Did I Look 'Retarded'

I’d like your thoughts as to the reasons behind a strange “encounter” I had with a woman last Friday night.

As background information, I am a 37-year old man. I am 6’0" and about 185 lbs., with 8 to 10% bodyfat. So I’m definitely not huge but have some muscle definition.

Last Friday night, I was at Milwaukee Summerfest. This is an enormous 14-stage music festival held on about 76 acres on Milwaukee’s lakefront. The incident I’m about to describe happened around 11:30 p.m. At that time, the festival is populated by people mostly in their teens and 20s. At 37, I was probably in the oldest 20% there at that time. The atmosphere is alcohol charged and it is a huge “meat market.”

I’d been there all evening with friends. Around 11 they left and I stuck around to listen to another band. So when this happened, I was alone.

As I was standing by myself, a woman, probably age 23 to 25, came up from behind me and started haranguing me. I was wearing a white a-shirt (a/k/a “wife beater”). She literally got into my face, telling me I looked “retarded,” that everyone was laughing at me, that no one wore such shirts since “1982” [not true, since I saw at least several dozen other guys in wife beaters at the festival that very night, most of them pretty scrawny looking or with a protruding gut], and that I was “white trash.” She told me to quit holding my arms like I was “flexing” {I was standing with my arms akimbo) and then asked me where my friends were. I told her was none of her corncern what I wore or where my friends were. She then laughed “you have no friends.” A guy with her, obviously younger, probably no more than 18 (her brother?), proceeded to imitate an orangutan. I walked away.

About 15 minutes later, I had the misfortune of walking into her when leaving the festival. She again launched into another tirade about how I looked like an idiot, had no friends, was white trash, etc. She asked me if I thought I looked good. I replied that as a matter of fact I did. She pointed to some nearby security guards who were laughing, and stated they were laughing at me. Wanting to diffuse the situation, I then held out my hand and introduced myself. She just laughed and walked away.

I’m used to attention from women in these sorts of venues, but not this kind of attention. When I told this story to my friends, they thought she was hitting on me. I doubt that because her tone was so vindictive, she seemed to want to be mean rather than to tease. Keep in mind, I had never seen this girl before she came up to me. I was not flirting with her or hitting on her before this happened. She wasn’t particularly hot {not someone I would have chosen to hit on anyway} but not ugly either, just average looking.

Any thoughts as to what was going on? Has anyone had similar experiences? Was she hitting on me {ugh!} or just plain psycho? Any insights would be appreciated. Thanks.

She sounds like she belongs on Springer. You should’ve beaten the shit out of her “little brother” just for hanging around with her and possibly sharing genes with her.

Psycho, definitly Psycho.
shake it off bro.

Forget about it. You should not waste your time even thinking about it. Anyone who would do something like that has problems.

Three words:
Al - key - haul

It was a concert and she was probably just one of those obnoxious drunks that tend to frequent such events. As such, her behavior makes no sense to anyone not immediately inebriated.

The good news is you kept your cool.

Don’t waste another moment giving this whole thing another thought, gymdawg. I guarantee you she’s not.

a girl i worked with did this kind of thing alot, she would verbally attack people, using any perceived flaw as ammunition in her assaults. After a couple of weeks a pattern emerged, she only did this to people who appeared confident in who they where and where not “normal” (and by normal wearing identical style clothes to hers or be doing something she deemed acceptable/cool) anyway after watching on of these incidents I confirmed that she was a pathetic insecure child who couldn’t stand soemone having the confidence and independence to do their own thing and be themselves. Bro it could be that because you weren’t in her age range and didn’t seem to be bothered by that fact, that confidence in yourself upset her enough for her to feel the need to try to tear you down. Misery loves company. Don’t let some psycho bitch with years of therapy in her future (or even more years of misery) get to you, it’s not worth it. Oh yeah you should’ve ripped the brothers arms off and beaten him with them. Or at least given him a little scare.

psycho brother, psycho. you did the write thing.

Nicely handled… important thing is not to let your emotions get the better of you in a situation like that. Starting to yell louder than her would’ve probably felt good, but it does project the silent strengh of a T-man ; )

Warped as this may sound…

I want to congratulate you on being so “threatening” to her because of your confident appearance/demeanor that she thought you needed taking down a peg.

AND for handling the situation with diplomacy.

I don’t usaually get involved with posts like this but, what a bitch! It amazes me when 23-25 year old ‘girls’ act that way. She was the white trash. Not to be bias but maybe you looked like an ex boyfriend and she needed to get laid. Sorry,just my 2cents-julianne

You did the right thing, bro.

It would seem odd that a stranger could be so threatened by your confidence/self esteem that she verbally attacks you. You handled the situation in true T-Man fashion. A little alcohol and her low self esteem were all she had so, she attempted to drag you down to her level. That and being stuck at a music festival with her little brother in tow. Other than that, don’t waste another second of your time trying to rationalize what happened.

The answer to your question relies on the rest of the ensemble that accompanied the “wife beater” shirt. If you paired this shirt with short shorts, with multiple holes, and a Dale Earnhardt Jr hat you may have been asking for trouble. Moreover, if you were sporting excess body hair, a large gold chain necklace, multiple visible tats (or one if it has a confederate flag),reaked of Brut or Old Spice, and the “wife beater” had excessive yellow underarm stains, you might have been properly “profiled”

In all seriousness, regardless of your appearance, an unsolicited,unprovoked verbal assualt of that nature definitely suggests some mental problems, even if she had been drinking. Glad to hear that you were able to channel your inner T-man and kept your cool.

However, the take home lesson would be:
Under no circumstances should you wear a “wife beater” to a public venue. I don’t care how many other people do it, I think the T-Nation bylaws state that clearly. Feel free to wear any other color tank. Maybe the T-Nation staff could send yo an appropriate T-Nation tank for you to wear to these prevent any of these unfortunate attacks from occurring again. Remember, knowing is half the battle.

I concur with the previous response. Under no circumstances are wife beaters allowed out in public unless its used as an under shirt or something. Still though, you did the right thing. Fuck that bitch!

I agree with Jesser, you should have knocked the shit out of her younger brother who was there with her.

um yeah, I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with the wife beater rule. Sometimes its just too dang hot outside.

Thanks for the responses. prock and drryan, thanks for the advice on “wife beaters”. Guess I’ll have to retire mine.

Go back to Summerfest and wear whatever you want to wear. There’s a weightlifting competition on Saturday. Let see what they are wearing.

Me personally I don’t think I would have been able to keep my cool. At the very least I would have called her an ugly bitch or something along those lines. Or worse. I applaud your abilty to stay calm.

I’m still trying to get passed the fact that you used the phrase “standing with my arms akimbo.”

If you paired this shirt with short shorts, with multiple holes, and a Dale Earnhardt Jr hat you may have been asking for trouble. Moreover, if you were sporting excess body hair, a large gold chain necklace, multiple visible tats (or one if it has a confederate flag),reaked of Brut or Old Spice, and the “wife beater” had excessive yellow underarm stains, you might have been properly “profiled”

My brother Daryl dresses like that. Wait, would that be Daryl or my other brother Daryl? I always confuse those two.

Way to keep your cool. People like that really are miserable inside. However it would’ve been fun to reenact part of the “Toll-Booth Willy” skit from Adam Sandler’s CD “They’re All Gonna Laugh at You.”:

(in a New Hampshire accent)
Fuck you, you fuckin’ uppity bitch! I’ll fuckin’ fuck you and all your lesbian fish eatin’ friends in front of your fuckin’ mothers! I’ll drop you with a boot to the skull you cum-guzzling queen!

Or something similar.