Being "Shooed"

I respond a whole lot better to "excuse me"..

I will shoo people when I am teasing.. my mom taught me that.. She shoos with a dish towel, but is laughing and swatting us with the dish towel..

Wouldn't bug me to be shooed unless they were scowling and had just been rude to me.

Hubby actually won't move if we are in the kitchen together. If i see someone headed toward the mircowave, i would automatically step aside. He is oblivious and just stands there, duh!

The only time I would find this acceptable is if I was being the rude one and was interrupting someone who was on the telephone. Other than that, it is not acceptable behavior.

This has happened to me and I don't find it offensive. My daughter and granddaughter and I often motion for the other to move in the kitchen while we're talking about something else. Why interrupt a conversation to say excuse me? It's happened in a theatre where vocal words would interrupt the program.

I suppose I might feel differently if all is quiet, they were a stranger and saying excuse me would not interrupt anything.

When I want someone to move and don't shoo them, I usually say would you move please. I've been confused while in a store and someone says excuse me. Excuse me is used for many different things, such as bumping into someone.

No, being shooed does not offend me.

Later: You can choose to not be offended. What do you gain by taking offense?

I don't think you're overly sensitive, that would bother me too! It's something you do to a dog, or maybe your kids, lol. It's like when people "shush" you - it's so rude!

depends on the situation. mostly we use "excuse me"....but if the person is on the phone, or you are, and you have a very close, comfortable, informal relationship...then maybe. but you would know that better than we would...

I must be too sensitive.... If a stranger were to shoo me... My passive aggressiveness and biotch mode would set in. Sorry, that's how I work.

Prime example: Waldorf Astoria hotel in NY where I was staying with daughter. A woman obviously on her way to work, shooed us on the escalator. We stopped dead in our tracks. She huffed and went on to the women's lounge where she finished getting ready for work.

You get a lot further with me if you use manners.

I hate it when some people "play dumb" to get what they want as in saying "shoo", getting in the middle of an intersection, etc.

Now at home... It is done with laughter, not as a put down

Haha, I do that to my husband often and he HATES it. lol. Me? I dont guess it would bug me much, it's just a quiet way of saying "you're in my way, move".

Overly sensitive. If you assume that there was no bad intention (which we all should assume) then you should just let it go. You can certainly take the time to mention to him that you'd prefer a different way to communicate, that you felt it was disrespectful, etc, etc, but in the big picture of things....

I can maybe envision some scenario wherein someone is actually doing you a favor by giving you permission to leave (ie: they said they'll wash the dishes, do the clean up, are letting you go out for a fun night while they watch the kids), but it's not polite as a substitute for 'excuse me.'

It depends on the particular situation. I have been known to do that very thing to my husband when we are goofing around. No big deal. Would I be offended if a STRANGER did that? Yes, unless it was a crowd and they were trying to use hand signals because of noise levels.

"Excuse me, please" is the polite way of asking a person to shift position so someone can go by. "Shooing" doesn't measure up. But if it's done by family or friends in an informal situation, I would choose not to be offended. There are a lot worse ways of asking you to move over!

You could be over-reacting, in that he might have been trying to use what he thinks of as a practical signal, but your thoughts are that people shouldn't get shooed like a pet (or worse, an insect).

For me, it would depend a great deal on the situation. If I DID end up feeling offense or hurt, I would wait until my feelings settled a bit, and then have a calm conversation using Non-Violent Communication. It might go like this:

"I noticed when you shooed me out of your way an hour ago that I felt a real pang of hurt / anger / distress. My thought about that was that I would never do that to you, because I respect you too much, and that's body language I would reserve for a dog. Will you share with me what you were thinking when you did that? If you didn't mean any offense, I'd like to know that."

That would, ideally, allow your husband to hear your reaction objectively, without reacting himself. If the conversation goes well and you can both stay calm, he's not as likely to ever do that again.

If you both become reactive and angry, the situation can quickly devolve. If I notice that happening, I observe that I'm not yet calm enough to talk it over, and hope that we can both think about it and revisit the topic later. Even that temporary resolution could result in him either not shooing you again, or apologizing, or both.

Well like Victoria, I have shooed my hubby out of my way. Usually it's because he is breaking my stride in the kitchen and I need to get dinner done, or I'm trying to get something cleaned up. It usualy comes after a couple excuse me's don't get anwered, then he gets a move it or lose it, or something very similar.
I will also do it to my children if they are just in my way and don't move to an excise me.
And if anyone besides hubby or my kids did it to me, yes I would consider that very rude.

