so confusing

So I’m standing on a railway platform, leaning against a pillar, waiting for my train. Looking ahead of me, trying to keep my anxiety under control, and not to get too caught up in depressing thoughts. As another train pulls in behind me, I notice a couple of girls smiling down at me from the raised street level across the tracks in front of me. They’re waving and shouting something at me, but I can’t hear a word because of the noise. I look confused, and gesture that I can’t hear, but they keep waving & smiling. Now there’s no reason for them to have anything to say to me, so I assume they must be shouting at someone who’s just got off the train behind me, even though they’re looking right at me. I turn around, but there’s no one there who seems to be responding. I take out my earbud, still looking confused, and gesture again that I can’t hear them.

Then I see they have a younger male friend with them, who’s trying to help them get my attention. Him I can hear. While I’m checking again behind me to try and figure out who they’re talking to or what they’re after, he shouts a description of what I’m wearing that very specifically identifies me. OK, so they’re definitely talking to me.

I smile back, and try to focus on what they’re saying, assuming they want help with something. Now I recognised that one of these girls (the one who seems to be smiling most) had passed by a few minutes earlier. I may have briefly caught her eye as her head passed above the wall in front of me. I may even have smiled faintly. I’m pretty fucking sure I didn’t stare. I certainly didn’t check her out (her head was all that was visible, for the 10 seconds she walked by.)

And as I’m trying to understand what the fuck is going on, I very clearly hear the male friend shout “SHE SAYS SHE’LL SUCK YOUR DICK.” And suddenly what had been a pleasant though confusing interaction (I can’t remember the last time anyone smiled that much in my direction) feels deeply uncomfortable. I frown, shake my head slightly, and stare down at my phone, until they give up and leave. Then I spend the next 20 minutes trying not to freak out, wondering what the hell just happened.

It’s the middle of the day, and I’m surrounded by holidaying families, old people and kids. This is a prosperous country town, not a nightclub. The girls were definitely too young for me to express any kind of interest in, but they didn’t appear to be insane or deranged, or too young to understand what it meant. So what the fuck was going on? I don’t think I’ve ever had someone say something like that to me in public before.

Now my first assumption is that they were taking the piss. But if that’s the case, what did I do to make myself the target of that kind of drive-by mockery? Was merely happening to look in that girl’s direction or catch her eye enough to give her the idea? Should I have kept my gaze constantly locked on my feet/phone? Was I somehow giving off creepy vibes without knowing it? Am I so desperate for female attention that people can tell just by looking at me? But to joke about that in public, from a distance, when I can barely hear what they’re saying most of the time? That seems almost as embarrassing for them as it was for me.

Another possibility – she assumed I was in my early 20s, perhaps one of the college kids that use that route regularly. I look a fair bit younger and fitter than I am, I’m pretty tall, I dress decently well, and I’m not bad looking (from a distance). Possibly there was some genuine attempt at flirtation behind it. But who flirts like that, shouting from a distance, on the basis of nothing but brief eye contact? That would be so fucking weird. I’m certainly no Brad Pitt. There is no good reason for anyone to be paying me that kind of attention. I could almost take that as flattering, except it would be kind of useless now, when I’m so old, broken, and mentally fucked.

Third possibility – they were poor and trying to run some kind of scam/they’re on the game. Except this was the middle of the day, in a prosperous well-to-do town, and they weren’t dressed at all provocatively. And I was clearly about to catch a train, so no matter how much of an easy mark I looked, I was unlikely to ditch my plans, leave the station, and follow them.

I hate not knowing why people do what they do. I don’t know if it’s that I’ve done something wrong, without really meaning to, or other people are just being weird. It exacerbates my social anxiety, and makes me question how to operate in this reality.