Dealing with rude people

I was supposed to write an article about the event I attended yesterday, but I think this has to come first. Yesterday was a lot of fun, but we also encountered so many rude people...  I feel like I have to share everything that happened and how we tried to deal with it. If you have any advice or similar experiences to share, don't hesitate to do so in the comments. I'm curious to know how other lolitas deal with those kind of situations.

So yesterday was the 'all night' event there is every year where the subway and some other places in town are open all night long. There was an event at the library about Japanese culture going on from 6 PM to 3 AM. 


This is not my picture, but it is the library we went to.

We were really happy to attend an event about Japan outside of Otakuthon and G-anime. So I all dressed up in lolita and one of my friends decided to cosplay as Ciel from Kuroshitsuji. She was only wearing the top since her shorts weren't really suitable for the weather that day (it was very cold and windy). There was another friend with us that was wearing regular clothes.

So I met them a bit later since I had something else to do before the event. I'll leave aside the details since I want to make a post about the event itself later and the good things that happened that night too.

Once we got there, we soon noticed a lot of 'regular' people were there, meaning they had no clue there was an event going on at the library. There were not many lolitas and cosplayer yet when I arrived at 7:30 but already people were looking at us a lot. As usual we decided to not mind them.

There was a couple of 'bad' events that happened to us throughout the night. The first one being a drunk man who was finding lolitas too interesting. We first noticed him when he went behind me when someone else was taking a picture of me. He tried to make bunny ears behind my head and ended up touching my hair unintentionally. I was creeped out to see it was a drunken man who had touched my hair. He then made a comment about a lolita who was talking to me, showing with his hands that she had 'big' breasts. We could only give him a disgusted look... which he didn't understand apparently since he came back later on. I had met 2 other lolita friends when he tried to talk to us again. We quickly walked away and never saw him again... luckily! The next step would've been to ask a security guard to escort him to the exit. He was drunk in a public place, which I find unacceptable, especially when there were children everywhere in the library!

Around the same time we encountered the drunk man, an older women came to us. She asked if we were cosplaying and we gave her the usual speech about lolita being a fashion and all. That was ok of her to ask questions and all. She seemed truly interested by the fashion. But then she took my dress and checked under it to see if I had a petticoat. I promptly told her not to do that. I find it really rude when people check under my dress. Would they do the same thing with a girl wearing regular clothes? Would they check under her skirt? NO! I always feel insulted when old ladies try to look under my dress. I do not own any bloomers yet and they could show my underwear to everyone around if they lifted the dress too high. I didn't find a safe way yet to prevent that to happen... but I do tell them not to lift my dress when I catch them doing it. How rude can people be when you are not dressed 'normally'? They seem to think everything is permitted when they see a lolita or a cosplayer... as if we were not human anymore when we are not dressed in usual clothes.

 

Talking about loosing rights when you are in lolita. People were taking pictures non-stop. A few asked for permission, but most of them were just taking pictures without asking. At the beginning it was ok. But towards the end there were so many people doing it that we were feeling insulted. We are human beings... do they take pictures of regularly dressed people without asking? My guess would be no! The only thing we found to do was to hide our face when we didn't want to be taken or give them the 'death glare' so it'd be apparent on their picture that we didn't want to be on it. The worst was when we were going back home. On the subway ride, a man was holding his phone in our direction and laughing out loud at us, saying stupid comments... everyone on the wagon looked at him and gave him discouraged looks. He was apparently drunk so he didn't get the message since he made some other comments out loud, though they weren't about us all the time. We sat far away and ignored him. My friends got out before me and I was afraid he would get off at the same station as me. It wasn't the case, but if it had been, I would've stayed inside the station until he left and waited a bit until I left to walk home just to be sure he wouldn't follow me. Sometimes you don't have the choice to be alone in lolita. During those times, I always try to stay in secure places until it is safe for me to walk alone in peace.

And yes, this is finally the last bad luck that happened to us that busy night. I don't know if I can say it was the worst, but it was surely the one thing that showed us how rude people are outside of conventions. We were thinking our province had open-minded people... well we were wrong. It is as worst as all the other places.
Later yesterday night, around 11 PM, a bunch of people came in the library. They were of any ages. My guess is that another event had ended nearby and they wanted to see the library at night since it is not usually open at that hour. Maybe they were curious too. They obviously had no clue about the event that was going on though. They were literally laughing at us. Without any subtlety! They were laughing and pointing in the direction of almost every lolita or cosplayer they were seeing... as if we were the weird ones! They were the ones coming in on an event about Japan and organized by the Otakuthon's committee... Most of the ones who mocked us were young men strangely. Every time I get laughed at in lolita it is almost always young men. I still don't know why though. We were only looking at them in the eyes every time, trying to make them understand they were not funny and were very immature. Being laughed at in lolita happens often... but they were the rudest people I had seen yet. I do hope one day it'll be easier to go outside in lolita or any other unusual fashion. Bearing with ignorant or immature people is very tiring and it can spoil a day easily.
What to do against them? Well, ignoring them is always good. But smiling back can be useful too! Some feel stupid when they see you smile back and stop laughing. While it is hard to react on the moment, I guess it can come more naturally after some practice... which I hope I won't get too often!

My rant about rude people is finally over. I do hope it was useful to some of you in a certain way. It shows a really honest view on how people really are sometimes. Of course there were good moments during the event! I made new friends and met wonderful people for the first or a-lot-more-times. I wanted to write about the bad part first so I could leave all of it behind and talk about only the good moments in my next post. It'll be full of pictures and happiness this time :D

Have a nice day and thank you for reading!
*Kinerai*