I don't know if it's rude or just annoyed you. I dont' think I would be bothered if my husband did this. He could have said "Get the f#@* out of the way!" I have heard my BIL say this to my SIL. That would "bother" me to say the least. If it bothers you then it bothers you. You can't really help your feeling sometimes. Tell your husband not to do it again and you find it rude.

Rude, rude, rude!! My husband did it to me, ONCE, and I blew up at him and it has never happened since.

To me, it is so disrespectful and lazy and is just very poor manners. The only time we use the "shoo" gesture is when trying to signal to one another not to enter the room because one of the kids is being put to sleep and we don't want to stir interest. Even then, it is gentle and done politely.

I think it's rude...it's just as bad as saying "get the he'll out of my way"!
Maybe I'm a little sensitive too ;)

I think its rude. Really, where are some people's manners? Take 5 seconds and say "excuse me, can I get by you?" It actually probably takes less effort by asking them to move then by motioning for them to move. And its more polite.
You just don't "shoe" people away.

I don't remember ever being shooed. But, I must admit that I've shooed people out of my way when they are being annoyingly slow and they know I'm in a big hurray. In my line of work we often need to get to a child before they pee on the floor, knock over something important, hurt themselves, or we may be trying to stop a yucky diaper from getting worse, or they may be heading towards the toilet etc. Oh and parents don't want to wait at the door. It never fails that the doorbell rings and all the sudden I have 2-3 people walking slowly to the door in front of me. I'll never understand that one. I don't need help answering the door! Nothing makes me more frustrated than for my mother or another child to get in my way when they know I'm in a hurray and then just barely move a long.

When it's a daily thing, it's hard to muster manners for people that are actually showing a major lack of common sense.

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I feel like pushing strangers in the face when they shoo me. It doesn't worry me if it's my family.

Wow. I'm deaf and I "shoo" a lot. Didn't know I was being rude.

To me, it is all in the expression/attitude & situation. If it is a simple hand motion, it simply means "would you move over (move this) please so I can get through/sit down by you here?" Simple as that.

If I have more of an annoyed look in my face and I'm not listening to them then yes, that would be rude.

BTW----- what is it hearing people have against a gentle touch on the shoulder/back/arm to let them know they need to move so they can be passed?? I have been innocently riding an escalator up and then all of a sudden someone brushes past me (roughly!) shooting angry looks my way. EXCUSE ME! but I cannot hear you even if you are shouting excuse me to my back! Simply pat/touch/tap (if your arms are full, use your arms to gently touch/press/tap) and I'd gladly move out of the way!

From a stranger, definitely rude, but I doubt your husband was being ride, right?

I don't find it offensive but I've never shooed nor have been shooed by anyone other than family and my family rarely offends me. Well, except once when I was in high school one of my best friends was dating a guy who was hearing impaired and he spoke to everyone with sign language so when he asked you to scoot over or to make room for him, he used a shooing motion but no one, myself included, was ever offended by him asking for some space on the bench in the bowling alley where we hung out a lot.

I don't know if it's a cultural thing but my family is full of Italian "shooers". My grandmother will wave her hands and blurt something out in Italian that I could not begin to spell and people would part for her like she were Moses standing in front of the red sea. My mother will sometimes use the word followed by a string of "tsking" sounds made with the mouth while flapping her apron or a dish rag at us to get us out of her kitchen. Now that I have a young one I find myself uttering the foreign syllables and waving family out of my tiny kitchen as I prep dinner in addition to smacking the backs of hands with a wooden spoon if they venture into mixing bowls before the meal is done.

I don't have a huge issue with asking someone to move by using hand motions. I talk with my hands a lot. I'm sure the deaf would also not mind either as long as you didn't inflect the "shooing" motion with condescending body language as if you were the queen asking your subjects to make way.

When the family is watching a movie and I have to get up to tend something, sometimes when I get back I'll find legs blocking my path. Instead of interrupting the flow of dialog from the screen, I'll wave my hand in a "shooing" gesture and the person whose legs are now all over the coffee table and blocking my way back to my seat will see the movement and clear the way without me having to say a word.

Body language can dictate intent in the gesture. Sometimes people find offence where there was obviously none intended because they don't see past the hand to the rest of the body.

I don't like it, either, but some people were raised to do it rather than ask politely :-/

I don't think I would be offended if my husband, friend or co-worker did it, but I would be offended if a stranger did it.

No,it's not you.That is rude.

Depends on who did the "shoo-ing," but I could be very offended! (stranger, etc)