To not like being around other people the older I get...

Bitter about what?

Love this. I'm still feeling very nurturing and peopley and I'm surprised that's a symptom as older women are usually more caring than anyone.

That’s really what you took from that post? Sorry but you sound very bitter.

I think it's a reflection on people being unhappy with themselves. So easy to project it out to other people! I do it myself.

Agree with you. I think as a nation or as a generation we have become much more inward looking. This has a negative effect on everyone, unfortunately.

It's probably societal, economic, situational as much as on an individual level. It is much easier to remain isolated these days when we have the internet and home delivery and so on.

I feel this way at 40!!

I did. But the OP was saying that she was tutting and muttering under her breath simply because others were being irritating and selfish.
Not that she wants everyone else to be sunshine and rainbows WHILST she can carry on ‘huffing and puffing’

She was saying bc she has little patience for people. And I kind of see where she is coming from. I don’t mutter or tut but by god some people are so lacking in spacial awareness and are so utterly selfish when you’re out and about that it’s hard not to get annoyed by them.

Dont get me wrong, on my morning walk I will try catch everyone’s eye who I meet and smile or say good morning. But idiots in the supermarkets are another breed.

She bristled particularly, I realised, if I got into the car in a good mood. Which did not last long, obviously, in her company… She also worked as a bouncer at night — I’m not sure whether it was teaching driving or bouncing that had soured her so radically.

I'm older than you ,56, but have become totally intolerant of men. I'm late to the menopause experience, but now I'm in it, I feel that your hormones drop, taking the scales from your eyes with them. Suddenly you see people clearly.

There is no ten items or less sign. There's not actually any stated limit. Then again, I do shop at a time of day there will always be free ones. Doing it myself I know I get my supermarket items packed properly (i.e., don't get meat and cleaning products in same bag, or meat and vegetables to be eaten raw in the same bag, etc).

Outrageous! I'd be behind you passively aggressively staring at the 10 items or less sign! 🤣

I'd like to think I'm polite in the supermarket. I make sure to keep my trolley out of the way, I wait patiently for my turn to get something. Then again, I tend to go to the supermarket when it's quieter and I don't mind going to the supermarket at all. The part I find annoying is when I get home and have to haul it all inside.

Oh wait, I do have an annoying supermarket quirk which is probably taking more items than some people think I should through the self checkout. Too bad.

But none of those are on MN. Only the ones who are incredibly considerate and polite, while secretly detesting everyone.

More than half the general public behave like this in supermarkets and the other half want to. It's not menopause or peri or anything else, it's just that places are crowded and shit lol.

Or I can say how I really feel here while still behaving in public like I'm meant to, still being nice to people because I know they are likely carrying their own burdens and why would I want to make their day harder?

I am a very supportive person, I help those around me and strangers more readily than most, I help wildlife too, I smile at people who look like they need it and feel good if it seems to brighten their day a bit, I'm still nice to people who are doing annoying things like leaving their trolleys across the aisle in every single aisle, I let people in when I'm driving when I don't have to (and it's not a traffic hazard to do so).

But I still feel like I want to be alone much of the time, find socialising tiring and do have fair boundaries. If I didn't tell you how I was feeling, if you met me you'd never know.

did you not read the op? About the huffing and puffing? The irritation?

And yet, here you are, being judgemental and self-important 🤔

@bozzabollix

I teach people to drive, in order to do this with a modicum of pleasure and success I need to get on with people. There’s always something to like about someone, always, even if at first it doesn’t seem obvious or they are quite brittle in manner.

Exactly. This is exactly how I feel.

If I look back through my life there's always something to like about even the least "likeable" people. I've always found something, a glimmer of identification or warmth. You don't have to become their best friend or even a friend. You just have to be able to find some common ground.

Life is hard and stressful at the best of times and modern lives don't bring out the best in people. Of course its going to be hard when you're constantly rubbing up against people you wouldn't have chosen to spend time with, some of whom you will actively dislike.

But the beauty of being a human being is that there's always something in everyone, if you look for it. If you resolutely shut the door on people and retreat into your brittle and self-important little shell you're drastically reducing your own odds of getting anything out of people. It's such a self-defeating attitude.

I can't bear people like your driving instructor. Very wearing, all that bristling.

I say this as a post menopausal woman who takes the Tube or a bus daily.

You sound like an excellent driving instructor! I had one about twelve years ago (only lasted a few lessons with her) who was a misanthrope whom I could feel bristling with irritation at other road users and who, as we drove around our area (she lived in the next village) kept saying ‘Oh, you can run him over if you like!’ if we passed a pedestrian. I laughed the first time. By the tenth time, I was thinking, I am in a car with a loon who hates the entire population of her village.

Yep the "introverts" and professional misanthropists have it right: they are always the enlightened ones, the ones who "tell it like it is" and live their rarefied lives without the hated sheeple who have the affrontery to smile at them at the bus stop or ask them how they are. What desperate, petty lives these smiley people must lead.

That normally lasts them for a bit before they have to rush onto Mumsnet or Reddit and tell another few hundred people how much they hate people and how they prefer to live without them and not to have communicate with anyone other than their husband... oh wait...

It's all utterly performative and attention seeking.

How I'm dealing with this is joining groups with a focus on things I have an interest in. İt means that often like-minded people join, or if they're still not your cup of tea you're focused on the activity rather than them. And you're not wasting your time on activities or people that you don't care about. I think this is a time of life, where we go inwards more, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I also just allow myself to be direct. For example, a young guy in a shop at the weekend just inserted himself into my conversation with a (female) assistant. There was an issue, a mix up on their part, so it was a slightly difficult conversation but in no way heated. He repeated the same thing she'd said but in a different way, adding nothing to help the situation. I just said quite evenly, "I don't really understand what your point is. What exactly are you saying? " Would never have been that direct years ago. I find it helps relieve the annoyance when people are, actually, being annoying 😅

I must have completely missed where the OP said this

I'm the shame. I crave my own space. I find the world today so overwhelming and stressful.

For once, just once, I want to see a post saying "I am a really annoying person and I annoy everybody around me. I know everybody else wants to move to a desert island and avoid me."