She probably has dementia and you were sitting in her favorite spot. She was probably pissed off that you were disrupting her routine.
I remember going into a restaurant with the family. We sat down, looked around and the place was filthy. I looked at the menu, told the waitress, “I am sorry I thought you served frog legs.” and we left.
Oh…Boy do I feel foolish…
slowly putting down karma sutra after looking for “Danish” and backing away
Probably true. Unfortunately, the world is full of really bad people. The OP just happened to be at the wrong place when they came in.
How many times do we think “if only that had happened 5 minutes later”, but it didn’t.
You know, I don’t think the world is full of really bad people - that’s why people showing their ass like this is so shocking.
I wasn’t there so I can’t speculate.
Do you have any ideas?
I looked and found two threads you started in the past year, where you’ve been confused by people’s reaction to you.
Assuming that these people don’t all know each other, and have the same feeling independently of each other, what do you think is going on?
Maybe I’m kind of thick, but I’m not exactly sure I’m understanding how these two women are being “hateful” to you. They walk in, see you, stutter remarks to each other, and decide to leave. They can be any number of things, but I don’t see them as hateful–they’re not spitting in your face, calling you race-or-other-based names, or claiming they have any kind of superiority over you and asking the donut lady to make you leave so they can enjoy coffee outside of your presence. Those things would, IMHO, fall into the “hateful” category. All I see from the above are two women who decided not to patronize that particular coffee shop at that particular time.
Maybe it’s not you at all. Maybe one wanted coffee and a donut and dragged her friend in, who would have preferred to go to McDonald’s instead. Maybe the one who lost her appetite decided to go back to the shop they had just been in, to buy whatever they had been looking at. You don’t know why they left.
I look kind of scary myself, if the reactions of some people are anything to go by. But I don’t let them bother me. And if it bothers them–well, tough. If I had been in your situation, I would have continued to enjoy my coffee, danish, and newspaper, and simply not care.
If she is like me she doesn’t understand why people react badly to her, and isn’t doing anything intentionally to cause it but would really like it to stop. Ordinary interactions can go totally haywire and awry, leaving you with no clue what happened or why it happened. For whatever reason people just get a bad “vibe” off you and react badly.
I’ve told this story before but one of my wife’s friends said she saw me in public, my wife asked why didn’t you say hi to him. Then she in a sort of odd tone told my wife she is scared of me and thinks I am a serial killer or something because NO ONE CAN THAT NICE AND CALM ALL THE TIME.:smack:
Usually I don’t get an explanation.
It may be debatable whether these people were reacting to the OP, but, if they were, it was clearly hateful. People don’t tend to only partially go into a restaurant and stop. They also don’t tend to suddenly become not hungry. They were reacting to something.
Since they stared at the OP, he is a valid target for their comments. It is very easy to see the scenario where they originally wanted to eat, saw the OP, got scared and stayed just outside the door (hoping he’d leave) and then decided to leave themselves once the employees forced them to make a choice.
Of course, it’s also possible they have a phobia of people in general, have mental problems, or the place was too dirty for them or even something I can’t think of. But the explanation that they were grossed out by the OP for some reason is definitely a valid possibility. And if they were, that would almost certainly be hateful.
But a lot of people all seem, independently of each other, to have the same “hateful” reaction. What then?
My guess is she made eye contact with you to make what she though was an inside joke that you would get based on something that happened in the store. I’ve had people do that to me when the store staff is extremely rude or something - not saying “I lost my appetite”, but something else that suggests they are unhappy - and she was actually trying to bond with you on some level.
I wasn’t there, so it is impossible for me to say - did you really get the impression she didn’t like you? Pretend you couldn’t hear her words. Based on facial expressions alone - was she more unhappy with you - or her environment?
They are homophobes or racists? In one of her other threads she specifies that her hair is dyed pink but doesn’t specify the style or length or how she dresses. Perhaps they took her for a lesbian and the “lost appetite” was based on that?
Then the question becomes, what’s more important - keeping the hairstyle (or whatever it is that people are reacting to) or not getting the reaction.
Unless the reaction is the point. I have a hard time believing that people who dye their hair “punk” colors, or have facial piercings, or get controversial tattoos don’t get something out of the reaction. I’m too lazy to grab my copy of Berne’s “Games People Play”, but I’m thinking this may be a variant of “Kick Me”.
Oh wait - I thought based on some of the things that the OP said - she was just dressing normally - and the OP was just overly sensitive.
If she actually has pink hair - I am not in any way, shape, or form saying this excuses the behavior - but of course some people are going to stare. I know that people with pink hair say they do it cause the like it or whatever, but this is beyond the comprehension of many many people.
If you have piercings, pink hair, or anything else that isn’t “normal” - a certain portion of the population is going to think.
She dresses like that for attention -> therefore it is ok to stare
She has to know that people will think she is weird -> therefore she doesn’t have any feelings or she wouldn’t dress like that
She doesn’t have any feelings -> I can say what I want
Again - I am only trying to explain what I think their thought process might be - not in anyway condoning it
I disagree, but I am willing to concede that we may have different definitions of “hateful.” To me, “hateful” is actively (that is, overtly and obviously, as I described above) discriminating against a person on the basis of how they appear: long-haired hippie freak, black, punk, goth, Jewish, shirt-and-tie Mormon missionary, paraplegic in a wheelchair, Sikh in a turban, wannabe-rapper with the crotch of his pants around his knees, and so on.
To me, walking into a coffee shop and walking out because you don’t like the look of the people in there does not constitute “hateful.” It simply says, “I’ll find another place to get some coffee.” By the same token, walking into a bar, seeing people you’d rather not have a beer with, then walking out, does not constitute “hateful.” Look at it this way: you’re walking down the street and feel like a beer. There’s a bar. You walk in and find that it’s full of Hells Angels. You immediately decide to leave. Is that hateful?
At any rate, as I indicated, we may have to agree to disagree on the meaning of “hateful.”
Intentionally making eye contact with someone to ensure they know you’re talking about them and then saying loudly “I’ve lost my appetite” is clearly meant to be offensive.
I don’t want to derail or threadjack but by your metric the old black guy who saw me with my son riding on my shoulders and my wife furniture shopping and choose to shout loudly at us “it’s like slavery days again” and walk out wasn’t hateful. I don’t even care but my wife lets that shit ruin her whole day or even multiple days.
I like this one 
As a round percentage, how much of the custard would you say was smeared on your cheeks and chin?
I disagree, for reasons stated above.
I agree that we do not want to derail, but IME and in my locality, nobody would ever shout “it’s like slavery days again.”
I agree that such a shout-out would be hateful. But I don’t see that here. Perhaps I, as a Canadian; and you, as an American (though not in the US), have a totally differerent outlook on what constitutes “hateful.” To me, “hateful” means Nazis rounding up people to be exterminated; to you, it seems to be people who are offended somehow. Can you clarify?