P*ss off and don’t be bothering me

SMdPP87

Called into a friend’s house earlier for 5 mins and parked outside his neighbours house, semi-d, on the road, located in a cul-de-sac.

Upon leaving, his neighbour approached me and asked whether this was my car to which I replied it was.

He said that I had parked dangerously and shouldn’t park it where I had in future. It wasn’t dangerously parked in the slightest and I guess he was peeved it was outside his house.

I was just about to instinctively apologise when something came over me and I found myself replying ‘P*ss of and don’t be bothering me’. He replied again that I parked dangerously and something else which I didn’t quite hear to which I replied, ‘Would you ever f*uck off and don’t be such a narky f*uck’.

Fierce debate in the house here. I wouldn’t usually react in such a manner but now coming to realise that people such as him should be told to sit down in situations like this.

ruth...less

Ye I think you should go and **** yourself.

ruth...less

Sounds like a big annoying as **** karen looking for attention to me..

Deja Boo

My, aren't we feeling a wee bit curmudgeonly.

Ubbquittious

People are very quick to get annoyed by other people since covid/lockdown has shown them it's possible to live life only interacting with machines

Sonic the Shaghog

Ah I don't blame you. These sort of awkward, cranky oul **** would drive you mad at times, especially if it was for only 5 mins. Anything at all to have a moan. I find especially in Ireland and the UK, most people are timid with people like this to "keep the peace" which emboldens these cranks more.

blackbox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121604854#Comment_121604854

I'd say the opposite is true. People put up with a lot here (to keep the peace). In other countries, abusers are more likely to be called out.

Not saying the neighbour was correct in the first place - we don't actually know how the car was parked.

MintyMagnum

Luckily in this country the general public don’t own guns

greenspurs

A lot of people think its fine to just dump (park) their car anywhere they feel is ok.

My local town, people park on both side of the narrow streets, up on footpaths and all around the local centra.

You dont drive on a side of the road - you drive down the middle..

Its very fcuking annoying, but some people feel entitled to dump their vehicle wherever suits THEM , not thinking of any inconvenience or danger being put on other road users/pedestrians/people on bikes...

(not insinuating anything on the OPs - just an example)...

Edited - Footpaths - Not carparks!!

raclle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121604956#Comment_121604956

Social perspective taking which most people don't get. We don't know this guys situation. Many people could be parking outside his house. Maybe he likes his privacy. He could have been expecting someone. This is why we apologize even though we're just been polite and don't necessarily understand.

terminator74

I totally agree with your sentiment here - you were clearly dealing with a Karen who is looking to have a row.

However, an expletive laden response just validates the Karen's action. By you giving an emotional response, this make it appear, in his eyes, that you are an unreasonable person and have acted wrongly.

In my experience, the best response to a person such as this (in any context) is to look at them and calmly say 'are you ok? or follow up and say 'Is there something wrong with you?' . This can disarm the person and make them question their behaviour. (and feel foolish). It puts you in control of the situation and allows you to walk away with the upper hand.

Princess Calla

Regardless of who is right or wrong in this situation your friend has to live next to this person.

Simplest thing would have been to reply " oh right yeah" and move on with your day.

There's a high probability now he'll be looking out at all your friends guests and giving out which could potentially result in a stressful time for your friend. The innocent party in all of this.

dxhound2005

How could two people have such a divergent view on what is dangerous parking?

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121604972#Comment_121604972

regardless of his situation the area outside his house is no more his than anyone elses, so if his preference is for privacy he needs to get a house where the area outside of it isnt owned by the council or similar.

mykrodot

If I drove into and estate an parked outside someone else house, then came out and the house owner was there and told me not to do that again, my first reaction would be to just say "sorry I didn't think I was in the way"........ I might be annoyed in myself and think to myself "what a cranky old git" but I would just apologise and move on.

