I am not sure how we are supposed to distinguish between shitty comments we were meant to hear and shitty comments that we weren’t meant to hear. Keeping your shitty comments to yourself is a very good way of not getting righteously told off for them in front of your son.
Well, I am given to understand it as a nebulous epithet generally leveled at those who voice complaints that the name-caller finds uncomfortable to contemplate but cannot rationally justify dismissing. Am I close?
The point is that since he didn’t even mean for them to hear, we know he didn’t say it loudly, repeatedly, confrontationally, etc. They did hear, and that’s his mistake, but these things happen sometimes. I don’t think there’d have been anything wrong with his comment if he hadn’t misjudged the volume.
Hm. You really don’t know what it means after all then. I thought you actually did but were trying to make some point.
This is some weird joke, right?
And if she had, that could have been not only an overreaction, it would have been assault.
Seriously, I always hoped that equality between the sexes would lead to men not feeling free to make unsolicited sexual comments about women on the street and women not feeling free to physically assault men who insult them verbally.
This really isn’t all that hard, if you just consider people of the opposite sex to be human in the same way you are.
We only know what he’s told us, which is that he said it loudly enough for them to hear it. It hardly matters what he says his intentions were; a non-threatening verbal response to non-threatening but obnoxious verbal offense leaves the offender nothing to complain about in my book.
I guess it’s too bad the people he said it to didn’t share your opinion.
This is a pretty funny sentiment coming from someone whose earnest efforts to advocate for the rights of the disabled have repeatedly led to his being labeled a “drama queen” by people who don’t think those issues are worth caring about.
No, he doesn’t really have anything to complain about. The whole thing was no big deal on either side. If the women had posted here asking if they overreacted, I would have said yeah, you kinda did, but whatever. If they go around acting like that all the time, that’s annoying, but maybe they’d just dealt with a more aggressive catcaller and were out of patience for it, who knows.
The people he said it about. And they may or may not be unreasonable enough to think that type of comment made completely out of earshot is offensive.
I feel like the part about how you didn’t expect them to overhear is even worse role-modeling. If you wouldn’t say something TO someone, maybe you shouldn’t be saying it at all. That would be a good thing to impart to your son.
Obviously I don’t know your son, but speaking of 15 year old boys in general, in my humble experience they don’t so much need lessons in checking out girls, but they could use some guidance about discerning between “what seems hilarious in your head” and “what you should be saying out loud.”
I don’t think the woman overreacted at all. This isn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone in the history of humanity, but you deserved to be called out.
I worry that your dismissive attitude towards women who have done nothing more than briefly voice their discomfort with unwanted sexual attention may foster a maladaptive passivity in your daughter when she is inevitably faced with a similar situation.
It’ll come to you.
You shouldn’t say someone is hot unless you’d say it to their face? You people have funny ideas.
My daughter is a drama queen so she won’t have any problem.
I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think any of the distinctions you’re drawing above get to my point, which is that, as an adolescent boy, I didn’t want my dad making sexually-charged comments around me, and I didn’t consider it any sort of bonding. Obviously not all adolescent boys are like me in this regard. But I still think you ought to find a better way of bonding with him.
Not when they are within earshot, no. This is a good lesson to teach children.
I certainly hope you don’t call her that to her face.
While talking to my kid in a grocery store parking lot, I’m not sure remarking on the hotness of passers-by would ever occur to me in the first place, but maybe I’m weird like that. As I said, I’m referring to the role-modeling.
Well, no, of course not when they’re in earshot.
I do.
I wouldn’t be talking to my kid about who’s hot either, but I’ll certainly say some things to her about other people that I wouldn’t say to the person’s face. It’s something I have in common with like everyone else in the world.
You may want to reconsider both of these habits. I shall say no more on this topic.
Depends on the context. Who it’s said to, how it’s said, etc. In this case, no, not appropriate.
Yeah, the woman overreacted. That doesn’t mean what he did was a good thing. If he had been alone instead of with his son, it’d just be boorish. In this case, it was crass.
And maybe you missed the fact that my son was the one poking me in the side. I didn’t force him into a situation he found awkward.
And you’re right. Not all boys are like you.
Also, I’m just speculating here, but if you had never seen your Dad as someone who is supposed to be your Mom’s one and only, maybe you wouldn’t find it so creepy.
Like I said, my son is used to seeing me with other women. He knows I am a sexual creature, as are most of us. (Himself included)
FWIW: I had a second talk with my son about this incident. I reiterated to him how what happened today was not cool. His response was predictable: “No duh, Dad” as if why am I stating the blindingly obvious?
So, there’s that.
I think this is the best answer yet. If you wouldn’t want it said to your mother/daughter/wife, why would you say it to/at a stranger in a parking lot?