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

Of course they do but most people are also lacking in self awareness

Ok

How is it everyone on MN is always the polite one, and everybody else is rude and inconsiderate? Don't the rude ones ever post here?

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.

When we drive I try to point out the people who are being kind and courteous to us, rather than focus on the people who are being aggressive and rude. Through that we see that kindness really outweighs the unpleasant.

At the end of the day most people are vulnerable, we all just want to survive what are currently horribly stressful and uncertain times with as little unpleasantness as possible. I’m not sure going around tutting at people is helping you or other people. Maybe looking out for the good stuff is the way forward. It’ll make you feel better to try to have pleasant interactions.

I do think the way other people treat you is a reflection of what you’re sending out to the world. I am not feeling like you going around a supermarket.

I am a little bit younger than you OP but I feel the same way. Very irritable at the moment.
I would go even further and say I just don’t trust people at all these days. I’ve been let down so badly by men and so called friends over the years that I find it difficult to know who I can trust!
It’s very sad. I used to be so warm and open hearted, used to really believe in true love and good friendships but the rose tinted specs have well and truly gone now

I recommend online shopping. Saves the huffing and puffing.

Also, when you are in your castles with a moat around them and the drawbridge up, remember Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa.

I see you're incapable of constructive reasoned disagreement then. I'll "bore off" if I feel like it, not because you say so. 🙄

Yes

She's entitled to express her opinion. For what it's worth, I agree with what she said. Are you going to tell me to "bore off" as well?

Oh bore off.

I’ve just got to add that on hearing some people say using peri menopause and menopause as an excuse is not acceptable; well, unfortunately it is a scientific fact that the change in hormones affects your moods and an unfortunate side of it does mean you get irritated easily. Just because one woman isn’t affected in the same way as another doesn’t mean they can act holier than thou. Hormonal imbalances massively affect a person’s body and mind. I’m not sure if I’m in the peri meno stage at the moment but I know myself I can get awful PMT symptoms. I feel like an entirely different person at times.
Women are always shamed and made to feel guilty.

If you want friends OP, you're welcome to come and have tea with me and we can laugh about the inconsiderate people we come across. I mean, yesterday I was in the supermarket and there was this woman who would have been in her 50s who parked her trolley across every aisle, every time she stopped. Multiple people moved her trolley or asked her to move it. Yet she did it every time. You think she'd have worked it out after the first couple of times? I thought it was so weird and wondered if she was actually doing it on purpose. Maybe her revenge on the world.

Well said @Thepeopleversuswork ! The irony of the people who hate people being rude and nasty to the people they perceive as rude and nasty.

Its not uncommon to be easily irritated and lacking in patience when you are peri/menopausal: I feel like this a fair bit. It’s pretty common.

But this fetishisation of misanthropy is really self indulgent and childish and I am really sick of it. I see so much of it on here and elsewhere, the endless threads about “introversion” the people celebrating their retreat into the family, the people who claim to “hate people” and the constant whining about the most minor social obligations.

I am really tired of people thinking their inability to manage hormone induced emotional imbalances or to properly cope with their anxiety makes them interesting.

You live in a society. You don’t have to be a professional extrovert or the life and soul. But your life will be far easier and smoother and ultimately more rewarding if you don’t go out of your way to piss people off.

Try living in a place where people really are hostile to you because you are different or because of poverty or instability for a bit. Or trying to extricate yourself from an abusive marriage where you aren’t allowed outside contact. Or just being chronically lonely and isolated. And then try moaning that you “hate people”. People who “hate people” should be careful of what they wish for.

I do talk to people & am happy to see them, occasionally. But the majority, even family, irritate me to a point where I feel violent towards them. My meno was many years ago, perhaps I’m having a very long one,

She’s said plenty back to me and others on this thread. I don’t think the hounds of hell could stop her! I am clearly just one of the hordes of irritating morons in the OP’s life. I can live with that.

So you’re allowed to tell OP you would never be her friend nerr nerr but god forbid she should say the same back 🙄

You're fairly black and white in your approach to that poster. Just because they don't prescribe to the #bekind nonsense doesn't mean they are being unkind now let alone flexing about it.

And yes isn't it interesting that people with different life experiences have different opinions and attitudes.

The #bekind hashtag is annoying but it wasn't even around a decade ago so it's not that you're shaking off. And being unkind isn't the flex you think it is.

I do find it interesting that I was quite misanthropic when young, and have never once had an issue putting myself first, and now I'm the one telling a bunch of people-pleasers that as I get older the more I realise people are alright, actually.

I wasn’t though

I’ve had, and heard of, too many cases where something awful happens and that “village” is nowhere to be seen. Or the village turns up but only for social credit, only to disappear again. I don’t put too much stock in it.

It's definitely a hormonal thing. Perimenopause at its finest. We finally get to shake off that #bekind shit. It's fabulous.

The only sad thing is when you realise that this is how men have felt their whole lives. It's a staggering eye opener! And explains a lot.