A Guy Interrupted A Woman's Tweet About Men Interrupting & Her Response Was Iconic

Men have more or less cornered the market on interrupting women, whether it be in a professional setting ("Let me cut in here, Mary, and point out that the TP reports suggest X instead of Y,"), on a date, ("Fascinating story, but cut I in here to tell you about the time my fraternity brothers and I...") on the dance floor ("Mind if I cut in?") or online. And never has this interrupting epidemic been more evident than when, after one woman writer tweeted about men interrupting, a man cut in to prove he totally missed her point. Naturally, her response was on point.

According to Someecards, the writer in question was one Hannah Jane Parkinson, a United Kingdom-based journalist who writes about politics, health, tech, and media for the Guardian. Parkinson made a tweet properly outlining an age-old irritant: men trying to hit on women hanging out at bars or clubs. "One of the stupidest / most disingenuous / obnoxious things men do (soz) is interrupt groups of women or women chilling solo and then say, "I'm not interrupting am I?" when they are doing the definition of interrupting," Parkinson tweeted. It's an apt observation, and an annoying trend, but one man did. Not. Get. It. "Do you want men to stop attempting to chat you up, full stop? Just wondering," he tweeted. Parkinson had her response at the ready:

Other folks engaged with Parkinson on this tweet, which understandably went viral. One man pointed out that women sometimes interrupt groups of men to chat them up, too, but Parkinson rightfully noted that phenomenon's not nearly as omnipresent. "No. I have genuinely never witnessed a woman slipping into the seat next to a random man on a bus clearly reading / listening to music & start chatting them up because women do not feel entitled to men’s space & time," she tweeted.

And when one woman on Twitter noted she often enjoyed having lunch alone and found men who approached her bothersome, Parkinson agreed. "That’s it. It’s fine to have the odd small talk. Totally down for a little chat but then it’s clear if you wanna just be alone or chat to your m8s. It’s the entitlement of it. You would not really get a random woman going up to a couple of guy friends & just inserting themselves," Parkinson tweeted.

She also addressed the woman's observation that men often seemed offended when she tried to brush them off. "The offence thing is bang on. Even when raising it. We’re not dragons who can’t have a nice chat it’s just the vibe that we’re supposed to have no choice in the matter," Parkinson tweeted.

Parkinson's point is a good one, and it's likely why her tweet had such an impact. I would rather men ask me out in a public setting than be relegated to left and right swipes on the apps. It's weird that we've entered a world in which men would rather text anonymously than make the effort to enact a meet cute IRL, and I'm always annoyed when I find someone on Tinder who's Super Liked me that I know in real life (it's happened more than once!). Like, just say something to me in person, jeez!

But it's also annoying when you want to be alone, and men won't let you do that. I'm not reading a book at a coffee shop because I am hoping to bait you into asking me about Simone de Beauvoir. I'm reading a book at a coffee shop because I want to be alone. I'm not out with my friends just to meet dudes, I'm out to be with my friends. It's fine to be brave and try to connect, but don't be offended when you're resoundingly turned away —women have just as much a right to refuse men as men do to talk to them.