To ask why people are so utterly bonkers?

This is hilarious!! We used to get a tiny smidgen when I was growing up😂

I think many lack empathy more than society is willing to admit at this time.

I think the meme sums it up

I had a colleague who had stage 4 cancer and sadly died a few years ago, When she was diagnosed at stage 4 another colleague asked (thankfully not to her but a group of us) why the doctors didn’t just give her a blood transfusion and replace all her blood so it was healthy. She said she’d read online it would cure cancer. She wouldn’t have it that her cancer was in her organs having spread from the primary site via her lymphatic system and so of course this wouldn’t work. And that if this online cure she’d found was real didn’t appear to understand how people would be lining up to give blood so everyone with cancer could be cured. I’m so glad she didn’t spout the bullshit to my unwell colleague.

The same colleague also insisted that a very famous Hollywood actor was contacting her on instagram expressing his love. I can’t remember the name he used but it was a play on words of the famous actor. When we said it wasn’t him that was madly in love with her (& that she’d turned down as she was happily married) she was really offended. She insisted he was real and we were jealous that he’d fallen for her after seeing her photo. Hopefully she didn’t part with any money.

Just to add this person had a good degree, was very intelligent in other ways and well read which made these stories all the more strange.

I used to live in a rural place- just about everyone was bonkers one way or another, myself included. Very little reported violence though, no break ins and the police said they generally visited the village for crime about twice in 5 years.
I moved to a built up area, people much more apparently sane but violence and crime and daily arrests.
I think in close quarters peoples bonker tendencies become emphasised whereas in wider spaces their eccentricity can be socially tolerated and given space to decompress and diffuse so it doesn’t become pathological
sorry, I am not expressing this well, just people were not less mad in the country but somehow it was more tolerated and the truly barmy were afforded the accolade of local character

Totally agree. The fake naval officer story made me like

Like just why.............?

Must have a very empty life. I can't imagine making up such shite.

He got into trouble for it too didn't he? But the humiliation, and everyone knowing what a liar and a fraud he is, is far worse than his fine and suspended sentence.

And the young woman pretending to be Maddie McCann. Just why?

Again, must have an empty life.....

I have ADHD. The only thing I’ve ever had because of it is stress!

I was on a train a few months ago and the woman next to me got an entire Battenburg loaf cake out and just ate it like an apple 🤣 I have to admit I was on envy of that much ability to not give a fuck.

Ok what ones are true...and don't tell me orange smarties don't taste of orange and it's because of the colour I taste it...I blindfolded myself

You only have to watch the documentary of the Shannon Matthew’s case ( poor girl) to realise the sheer extent some people will go to for attention or imagined rewards/go funds etc . The fact it was her mother was just so truly awful .

Mumsnet is full of it 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I'm completely stumped at why the people who have claimed to know Madeline McCaan's whereabouts have done so? or the utterly crazed woman claiming to be her has said so, knowing fully well, she knows ziltch about the girl. What's more disturbing is these people hold down normal jobs and live and walk amongst us like normal people. There's nothing normal about them.

Also people who climb mountains in flip flops because it’s all sunny and warm at the bottom and then it changes when they get near the summit. The same ones that walk close to the sea shore in stormy weather and then get swept out to sea etc etc

The friend mentioned earlier in the thread was saying today (she's childless and semi-retired btw) that the reason for the rise in ADHD, dyslexia etc is because parents get more child benefit if their child has a diagnosis of this type...

I loved The Fraud.

Anastasia had so many impersonators but tbf at least some were mentally unwell.

Tbf fake officers were a thing before the Internet.

We interviewed a guy who told us he was SAS and I was like yeah right...gave him the job anyway as he was best candidate .turned out he absolutely was SAS...on the WDW show in first couple of series...I was mortified.

people have always been bonkers but pre-internet it was much more time consuming to do things like poison pen letters and the reach was very small. If you wanted to compose a missive made from letters of the alaphabet cut out from a newspaper you would have to go to a lot of of time and trouble and it must have take ages. These days you just go online, say stuff and potentially reach millions.

I don't think it was fake, I think @BarryKentPoet was being witty about the realms of madness spanning from the macro(n) level in the OP to the micro level of the spuds thread.

😂😂😂You got me on the Cockerel story!💜

My fil claims to have cancer and had an only a few years to live, 15years later he’s still here fit and healthy. Nobody has said they don’t believe him and even I’ve gone along with it because I don’t want to be the twat who says someone has lied about having cancer! I can easily see how people are believed!

Nah, it's not new at all. Think of that ye olde woman who pretended she'd given birth to rabbits and a bunch of scientists believed her. Or the folk who put a cockerel on trial for witchcraft. Humans have been and always will be crackers.

Oh is that one fake? Strange thing to do. But I find it odd how people start threads on the most inane things sometimes, like every minor situation has to be turned into a thread.

Some of them are true though. Maybe listen to your intelligent friends more 😆

Isn't that a shepherds pie you cant be arsed to mash. Discuss...I'm off too🤣