Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

217 replies

Totallybannanas · 09/03/2025 14:46

I’m approaching 45 and have noticed that my people-pleasing tendencies have faded. Lately, I find myself feeling more irritated by others and have little desire to be around people I don’t know. Today at the supermarket, my frustration kept building—I caught myself tutting and muttering under my breath. Between people blocking aisles with their trolleys, chatting in large groups so I couldn’t get to the shelves, and kids getting in the way, it was all just too much. The rising cost of food and frequent empty shelves only added to my annoyance.
I’ve even started avoiding my neighbors because I don’t have the patience for small talk and need a lot of alone time. Meeting up with friends and family feels more like an obligation than something I enjoy. I’ve always been introverted and made the effort, but now I just want to stay home, even spending time away from my husband. I genuinely enjoy my own space and just relaxing.
Can anyone else relate? I know I’m not perfect and probably irritate others too, but the irony is that I find most people inconsiderate, rude, and unpredictable! 😳

OP posts:
rallyingcry · 10/03/2025 07:50

This reply has been withdrawn

Message withdrawn - posted on wrong thread

MaggieBsBoat · 10/03/2025 07:47

I literally cannot abide other humans.
I just about manage my kids
My husband 75% of the time.

That’s it. The rest can do one.
I‘m 51 and perimenopausal (I guess, bloody periods still like clockwork).

gannett · 10/03/2025 07:45

StillLifeWithEggs · 09/03/2025 22:01

Large numbers of posters have strongly implied this by ascribing their irritability to menopause or peri-menopause depleting their ‘people-pleasing’ oestrogen — therefore their oestrogen-depleted state is the ‘enlightened’ one in which they truly see the profound awfulness, rudeness and inconsiderateness of the rest of humanity without the warm-and-fuzzy ‘oestrogen goggles’.

Show quote history

Exactly this.

It's just a thread of women bonding over toxic behaviour.

It's weirdly teenage, I went through a big "this world is bullshit and people are all awful" phase when I was 15.

Original poster
Totallybannanas · 10/03/2025 07:44

Totallybannanas · 10/03/2025 07:40

It was under my breath for goodness sake, and people were being inconsiderate leaving their trollies in the middle of the isle not just once but continuously or standing in groups chatting and not moving oblivious to everyone trying to get past. Now that's rude!

Show quote history

Oh and I didn't tutt in the queue, why would I if people are queuing politely.

OP posts:
Original poster
Totallybannanas · 10/03/2025 07:40

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

It was under my breath for goodness sake, and people were being inconsiderate leaving their trollies in the middle of the isle not just once but continuously or standing in groups chatting and not moving oblivious to everyone trying to get past. Now that's rude!

OP posts:
Original poster
Totallybannanas · 10/03/2025 07:36

TheFatCatsWhiskers1 · 10/03/2025 01:20

I feel exactly the same.

I’m also becoming increasingly intolerant of noise - road noise, people noise, shrieking, DIY, building works etc. In the last few years it’s started to me feel massively on edge and when I hear a neighbour’s flat door go I often find myself flinching involuntarily.

Yes! I can't stand loud noises too but I do work in a noisy environment. I need to come home and decompress for 30 mins.

OP posts:
FancyNewt · 10/03/2025 07:29

I'm 51. I must be an outlier, but I'm making more effort to see friends now the DCs are grown up. I was never a massive social butterfly anyway, but I am enjoying having the freedom to do what I want. I space out my socialising to once a fortnight which is a good balance for me. I am lucky as I have some good friends I've known for 20 plus years.

I'm less tolerant of drama eg bitching and moaning for the sake of it.

I'm definitely not great with people who keep making the same mistakes and then complaining about it.

Hotcoffeebutok · 10/03/2025 07:09

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Hotcoffeebutok · 10/03/2025 07:08

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Hotcoffeebutok · 10/03/2025 07:06

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Llllllllppppp · 10/03/2025 06:53

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

I don’t think anybody on this thread (me included) feel any of the things you have stated in your first paragraph. They are a different sort of person again.

And I’m happy not being a people-pleaser anymore, I’ve finally learnt that I can put myself first too, and that’s quite liberating! I wish I’d learnt to do it earlier in my life.

