'If you don't wear your wedding ring you are a woman of questionable character.'

[Azrail]

.

[Sootikin]

Apaet from the multitude of responses Evilkiwi can come up with this would be the perfect time for 'what an interesting assumption'.

Personally I'd be tempted to bring the whole room in on the discussion.

I wear my wedding ring on my right hand, does that mean I don't want an affair but if you prod me just right I can be swayed?

Refusing to engage was probably the right thing to do tho.

[Lynnv]

I don't think I could have managed to be quite so polite...so bravo to you!  I often don't wear my ring when I am out on the motorcycle (it sometimes gets uncomfortable under gloves for long periods).   I can't even begin to think what this woman would make of a woman brazen enough to ride a motorcycle AND not wear her wedding ring.   

[Kaylee]

Wow.

Did you ask her where she parked her TARDIS when she got here from the 1800s?

I wear mine these days, but over the last two years I'd leave it off any time I was in a rotation where I needed to scrub a lot (mostly NICU).  I guess I was immoral when I took care of preemies...

[Bob Ducca]

Here's how it goes in my head:

HER: You don't wear your wedding ring?
ME: No. I get really bad eczema, I can't wear it.
HER: You should. Even if you get eczema. You need to get used to it. Your ring protects your honor. If you don't wear your ring, then you're advertising that you are available. It's like you're saying you want an affair.
ME: (Laughs).  Oh, that's just silly.
HER: It isn't silly, wedding jewelry is how people know you're not available. Without the ring, they'll think you're loose.
ME: Maybe some people don't automatically assume that every stranger they see without a band on their left hand is a floozy looking for action.  I know that's only true of the people I want to associate with, anyway.  Honestly, if someone is so close-minded and judgmental that she would think me a floozy because I don't wear the kind of jewelry she thinks I should wear...  Well, I guess that's someone I just wouldn't want as a friend.
SIL: What are we talking about?
ME: Nothing, actually I was just leaving.

[QueenofAllThings]

"You are so right! I should put up with a painful skin irritation to avoid strangers possibly thinking ill of me".

And, btw, does that mean that all unmarried folk are, by definition, floozies? And to the previous poster who works in the NICU, aren't you worried about negatively impacting those poor babies with such trashy behavior? 

[sweetgirl]

well my husband would find that funny then. I dont wear my rings. I'm too scared I'll knock it and lose the diamond so I keep it for special occassions.

Hahahaha...TARDIS. Now funnily enough my friend on fb was just talking about them last week. Small world.

[JacklynHyde]

My husband takes off his ring at night to avoid skin irritation and then occasionally forgets to put it back on in the morning.  Nobody would call him a floozy.

[MrsJWine]

I think you had every right to be offended, but I think a more effective response would have been gales of laughter.  That would have been my response, but my natural reaction to absurdity like this, no matter how offensive, is to always laugh.  What a nut.  I get some kind of weird skin thing after wearing my ring for a few days.  I do wear it out in public because I have two small children, and I look like I'm 12, but I mostly keep it off at home.  And if I do leave the house and forget to put it on, I am really not worried about strange men swooping me off my feet because of my obvious availability.  If the presence of a ring were the only thing keeping me from handing my virtue to every man I pass, I think we'd have a lot more to worry about than just a piece of jewelry.

[kschmid5]

I think you did great.  The shock alone would keep me from any sort of response.  And you weren't rude in response to her outrageous statement.  Bravo!

[blue2000]

I think you had every right to be offended, but I think a more effective response would have been gales of laughter.  That would have been my response, but my natural reaction to absurdity like this, no matter how offensive, is to always laugh.  What a nut.  I get some kind of weird skin thing after wearing my ring for a few days.  I do wear it out in public because I have two small children, and I look like I'm 12, but I mostly keep it off at home.  And if I do leave the house and forget to put it on, I am really not worried about strange men swooping me off my feet because of my obvious availability.  If the presence of a ring were the only thing keeping me from handing my virtue to every man I pass, I think we'd have a lot more to worry about than just a piece of jewelry.

That's what I was thinking. A ring is all that is standing between you and a wild orgy at the library?? This woman has a much more exciting life than the rest of us.

[mom2fluffer]

Okay that one ranks right up there with the woman who told me I needed to wear my wedding ring on a chain around my neck so people wouldn't think I was an unwed mother.  It was also an older woman.  I had recently had to take my wedding band off because my hands were swelling from the pregnancy.  First I was not a young first time mother, I was early 30's, so I really couldn't see someone assuming I was an unwed mom.  I did not handle it as well as you did though.  As I recall the conversation went something like this: JOL is judgemental old lady.

[Germane Jackson]

I don't wear mine these days either, or any ring for that matter. I also have a bad skin condition plus when I wear rings my fingers swell up so much it's painful...LOL It makes me think of that old country song 'Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger?', well, yes it does actually

I've never had anybody say anything to me about it though and DH knows why I don't wear my rings.

[Lisbeth]

That's ridiculous.

I'm not even married, so I don't have a wedding ring...what would she have said about that?  That I need to get married to the first creep who asks me just to have a ring on my finger?

I don't even wear rings most of the time anyway.

I think you handled her just fine.

[Lorelei_Evil]

My, I wonder what she'd think about me!  I've never been married but sometimes wear a wedding band as "creep repellant" in certain situations. 

I think you did fine, I would have hard pressed not to burst out laughing.