Likely this is always happening to him and he probably has a right to be cranky. Pick your fights

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121605284#Comment_121605284

again why does he have a right to be cranky? assuming the OP isnt blocking his gate or on a double yellow and assuming it isnt on a private common area.

Tombo2001

Every now and then something like this happens - and its funny how often, when it does happen, its triggered by what happens on roads.

Seems like you were both wrong in how ye handled it - although if I was to lean one way, yes it is a bit of an unwritten rule that you dont block peoples driveways when you are parking, if thats what happened.

I'd write it off, no point in beating yourself up over it.

5uspect

How exactly were you parked?

Were you parked on the footpath?

never_mind

Were you parked in a way that would mean a fire engine might not be able to fit down the road? Then yes, that would be dangerous, but yeah... He could have said it a nicer way.

mykrodot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121605288#Comment_121605288

Anyone has the right to be cranky, anytime, about anything.

I'm just saying what I'd do. Life is too short.......................

SMdPP87

My car was not in anyway parked dangerously or blocking his drive or causing any obstruction.

He clearly has issues with people parking outside his house and doesn’t want others parking there, for his own reasons.

He doesn’t own the public road. I also live in an estate and I am subject to same outside my property.

Perhaps if he approached me and said, would you mind not parking here in future please, I would have no problem and agreed.

However, he chose to be a pr*ck and accuse me of parking dangerously so I chose my fight, backed myself and told him to p*ss off.

Thinking that if same situation happened to a more vulnerable person, it could be a very upsetting situation for them; being accused of something they didn’t do and spoken to in a chastising way.

I’m not saying I’m on a mission or trying to be a hero, but perhaps people like him in these situations should be put in their place when the opportunity arises.

Bobson Dugnutt

There’s a lot of anger out there.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121604823#Comment_121604823

Yeah I honestly can not imaging acting like either of the people described in the opening post. Neither of them appear on this vague description to have acted in a useful, empathetic, or productive way. Given the paltry information I can imagine how I would have acted as either party. But there is also so much we do not know about the event having not been there and only getting second hand (biased) descriptions.

But people are not isolated events. How they act in a given situation is an amalgamation of all the situations they have been through before that moment. Humans often forget there is a whole history behind every other human in a given situation - and go into any interaction with a rather 2D view of the person before them like it's just a simple machine with a fixed state.

dxhound2005

Does the fact that it is a cul de sac as mentioned in the post have any relevance?

looksee

Sounds as though both the neighbour and the op were unreasonable, but I used live at the end of a cul-de-sac and visitors used park in the turning circle all the time, (residents didn't usually) which meant that if you drove down the road you had to reverse out, which is less than safe, especially if there were kids around.

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121605663#Comment_121605663

in that scenario would it not make sense to lobby the council and get them to put double yellow lines? if there arent any again no one is doing anything wrong.

Ezeoul

Hard to comment without knowing how the car was parked. Maybe the OP thought he was parked ok, maybe the neighbour had a point. Either way there was no need to be so aggressive and its probably going to create an issue for the friend with his neighbour.

I had an issue with a neighbour parking outside my house every evening, he probably thought the way he was parked was fine, but in reality he was so close to my pillar it was making it extremely difficult for me to see oncoming traffic when I was exiting my driveway, especially if the other neighbour directly opposite had his work van parked on the road (as he usually does as it doesn't fit in the driveway).

One day when I saw him at his car I asked him to come into the garden and sit in my driver's seat so he could see my difficulty and when he saw it for himself he agreed he was too close and from then on he parked a few feet further back. Problem solved. No row. He still parks there.

FortuneChip

There's a large middle ground between apologising (when you feel you've done nothing wrong) and telling a person to p*ss off.

I mean, as you've phrased it in your post, he didn't even go that bad on you, he just told you that you shouldn't do it in future. Regardless of how safe/unsafe the parking job was, it seems like a reasonable thing to request. You don't have to abide by it, but you can remain respectful. Unless there's other info not in your post.

