Dealing with nasty comments - to confront, or not?

Lolli1986

Today I was walking by the river and two ~16 year old boys came careening down the hill towards me. I smiled, thinking 'It's so great to see boys out, being active, enjoying summer'. As the second one rode past me, he said, 'She's cute.'

Not bad to be about to turn 26 and be called cute by someone ten years younger. But something felt off about a young boy feeling totally okay about saying something like that right beside me, but TO his friend.

Then, from a distance behind me, I hear, 'though look at her *kitten*, OH MY GOD!'

Suddenly, the disrespect was far more apparent.

I turned around to see them both looking back at me from afar, so I stared at them so that they knew I'd heard what they'd said, and gave an annoyed gesture to let them know I didn't like it, and wasn't accepting it.

What do you think about confrontation? Do you have any stories? How do you deal?

I find confrontation is important to me. I need to let people know what I do and do not find acceptable.