnet - to be reminded of and learn about the constant sexism that women face.

Then PLEASE don't add to the "constant sexism" with comments like "I think you're overthinking this"!

*I did not comment on how women should or shouldn't feel, I expressed my opinion that the person who I was replying to was overthinking it, because men weren't generally thinking that deeply.

My opinion might be wrong, but my opinion was my opinion of what other men are thinking, it had absolutely nothing to do with telling women how to feel.*

So first it's mansplaining what women are thinking, then it's speaking for how all men are thinking? You're doing a fab job of proving pretty much everyone else's point here, Battleneck.

I was outside a toilet waiting for it to be free, absolutely bursting for a wee. A passing man delivered the beautiful ‘smile darling, it might never happen’ to which I growled ‘fuck off’. He called me something rude. Wish I’d pissed on his shoes

@LadyCatStark

I have a naturally miserable face 😂 and I always get, “smile, it might never happen!”

1. Why would I be wandering through Aldi car park with a huge smile on my face and
2. what if it already has happened?

Yep. I had once just left work and was crossing the road to the car park when a man said "Cheer up love, might never happen". I nearly decked him.

Because the reason I had left work early was that I'd just had a phone call to tell me that my uncle had died.

I've quite enjoyed wearing face masks in shops for this reason. I can avoid doing that little smirky appeasey smile we're taught to do!

Seriously - read what the fcuk I said.

And now getting aggressive when challenged. Notice the pattern with this?

@phoenixrosehere

I'm in a second hand record shop, and a woman is next to me also browsing. She pulls out a record to take a closer look. I, innocently, say, "l love that record, one of my favourite bands".

That’s completely different though then telling a stranger what they’re eating is going to make them fat.

Yes, this. The point is men and women may well make comments like this one above, perfectly fine, no problem. Those aren't the comments women are objecting to.

We are objecting to being told we are "wrong" for something -whether it's eating a muffin or choosing music. Eg, the type of man we're talking about in your example above would say something like, "You can't possibly love that record, way too heavy metal for a woman". Or "don't buy that, their other albums are much better." Or "Only over the hill people buy records from that band."

@Battleneck
I don't really understand how the difference is so difficult for you to see. Just like telling a woman to smile was, in your opinion, something that might cheer her up. Why? Why would that cheer a woman up? Only someone who truly believes they have power over other people would think that is going to work.

I’d been dumped at seventeen. Was crying at a bus stop outside of hospital, had visited my mum who was having chemotherapy and was failing college.

Some cunt at the bus stop told me to ‘smile love, it might never happen’. I turned round and out of nowhere just screamed at him ‘my mum has died to fucking arsehole.’

She hadn’t and I felt awful for saying it but the uncomfortable look on his face and the way he stammered afterwards was enough to cheer me up marginally. Some men are just pricks.

I'm in a second hand record shop, and a woman is next to me also browsing. She pulls out a record to take a closer look. I, innocently, say, "l love that record, one of my favourite bands".*

That’s not the same as telling her she’ll get fat or challenging her to name her favourite song by that band.

Even then, I do wonder if you’d make the same comment to a man. I doubt it, but there’s no way of knowing.

And to be honest, lots of women don’t particularly like it when strange men make unsolicited and unnecessary attempts to speak to them, because we never know when it’s going to turn into a really creepy and threatening experience where you can’t get rid of him/he follows you round several shops/he pesters you for your number or worse. You don’t have to say anything at all. The woman in question doesn’t need to know that you like the band. Your opinion isn’t important to her.