Gregor Samsa

I had to change a headlight bulb in my car last Saturday. Turns out, this necessitates taking off the wheel and the wheel arch liner (19 screws), and accessing the headlight cluster from behind. There's no other way to do it - believe me I tried. Stupid design, and a relatively big job.

So a couple of hours later, after successfully changing the bulb, I'm lying on my back, half under the jacked-up car, in the wet and cold, with darkness rapidly approaching, trying to get the wheel arch liner properly refitted - there's tabs and screws and lips, and while it'll just rip out, to get it back in requires things being done in a very particular order for which there's no documentation.

Next thing I hear a woman's voice saying "hello!". I half roll out from under the car, covered in dirt and look up to see a woman with a bundle of Social Democrat leaflets in her hand.

"Hi, I just wanted to drop one of these in to your house".

She's standing in my driveway. I'm under a car, wet, cold, covered in muck, surrounded by tools, parts and torches. My front door is 8 steps away. It has a letterbox - specifically designed for such things to be inserted into. Why on earth is she even considering that it's appropriate to engage me in conversation at this time, in this situation, for this purpose?

I was just so, so disappointed by her. I sighed "I'm really busy here. Can you please leave me alone?". She looked shocked, as if I was somehow inconveniencing her, and walked off silently.

‘P*ss of and don’t be bothering me’ is what I should have said.

dxhound2005

Not regardless of how safe/unsafe the parking was. If no law was being broken, it was unreasonable of the neighbour. Unless he owns the place where the car was parked.

Mrs OBumble

"I will, yeah" was the correct response to Ken.

But - are you sure you weren't dangerously parked?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121605760#Comment_121605760

I can appreciate that she made her presence and intent known but.. surely the intelligent angle is to say “hey there I’m just delivering pamphlets, I see you’re busy so I’ll just leave one in the post box thanks!”

In would be weird I think to just walk past you and say nothing but to try and encourage you to come out from under the car to take it is silly. 🤣

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121605810#Comment_121605810

She could have danced the conga up the driveway to the door, and I wouldn't have noticed. To her, all I was was two legs. She didn't even have to walk by me or over me - I was on the far side of the car from the route to the door. She doesn't need my permission to put a leaflet in the letterbox. She didn't phone any of the other neighbours beforehand to ask if she could put one in theirs. It's not Texas where she'd be afraid she'd be shot for being "on my property" unannounced. I don't know, I'm just baffled.

Here's another one - but I was very nice and helpful this time.

Out for a walk with the dog yesterday, just around the estate. A car stops on the other side of the road, and calls me. So I have to pick up the dog (excited puppy) and walk over to her. She's in the car with her teenage daughter. They ask "is this such an such a place?". It is, I say, but that's a very big area (a whole suburb of a town, basically). Do you have an address? "No", she says "Just an Eircode".

Of course an Eircode should lead you exactly to the house you're looking for.

So I ask for the Eircode, thinking I'll look it up on my phone.

The teenager then proceeds to show me her phone. She's entered the Eircode on her Google Maps app. It's showing up on the map. Her location is showing up on the map. You can see that the place they're looking for is on a road directly parallel to the one we're currently on. But what these geniuses haven't done is hit the "Directions" button that would give them accurate turn-by-turn instructions - both in text and by audio - on how to take two right turns to get to where they wanted. I wasn't under a car, so I put my incredulity aside and just helpfully and cheerfully directed them, like you'd talk to a toddler who can't find the teddy they just dropped behind them. "There he is! There's Teddy! He's behind you love! No, not under you, just behind. Look..."

It's unbelievable to think that such people walk (and indeed drive) amongst us.

paddyirish23

Only 2 ways of looking at this, you either parked outside hours house and he's just annoyed for no good reason or you blocked access to the guys house, in which case your an a**hole and you should know better!

fortwilliam

I've recently decided that I choose who I engage with, not other people.

