Verbally attacked on public transportation today over my appearance

[Amasov]

Something very unsettling happened to me earlier today that has never happened to me before and I'm still a little shaken over it all.

I had to head out to meet someone early this afternoon, so, I boarded public transportation to get to where I needed to be. I'm sitting down reading a book; not paying attention much to what's going on around me. The train pulls into a stop and some passengers board. Someone sits not directly next to me, but, one seat away, so there's an empty seat in between.

A few seconds after the train starts moving, I start hearing someone talking a little under their breath to my right. I look to my right and it's the person who has just boarded; saying something I can't fully hear.

I then realize they're commenting on my appearance. So, I just say, "I'm sorry, is there a problem?" And they start unleashing unbelievably rude and hateful comments to me and fairly loudly all aimed at how I look.

In appearance, I'm 6'4 and have shoulder length hair with a sort of alt/emo clothing style, but nothing too extreme. All I had on today was a hoodie and a pair of jeans with a pair of chuck taylors. There was nothing truly remarkable about me in appearance (in my opinion).

Nothing like this has ever once happened to me, so, I can't help myself but start to get pissed off at this person. The person says, "You look horrible, I just can't divert my eyes." Realizing whatever I say isn't going to help the situation, I just get up and walk to the other end of the train. I put in my headphones because I surely can't concentrate on reading now. And while I didn't look back, I'm fairly certain I heard him continuing to yell things from the very back of the train.

When the train pulled into the next station, I had to get off because I'm realizing I'm starting to have a panic attack. This entire situation fed right into my own anxiety. I got off at the next station, which isn't where I needed to get off, just so I could breathe and try to relax.

I contemplated getting into a Lyft to get to where I needed to go, but, I just didn't feel safe and ended up going home.

I know, the entire thing sounds entirely juvenile and ridiculous, but understand that this was my natural reaction. I've never experienced anything like this and was pretty taken aback by it and wasn't quite sure how to deal with it.

In a way, I'm real angry at myself for sort of letting this person "win" because I retreated and went back home. Though after I got home and, mostly, collected myself, I called for a Lyft to take me to where I needed to go.

Have any of you dealt with this sort of thing and if so how have you handled it?

 

[publiusr]

Well, folks sometimes call me Sling Blade on account of my face.

 

[USS Firefly]

Something very unsettling happened to me earlier today that has never happened to me before and I'm still a little shaken over it all.

I had to head out to meet someone early this afternoon, so, I boarded public transportation to get to where I needed to be. I'm sitting down reading a book; not paying attention much to what's going on around me. The train pulls into a stop and some passengers board. Someone sits not directly next to me, but, one seat away, so there's an empty seat in between.

A few seconds after the train starts moving, I start hearing someone talking a little under their breath to my right. I look to my right and it's the person who has just boarded; saying something I can't fully hear.

I then realize they're commenting on my appearance. So, I just say, "I'm sorry, is there a problem?" And they start unleashing unbelievably rude and hateful comments to me and fairly loudly all aimed at how I look.

In appearance, I'm 6'4 and have shoulder length hair with a sort of alt/emo clothing style, but nothing too extreme. All I had on today was a hoodie and a pair of jeans with a pair of chuck taylors. There was nothing truly remarkable about me in appearance (in my opinion).

Nothing like this has ever once happened to me, so, I can't help myself but start to get pissed off at this person. The person says, "You look horrible, I just can't divert my eyes." Realizing whatever I say isn't going to help the situation, I just get up and walk to the other end of the train. I put in my headphones because I surely can't concentrate on reading now. And while I didn't look back, I'm fairly certain I heard him continuing to yell things from the very back of the train.

When the train pulled into the next station, I had to get off because I'm realizing I'm starting to have a panic attack. This entire situation fed right into my own anxiety. I got off at the next station, which isn't where I needed to get off, just so I could breathe and try to relax.

I contemplated getting into a Lyft to get to where I needed to go, but, I just didn't feel safe and ended up going home.

I know, the entire thing sounds entirely juvenile and ridiculous, but understand that this was my natural reaction. I've never experienced anything like this and was pretty taken aback by it and wasn't quite sure how to deal with it.

