Helpful or obnoxious?

Yesterday, I was walking my bike down Bloor street going to get some snacks at a local café with a friend, when a young, tall, blonde guy said that I should really be careful of my purse in my back basket. His friend said that they’d been putting stuff in my basket to see if I’d notice and I didn’t, so that my purse back there would be really easy to steal. They were right, so I took my purse out of my basket and hung it over my shoulder where it belongs.

But, something about the way he gave me the advice just rubbed me the wrong way. It came from a bit of a high-horse parent-y place rather than an earnestly-concerned-citizen place. I whispered to my friend that I found him a little annoying.

He and his friends were walking in the same direction as us, slightly ahead. As I was locking up my bike, he told me that I should get a new lock because the one I had was too big and that my bike would be easy to steal. I look at him and said “thanks, but that’s enough,” directly before I ducked into the restaurant. I think I shocked him. But, does he really think that giving unsolicited, haughty advice to strangers on the street is going to be taken to kindly?

I can’t help but wonder if he’d have bothered saying anything at all if

a) I was a man; or

b) I had a crappy bike; or

c) I was an older, refined woman.

I think not.