Katya, I agree with Karen. It was an ugly breech of ettiquette.

I saw an horrific act take place several years ago. Not the same as yours, true but socially disturbing nonetheless.
An ex- friend of mine has scolioses. She is also about 70 pounds heavier than her doctors told her was healthy to be. As a result, her shadow would cast the same as a woman about 7 months pg'd.

She and I were out shopping. A woman (about 30 years old) came up to us, put out her hands and started rubbing her tummy! The stranger asked, "when are you due?" (in what I am sure to her, was a friendly, cooing tone).
My ex-friend stated, very loudly- "I am not pregnant, I am fat! Please take your hands off of me!"

We left the store. She told me that happened to her frequently. Never once while I was pregnant did a complete stranger approach and touch me. I was stopped and spoken to often, yes, but never touched by a stranger.

My confusion initially came when I heard her yell "I'm fat" at full volume. My thoughts came to "You're beautiful! You are happy! If you are secure in your skin, who cares that you are not a size3?" It took me a moment to register that she had been accosted. True, the trespasser most likely believed herself to be friendly when, in reality, this woman had just committed an act right up there with 'grandma' in "16 Candles!"

What I want to know is this; When was it ever ok to be overly- familiar to strangers? I believe in being kind and helpful and polite and friendly and all of those things we were taught to be as children. Truly I do.
I have heard folks say that "XX-XX country's citizens are rude or impolite. They're not at all like us, WE'RE friendly." By trying so hard to be friendly, have many of us actually gone over the line? Are we so desperate to prove we are open and happy that we try to force our way past any social development and jump straight to BFF status with everybody?

Please, may these incidents be few and far between.

>GASP< But you don't want to seem UNFRIENDLY, do you????

Heh heh. Snap em off and wear em as a necklace. As a warning: "This is what happened to the last fool who touched my body."

bwahaha....oh, holly.

xox

BWAHAHA!

Best answers ever, Holly!

Well, you said, he wanted to sell you something. He was probably instructed by his superiors that the key to sales is to strike up a conversation and keep the person engaged for as long as possible, have them befriend him, feel familiar with him, anything to stop them from shutting the door in their face. What does a 25 year old know about what it's like to have kids or not have kids...
We had an old doctor here whose agenda it seemed to be that every woman should have two kids. A friend of mine went there with thyroid problems and all he wanted to do all the time was counsel her how to have kids anyway, as she was young and pretty. Another one went there with heart trouble and premenopausal depression and while he was taking her blood pressure, he said:"Do you have kids?" "Yes, one." "Oh, so you should have another one, 42 is not too late, you should hurry"... Yeah, right, what else is a woman for...

Next time someone nosey asks about kids in that gross way, I'm going to tell them that I HAD kids, but they died with their father in a horrible car accident 8 months ago, thanks for asking.