In a way, I'm real angry at myself for sort of letting this person "win" because I retreated and went back home. Though after I got home and, mostly, collected myself, I called for a Lyft to take me to where I needed to go.

Have any of you dealt with this sort of thing and if so how have you handled it?

That is terrible that it happens to you, and what a pathetic human being who criticized your appearance.

A couple of years ago with carnival I was dressed as a monk, an elder man found it offensive and I told him where he could put his opinion.

My wife and her friends are getting more and more harassed when they are wearing short skirts, mainly by young men who say that woman shouldn't wear short skirts/dresses because it offends their religion. The police can't do anything, and advice so wear something else. So they wear more often longer skirts or pants.

 

[Victoria]

I get a lot of abuse because I don't fit conventional stereotypes of women's appearance. I ignore it but it does leaves you feel shaken. Walking away, getting yourself into a safe place is pretty much all you can do.

On only one occasion did I really get in a good response. I was walking past a group of football (association) "fans" who were singing songs that mostly consisted of racial slurs. I got a chorus of "I rather be a <racial slur> than a lez" and I yelled back "I'd rather be straight than a racist" which did shut them up, I suspect mainly because they didn't understand the remark!

 

[valkyrie013]

Humans are scum, especially in groups.. just is sadly.
Learned long ago to let things go, anybody's opinion didn't matter, especially some rando on a train or on the street.
I'm also quite a sarcastic asshole, so i'd just double shot the bird and ignore them. But I'm also 6'3' 220 so people generally just leave me alone.
Though lately after covid, started getting panic attacks in crowds or when i'm stressed out, never really happened before the Vid.. Maybe because humanity is just getting to be more assholeish and don't want to be around them..

 

[The Wormhole]

Some people are just assholes and there's nothing you can really do about that. The best thing is to try and ignore them and get on with life, though I understand this is not always the easiest thing to do in the moment.

Some less than pleasant public experiences I've dealt with are probably when I was working night shift, taking the bus home in the morning where I always had the problem of staying awake. On one occasion I was drifting to sleep and jerking awake. There was a group of teenagers on the bus who began laughing at me and making comments like "you're not supposed to be drunk at eight in the morning." Or another time when I did fall asleep on the bus, the driver stopped outside a mental hospital, got up, shook me awake and said "we're at your stop."

Though I think what sticks out as the most unpleasant was one time when I did stay awake on the bus. That morning, I got out of work late so in an effort to catch my connecting bus easier, I took the "Express Bus," basically a bus which only stops at terminals rather than all the various other stops along the way and costs an extra dollar than an ordinary bus. The thing about this bus is that the ones who ride it are snooty people dressed in fancy business suits and other nice clothing. They were less than enthusiastic at seeing someone so obviously of the lower class among them on this bus.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Have any of you dealt with this sort of thing and if so how have you handled it?

Many times. Once when I was younger, thinner and higher-voiced, four twerps younger than I tried to mock, pick fights, and of course kick my rear because I refused to return their pencil after being insulted. The dumbest of the four, their ringleader, had a punky DiCaprio-like attitude, and I felt sorry for his underlings. Only he got physical in the library. Only he swore at me. He was uncalled for from start to finish and if anyone locates his grave I'll be delighted to urinate on it. With luck he was too stupid to live long. This was 1978 or 1979. My family and I escaped the library through a side door so we didn't have to play ''High Noon'' with the intellectual giant. Never saw him again. I doubt library books could help him.

My junior high years were full of crap like this, though not too physical, so I adapted, pressed on, and outgrew the morons mentally. Every following year had less such incidents. My senior year in 12th grade was incident-free.

One night in 1988 someone shot a BB-gun pellet at our second floor window during the night. The only possible reason for it was that my father hours before had told a high-schooler not to walk across his fenced diagonal lawn, but use the sidewalk. So it was obviously a matter of ''honor.''

I've been threatened with death in the past because of the actions of mentally-ill relatives. I've been chastised by a Billy Bob Shutthehellup-type simply for walking up on the left side of an escalator. Two tears ago I was disrespected inside a Wendys by a prison parolee for ''disrespecting'' him.....if you call saying ''no thank you'' four times in a row as disrespect. You simply cannot use reason in certain situations. You might retort, blow up, or in this case, grab the burger and eat it in the cold so the troublemaker doesn't follow or discover you again. I won't even mention the New York subways now.