Hotcoffeebutok · 10/03/2025 06:36

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Areolaborealis · 10/03/2025 04:09

I always wondered why my mother went supermarket shopping so early in the morning when it was "quiet" but now I understand. Where 20 years ago I loved a packed, city centre nightclub on a Saturday night, I now prefer a quiet trip to the garden centre on a Sunday morning.

I'm 42!

daisychain01 · 10/03/2025 04:01

StillLifeWithEggs · 09/03/2025 17:42

I’m 52, and that’s exactly how I was brought up. However, I could see it wasn’t benefiting me by my late teens, and worked on unpicking those unhelpful, gendered scripts.

Show quote history

I went on an amazing Women in Leadership programme where the lightbulb moment was learning about the concept of the Loyal Soldier who had resolutely stayed "on duty" through childhood and made us hold onto a bunch of unhelpful habits (people pleasing, being "kind", apologising for everything, not interrupting and allowing other to talk over us because our views were not as valid as theirs). The idea in this course was to identify those unhelpful habits, then mentally stand down our Loyal Soldier and resolve to eliminate the habits.

Bloody help, I never realised how many self-sabotaging habits I had, but it was transformational and liberating when I let them go (and the people who were dragging me down, but I had kept them in my life out of some false sense of duty).

I don't mind supermarkets but maybe that's because I go when it's quiet or get DH to do all the shopping Grin

mathanxiety · 10/03/2025 03:54

@Whateverwhateve
60 here too, and I agree.
Maybe it's a case of coming out the other end, hormones stabilising, and getting used to the new normal.

Though I'm a person who has always been a people watcher, so I find supermarkets interesting.

healena · 10/03/2025 01:49

I'm 45 too and also have little tolerance for others and few friends as I can't be bothered with the people-pleasing. I'm not convinced it's perimenopause for me - I have no other physical symptoms and I don't expect to be close to menopause based on my mother's age at menopause.

I live quite an isolated life socially - I get out and about with my family but rarely interacting with others outside of my family and that's not been a problem at all. I don't feel it's important to maintain social links as I feel fine without them. I have had hard times and still preferred to keep myself to myself as I feel it's important to be resilient and independent, so I expect I'll never really need a village as others put it.

TheFatCatsWhiskers1 · 10/03/2025 01:20

I feel exactly the same.

I’m also becoming increasingly intolerant of noise - road noise, people noise, shrieking, DIY, building works etc. In the last few years it’s started to me feel massively on edge and when I hear a neighbour’s flat door go I often find myself flinching involuntarily.

Whateverwhateve · 10/03/2025 01:01

As a normal functioning 60 year old .I just am surprised that people blame menopause on every change in thoughts and feelings.
Peri menopause was never in my vocabulary 15 years ago,just thought that heavy periods,hot flushes etc was a normal expectation for every female.🤷‍♀️

SnowFrogJelly · 10/03/2025 00:28

Agree it doesn't have to be about the menopause

SnowFrogJelly · 10/03/2025 00:27

I know exactly how you feel OP

StillLifeWithEggs · 10/03/2025 00:24

Iamnotabot · 09/03/2025 23:33

It’s like semi - permanent state of PMT. I don’t think many people will argue that’s enlightenment 😂

Show quote history

I think that’s what they are saying, though. That the warm-and-fuzzies of oestrogen were distorting their vision, and now they see clearly? And they don’t like what they see.

NewMarmiteJar · 10/03/2025 00:16

YANBU

RogueFemale · 09/03/2025 23:49

@Moonlightdust I often dream about being alone on a desert island. I’d take the cat.

You can't take the cat, the cat would hate a desert island, let alone the travel to it.

Iamnotabot · 09/03/2025 23:33

StillLifeWithEggs · 09/03/2025 22:01

Large numbers of posters have strongly implied this by ascribing their irritability to menopause or peri-menopause depleting their ‘people-pleasing’ oestrogen — therefore their oestrogen-depleted state is the ‘enlightened’ one in which they truly see the profound awfulness, rudeness and inconsiderateness of the rest of humanity without the warm-and-fuzzy ‘oestrogen goggles’.

Show quote history

It’s like semi - permanent state of PMT. I don’t think many people will argue that’s enlightenment 😂

Swiftie1878 · 09/03/2025 23:04

LillyPJ · 09/03/2025 20:50

Why does everything have to be about the menopause? Some people just like to be alone, or become more self-sufficient as they get older, or find that the world is noisier and busier than it used to be.

Show quote history

This is a self-observed change in OPs character.