Am I being overly sensitive about this?
Yes.
Last week my teenage daughter and I were grocery shopping at the neighborhood store. About halfway through a group of three young men surrounded her and began taunting her in a foreign tongue. She tried to skirt around them, but they encircled her and blocked her exit and continued to make what was (by their attitude, demeanor, and body language) obviously rude & offensive comments.
I came up behind them and said, “Hey you slimy little F*@#$rs, what would you think about me bashing your skulls in? How about if I shoved this bottle of Ketchup up your a$$es?”” Now I must admit that I was being rude because I didn’t respect them enough to speak to them in their native language, but for some reason that didn’t occur to me at the time.
I suppose in retrospect that they might have been just paying homage to her for, say her breast size. How could I be so inconsiderate?! Perhaps I should have engaged them and inquired, “So do you come here to pick up little girls often?” Again, an opportunity for a bit of social interaction missed.
This cross-cultural communications thing is so complicated! It’s a good thing that my daughter wasn’t being overly sensitive about this.
I guess it’s all a matter of perspective...