Lastly, I've had extremely great luck this month, so when I was told by a Chipotle cashier not to get so close to the glass, I decided to let it go. It's certainly different from being threatened. And the food was good.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I've never been attacked (verbally or otherwise) on public transit, but there was this one time in New York City when, as I was emerging from a subway station on Lexington Avenue, my cell phone went off. I was using the TOS communicator noise as a ringtone. Lots of people heard it and started laughing at me. I was rather embarrassed by that.

That said, a very positive experience happened to me on the NYC subway one time. I lost the very same cell phone I just mentioned - it wasn't stolen, I think it just fell off my belt clip - and somebody found it and called every number in my contact list, trying to reach me, to tell me they found the phone and I could come get it. (I was staying with my aunt and uncle in NJ at that time. So that's the number that got to me.) So the next day I went and got the phone back. A very nice clinic nurse near Union Square had found it and kept it for me. THAT was cool.

And no, it wasn't an iPhone or anything like that. This was like 20 years ago, it was a flip-model.

Some people are just assholes and there's nothing you can really do about that.

I see this all the time with customers at my store. And it really pisses me off. Like the one last week who made one of my coworkers cry. Bh was damn lucky our store director got to her before I did. I'd have started yelling.

I doubt that any of my managers have the balls to fire me, and I take it very seriously when people who are my friends and coworkers are made to CRY by asshole customers.

 

[SithHappens]

Humans are scum, especially in groups.. just is sadly.
Learned long ago to let things go, anybody's opinion didn't matter, especially some rando on a train or on the street.
I'm also quite a sarcastic asshole, so i'd just double shot the bird and ignore them. But I'm also 6'3' 220 so people generally just leave me alone.
Though lately after covid, started getting panic attacks in crowds or when i'm stressed out, never really happened before the Vid.. Maybe because humanity is just getting to be more assholeish and don't want to be around them..

in groups they can most certainly be, UK football fans are a good example, while most are no problem the vocal minority can make it very intimidating at times. Seems like being in a group gives 'some' people the nerve to be abusive, racist, sexist but they probably wouldn't be outside of their perceived protective bubble.

 

[Malicia]

I'm sorry that happened to you yesterday @Amasov and hope you're feeling better today. Morons like that don't realise how that kind of encounter can affect people. It can lead to anger because they have no right to treat you or anyone disrespectfully but they are too dumb to ever understand that. At least we're more enlightened and fulfilled than they are. It boggles the mind how people are like that over the way we look.

In the UK what you experienced could be viewed as a hate crime by police who treat that kind of offence seriously. Having a visit from the police if he could be traced would soon show how tough that fool is. The sad fact is he will never know how salt of the earth you and your friends are and how people who don't feel compelled to follow mainstream trends are usually a very interesting, honest and courteous bunch.

I knew a girl at school called Sarah who was gothic and kept to herself. She was tall and never had any problems with other pupils but was quite moody and I think most people were scared of talking to her. After a few years of Sarah sitting behind myself and two mates in GCSE History class we slowly wore her down until we would occasionally get a laugh or catch a glimpse of her sweet nature. She was probably fed up of all the comments she got for being Gothic so didn't interact with people but appreciated when people talked to her without the barrage of questions or predictable, insensitive comments.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

in groups they can most certainly be, UK football fans are a good example, while most are no problem the vocal minority can make it very intimidating at times. Seems like being in a group gives 'some' people the nerve to be abusive, racist, sexist but they probably wouldn't be outside of their perceived protective bubble.

I'll tell you where I have never experienced anything like that: Boston.

As most people here know, I'm a huge Yankee fan. And Yankees/Red Sox is probably the greatest rivalry in ALL of sports, not just baseball. But when I go to Fenway Park for a Yankees/Sox series (like I did this summer), I am consistently blown away by how NICE the Boston fans are.

Seriously. Not once have I ever been harassed, threatened, spat on, yelled at, or anything. Red Sox fans are some of the nicest, coolest people I have ever met in my natural life. They genuinely want me to have a good time. I've even gotten a couple "Hey, good luck tonight" comments from some fans in Boston. Now who else does that?

