The thing is, I think in cases where it's a genuine mistake, like mine, I wasn't being aggressive. I didn't know.

People get angry because they think of microaggressions as deliberate put downs. I can see how that woman was putting you down and made you feel bad. She was wrong to take out her stress on you.

But in my case, I was just complimenting a girl the first time I'd met her, and I wasn't being at all aggressive. I don't think she was upset. She probably thought I was a bit of a wally for not realising.

But I think people who get all angry about some things they call 'microaggressions' are as bad as the people who deliberately say the wrong thing. When the offending statement was innocent, anyway.

I wrote about it in the story below. Someone a person met in the countryside asked 'do you walk here regularly?' They were offended.

Another asked 'where are you from?' They were offended.

These are questions posed to white people - including myself - all the time when we're in the countryside, or other places of interest. We are often we're on holiday, so it's a legit question because we've travelled miles for a break in the country.

But when people ask the same questions of a non-white person, it's considered to be a microaggression and a racist slur. And it causes a lot of unnecessary division because they get offended by something that is basically nothing. By someone trying to be friendly.

I wonder what you think about this?

https://medium.com/@susiekearley/the-countryside-is-racist-discuss-170d4f16925b