Before we got a car I used to take the bus fairly frequently to get around. This particular incident happened during summer a few years back when I was in my 20s.
I was headed downtown to do some errands, chose a seat on the bus away from everyone else so priority seating was free for people who needed it and to avoid talking to strangers (ironically for this reason).
About 10 minutes into the trip this absolutely massive man I've never seen around before gets on, heads over to where I'm sitting and plops down a seat away from me.
He says hello, his name is K, and that he likes my sun dress. He's an older guy, at least mid to late 50s and seems harmless, so I didn't think anything of it. I say thank you and go back to my phone hoping he'll leave me be because I really don't feel like chatting.
Then he starts telling me his life story (we're talking an unsolicited 15 minutes plus) and how he just got out of the hospital fighting cancer. I politely congratulate him on that (because it's a shitty thing to have to go through) and offer nothing else to the conversation.
He keeps talking, more to himself than to me, eventually whining about how lonely he is and how he wishes he could "find a girlfriend to buy a green. velvet. dress. for". At this point I'm weirded right out because (at the time) no one outside of Christmas in the 90s would be caught dead in a green velvet dress and the way he said it was so oddly specific it made my skin crawl.
I say nothing and am now madly texting my girlfriend about how unbelievably uncomfortable I am that this guy is either parading his velvet dress kink out in public or may potentially have a freezer full of green velvet dress wearing corpses.
K then asks me if I would like "my boyfriend" to buy me a green velvet dress. It wasn't a hypothetical question of an imaginary boyfriend, the tone of his voice made it pretty clear he wanted to include me in his little freaky frock fantasy.
Super creeped out and irritated that he won't leave me alone, I tell him very plainly that I'm gay, have a girlfriend and that I absolutely hate velvet.
That finally shut him up.
I never saw K again after I left at my stop, but I still cringe whenever I see velvet used in women's clothing and not just because it's hideous.