I mean, they DO do the "Yankees Suck" chants at Red Sox games (sometimes when the Yankees are not, in the strictest technical sense, actually in the game) but that's nothing. You gotta let it go.

I love the city of Boston, I always have a great time there, and I say this AS a Yankee fan.

And yeah, the reverse is also true. When the Red Sox come to Yankee Stadium, it's still that friendly. I don't see any bad blood there either.

Edit: THIS is how awesome Red Sox fans are. Derek Jeter's last at-bat of his career, in Fenway Park.

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[Gryffindorian]

I'm so sorry to hear this happened to the OP, and that everyone has had a similar experience. I've dealt with morons in public settings before, and my tendency is to ignore them. I would usually mutter "Psycho" then move on. I've hardly ever stooped to their level or gotten into an altercation with such lowlifes.

Remember, you did nothing wrong; they're the problem, not you. Sometimes the best reaction is none at all.

 

[Oddish]

Put up with a lot of that sort of abuse in school, because I was short and skinny and acted weird due to my autism... I'd definitely be riding the special needs bus if I were in school today, and my school years would have been less miserable for it.

Doesn't really happen now, though. Yeah, I talk like a combination of Lewis from "Revenge of the Nerds" and Sylvester the Loony Tunes cat. But, I'm a foot taller, 170 pounds heavier, and I'm not great at eye contact so I walk around with a constant 1000-yard stare. And I avoid smiling because it looks kind of like Pops in "Terminator Genisys" when I do. It's enough to get me left alone.

 

[Amasov]

I'll tell you where I have never experienced anything like that: Boston.

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Which is where I live.

 

[Amasov]

I'm sorry that happened to you yesterday @Amasov and hope you're feeling better today. Morons like that don't realise how that kind of encounter can affect people. It can lead to anger because they have no right to treat you or anyone disrespectfully but they are too dumb to ever understand that. At least we're more enlightened and fulfilled than they are. It boggles the mind how people are like that over the way we look.

In the UK what you experienced could be viewed as a hate crime by police who treat that kind of offence seriously. Having a visit from the police if he could be traced would soon show how tough that fool is. The sad fact is he will never know how salt of the earth you and your friends are and how people who don't feel compelled to follow mainstream trends are usually a very interesting, honest and courteous bunch.

I knew a girl at school called Sarah who was gothic and kept to herself. She was tall and never had any problems with other pupils but was quite moody and I think most people were scared of talking to her. After a few years of Sarah sitting behind myself and two mates in GCSE History class we slowly wore her down until we would occasionally get a laugh or catch a glimpse of her sweet nature. She was probably fed up of all the comments she got for being Gothic so didn't interact with people but appreciated when people talked to her without the barrage of questions or predictable, insensitive comments.

In high school, I was a scene kid. I had a small group of friends and we all adopted the same kind of looks: emo and slightly goth, but of varying levels. This was right as My Chemical Romance was on the rise and while we may have put up with some of our fellow students making fun of us and judging us as "weirdos," we were in a group together, so it was easier to ignore.

As an adult, I'd argue it's even more of a shock because, as I said in my OP, this has never happened to me. It's not something I'm used to so I didn't quite know how to react in a way that I found satisfying to myself.

But in a nutshell, I was attacked for looking like this:

 

[Dr. K.R. Kollman hon.]

Did he also say: "Get off my lawn"?

 

[Oddish]

When you don't look a certain way, some people will think the worst of you.

 

[HIjol]

I wonder if, like color, we will ever see beyond "appearance".
It makes me sad you experienced this. You, too, I know...
I could mouth the usual platitudes about not letting it bother you and how they are the ones with the problems and on and on...but I will just say that it is hard enough, lately, and I am sorry you have to deal with this...

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Did he also say: "Get off my lawn"?

See post #7, paragraph 3.

 

[Kor]

When someone is ranting and raving like that, I (though by no means an expert) give them the benefit of the doubt and suspect that they may have untreated mental health issues of their own. I won't engage, though. If it's someone out on the street then it's easy enough to find a path away from them. If it's on public transit, I'll find a crew member and let them know that there's an unstable individual causing a disturbance.

Kor