So in the OP's situation I would choose not to engage, at all, completely ignore them and simply get into my car and drive off as if they weren't there.

This has the double positive of:

A) Avoiding any hassle

B) Annoying the Karen (Especially if you get the bonus point of "Excuse me, I'm talking to you")

freshpopcorn

I do understand when people get annoyed when others block their drive/road.

However some people belive they own the road and nobody should park on it. I do belive these people are given to much of their own way and are best ignored. First it be parking, then the colour of yout front door, arriving home late, etc.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121606149#Comment_121606149

Also works when you park in spaces reserved for people with disabilities. It really annoys them when they get blanked. I saw the videos on YouTube, and apparently the male ones are known as Kevins.

lawred2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058330909/p-ss-off-and-don-t-be-bothering-me

so you went from considering an apology to acting like a complete pr!ck?

some distance to travel in an instant

jucko

i support the op. #p*ssoff

thanks in advance for making this man think twice.

Ah some people need to get a life but at the same time there’s no excuse to be so aggressive about it.

Look, I’ve often felt like telling someone to get fcuked but you just don’t behave that way in a civilised society. It’s certainly not what I was taught growing up anyway.

I think once you fall into uncivilised behaviour, name calling, swearing etc you’re no better than those you’re criticising.

Indeed, OP, you would be imo a bigger crank than the neighbour. He’s being a bit of a clown but you were just plain nasty.

edit: and couple that with your total disregard for your friend and/or any flatmates they have and how this will affect them.. yeah the neighbours not the problem here

Hippodrome Song Owl

Sounds like he was just cross about someone parking outside his house as if he owns it, so that's unreasonable. But I think you overreacted OP - particularly since you have now possibly caused hassle for your friend who has to live next door

I don't drive, so generally I'm totally uninterested and unconcerned about parking issues and who parks outside my house. But my next door neighbours really push their luck. They have 7 cars and frequent visitors. Our driveways can hold 4 cars, and they then take up several spots on the road, too. What bothers me, though, is them parking in my driveway sometimes. I'm reluctant to get into an argument over it, but my family arriving and having to park way down the road are fuming over it and likely to have a word soon enough. I hope they're more diplomatic than you!

GreeBo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121604890#Comment_121604890

This country is ruined by "it was only for 5 minutes".

teediddlyeye

Op going for breakfast in the morning.

Dial Hard

OP, are you familiar with the "Am I the asshole?" concept from Reddit???

Asking for a friend...

billyhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121608323#Comment_121608323

You need to grow a pair and not rely on your family members to say something. I wouldn't tolerate strangers parking in my driveway irrespective of if I owned a car or not.

allinthehead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121606250#Comment_121606250

🤣 Ya, I believe people who park in those spots without a badge are known as as$holes.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121608323#Comment_121608323

Seven cars is impressive, and rather exclusive. Stats from 2016 Census.

Meath had the highest proportion of households with at least one car (90.3%), followed closely by Cork County (89.0%). Meath also had the largest proportion (43.3%) of households with two cars. Cork County had the largest proportion (7.7%) of households with three cars while 1.8 per cent of households in the State had four or more cars. 

elperello

An encounter can turn into a confrontation very quickly.

Best not to up the ante and to take the path of least resistance.

De-escalation is almost always best.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121604854#Comment_121604854

I always thought they were being encouraged by not meeting immediate resistance

But I was discouraged many times from acting on it with admonishments such as...you don't know what that person is going through or they could be lunatics and they might kill you etc

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121605760#Comment_121605760

Or just "no problem, just pop it in the letterbox sugartits"

And then slowly roll back under the car making sure to make lingering eye contact with a haunting look of loneliness in your eyes

Also before you do this if the car is jacked up make sure its very secure with a backup in case she loses control and is a good improviser.

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121608604#Comment_121608604

I’ll keep this in mind for the other bulb.