So I’m at a (very quiet) London bar, drinking with my girlfriend and her friend. I ordered 3 shots at the bar. Some random woman was standing next to me.

Woman: Excuse me, do you know those women you are buying drinks for?

Me: yes, why do you ask?

Woman: I want to make sure they are safe

Me: oh I see, you are worried that I could be some kind of date rapist giving them spiked drinks

Woman: I do feel concerned in some situations

Me: Ok, I’m trying to work out why you are concerned in this particular situation

Woman: you are buying drinks for young girls

Me: the one on the right is 5 years older than me, and is 41 years old. I don’t know how old the one on the left is, but she’s literally a grandmother.

I walk off back to my table. (The actual conversation was a bit longer.)

When I get back to the table I’m all annoyed, and I sarcastically tell the two woman at my table “do me a favour and wave at that woman at the bar so she knows I’m not raping you.” They wave and the woman comes over again and starts saying the same stupid shit.

I tell her fuck you/fuck off and you can hear the record scratch in the bar. Suddenly everyone is paying attention. One of the girls I’m with doesn’t understand what is happening and immediately jumps up and hugs the random woman, like her gut instinct is “omg a man is swearing at a woman, I have to protect her!”.

I honestly thought I was going to get kicked out of the bar at this point. The woman walks off and I explained what happened to the people around me. Some dude near me shakes my hand and buys me a drink. The bartender says I did the right thing and did a magic trick for me, lol. The girl who rushed to the woman’s defence is now on my side too.

Anyway about 10 minutes later the woman comes over and apologises. She says she has a daughter so gets worried. I told her we are not all rapists but I appreciate the apology.

So anyway, in the end it all worked out and it didn’t ruin anybody’s night. But what a weird thing to happen. Nobody has ever said anything like that to me before - it’s a one-off incident but it really made me feel like we are living in a time when men are viewed as predators by default. God forbid I had been actually hitting on some girls!