Things like this have only happened to me a couple of times, but what has always struck me was the cowardly manner in which it is done: It is always whispered, always in a sharp and angry tone, always with a smirk. Creep city!

I don’t have any “comebacks” to this type of thing, and usually say nothing. I’m wondering now, though, since it is always done so subtly and quietly (they don’t want to be seen as the creepster they are) if actually calling it out and specifically calling it cowardly would help? At the very least, you will feel you have stood up for yourself.

I would have said something like “Narnya”.. (short for “none of your business” – think Australian accent, long vowel sounds, and running words into each other)/
So not anyone’s business what anybody decides to eat..

Dudes who try shit like that with me generally get ‘where’s your point?’ if it’s something relatively neutral like that, and a whole lot of profane rage if it’s something more direct. The last dude who said ‘you’ll get fat if you eat that’ on watching me order a bacon, egg and sausage roll at a horse show really wished he hadn’t said anything. I think I ranted at him for a good couple of minutes about how it was none of his business what a total stranger ate for breakfast, how the hell dare he think he had the right to make personal comments to somebody he’d never met before, and so on and so forth. Also told him he was lucky I was hungry otherwise he’d have been wearing my roll, and the scalding hot coffee with it.

I picked up the tactic mostly because I am typically VERY assertive. But if I swore at them (loudly, cause I’m naturally very loud) then it would start a fight or suddenly *I* would be the one getting death stares. So I worked out a response and practiced my lines, so I was ready the next time it came (and yeah, it keeps coming).

On the other hand, I have no idea how to properly manage dieting co-workers (of any gender) who talk about their diets and weight loss right in front of me and how they are just DOING IT FOR THEIR HEALTH as they give me the ol’ side eye for not conforming (by being on a diet) or participating in the conversation (by bemoaning my weight or food choices).

If anyone has recommendations for that, I’m all ears.

A true Zabar’s story: I used to have a fuck buddy who lived a couple blocks from there. Sometimes we’d meet at his apartment at lunchtime, have sex, then I would stop at Zabar’s to pick up a Reuben, a half-sour and a Dr. Brown’s before heading back downtown to my office. To this day whenever I go by Zabar’s I not only get hungry, I get a little horny, too.

Also: shut your fucking bagelhole, Some Dude.