A male friend’s support for the right of women to breastfeed in public has officially crossed the line from admirable to creepy, sources have confirmed.
Brad Krieger, a 34-year-old radiology technician and friend from high school, began voicing his support for breastfeeding soon after you informed him last year that your wife was pregnant.
“Tell her she’s got to breastfeed that baby, man,” Krieger said, neglecting to offer his congratulations. “And not just for the first few months. I’m talking up to a year, heck, two years. It’s what nature intended.”
On Saturday, two months after the baby was born, you and your wife agreed to meet Krieger at a local Italian restaurant, and it was there, according to witnesses, that Krieger’s enthusiasm became alarming.
“If you need to feed your baby, go right ahead,” Krieger said to your wife, 29, soon after you locked the wheels of the stroller containing the sleeping infant. “I won’t even notice.”
During appetizers, Krieger again reminded your wife that she should not worry about making him feel uncomfortable.
“The crime is not that women are exposing their leaking nipples in public, but that they’re made to feel ashamed by the need to nourish their babies with antibody-rich goodness,” Krieger said.
“Your baby’s hungry,” Krieger later said after finishing his ravioli. “I’ve got a sixth sense for that sort of thing. Why don’t you wake her up and feed her? I’ll turn my chair away, if you want.”
Just after you requested the check, an increasingly agitated Krieger again encouraged your wife to seal the bond between mother and child by releasing the contents of her engorged breasts into the infant’s mouth, reminding your wife that she’d feel better, as well.
And seconds before you and your wife hastily departed, Krieger, unknowingly giving himself a lifetime ban from your home, said that he’s not shocked by the sight of women’s breasts, lactating or not, because he takes photos “of that sort of thing” all the time in his professional capacity as an x-ray technician.
This is the second time Krieger has officially been defriended as a result of his concern for women’s health issues. In March of 2013, longtime friends Mark Pula and Laurie Cannon, who had announced they were “trying to get pregnant,” decided they would no longer hang out with Krieger after he showed an unusual interest in the color and viscosity of Cannon’s vaginal discharge, saying it was an important indicator of peak fertility.