I wanted to share an odd (and honestly pretty aggressive) encounter I had last night to see if I was actually in the wrong here or if this guy was just looking for a fight. I live in the building attached to a few outlets on the ground floor, and I was out walking my dog late last night. I was on a video call with my dad at the time. Earlier in the walk, I had passed a man carrying a small dog and gave him a polite "hi" or a nod. On my way back, a car was coming down the street, so I hopped onto the covered footpath to get out of the way. The same guy from earlier was there, and his dog was peeing. As I moved onto the path, I made sure to give him plenty of space – I was well outside of arm’s reach – but he still snapped at me
The Interaction: • Him: "What the hell are you doing? You see my dog is trying to go to the bathroom here and you bring your dog here when you could go anywhere else. What the hell are you trying to do?"
• Me: "What?" (I was honestly confused; it’s a public-facing footpath).
• Him: (Pointing at the bakery on the ground floor) "Do you even live here?"
• Me: "No…" (I was about to say "but I live in the units above," but he cut me off).
• Him: "Then get the hell out of here."
• Me: "What?
• Him: "Did you not hear me?"
• Me: "I heard you, but can I finish what I was saying?"
• Him: "No dude, just get the f\\\*\\\*\\\* out of here."
\* Me: “There’s no reason to be rude”
\* Him: “Rude? Get the f\\\*\\\*\\\* out of here or I’m about to get real rude up here”
I walked back up then, away from him and then got into my building from a distance.
I’m a bit shaken by how quickly he escalated. Was I breaking some unspoken rule? Usually Dog owners let each other know early on if their dog’s unfriendly and I’d never let my dog go near someone else’s without checking if it’s okay for them to say hi. I’m not sure what happened here and this was a first, everyone’s so nice around here usually.