AIBU to think people are less sociable and friendly nowadays?

It's a bit entitled to expect people to drop what they're doing or put their own needs aside to amuse you whenever you fancy, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with people wanting to finish what they're doing or have a bit of peace. It doesn't make them unfriendly and unsociable.

I leave my work premises at lunchtime so I don’t have to speak to my colleagues. It’s the only time to myself I get.

For many mothers, a fitness class once a week might be their ONLY chance to get a bit of peace and quiet. Literally one hour to themselves, and they have to entertain a strangers inane questions. I crave anonymity sometimes as a working mother, no one demanding anything of me.

i think people are also wary of where it leads. I have in the past been over friendly with new people eg at a hobby. Once I’ve got to know them I’ve realised I don’t like them. But it’s not always mutual, and leads to them not leaving you alone and you have to switch class!

I do wonder as well how many people with headphones on, are actually listening to something, and how many are just using them as a visual message to others to leave them in peace.

I agree. And its all now covered by the blanket justification that everyone is an “introvert” and their right to sit on their own with their phone takes precedence over anything else.

FWIW I do think making conversation with a random on the bus is a bit much and I would have preferred to be left alone but in the other cases OP did nothing wrong. I do think our perception of benign and light social contact with others as intrusive is symptomatic of a wider malaise in society.

We have become incredibly atomised and this leads people to believe they have some inalienable right to never have to interact with others outside their immediate family.

Actually small acts of daily friendliness are part of the glue that binds society together. If we lose this we lose all sense of others as people with their own lives and needs. And we make the alienation worse. Social interaction is a muscle and if we lose it it’s hard to get it back.

OP’s behaviour may have been mildly irritating but the sense of horror at having to interact with others is far worse.

But I would see a ‘small act of daily friendliness’ to be something like helping a stranger who is clearly struggling with something rather than expecting a random stranger to provide you with a review of a class. The first is friendly and kind and yes a glue that binds society together, but the latter is actually an entitled expectation of others that isn’t kind.

I would think about your own social cues and reading other people's social cues. It can be off putting if people don't get this right.

I and very friendly and chatty and get a vast amount of people approach me. I make friends easily. Sometimes you click with people, sometimes you don't. I can end up chatting to randoms, but sometimes they give off weird vibes, or are just poor at reading social cues. Maybe they drone on about a topic I am not interested in. Maybe they interact for too long or get the timing wrong

I travel alone a lot and have often ended up hanging out with a stranger for the day, or joining them for a meal. It just evolved naturally though.

If someone is too intense, or tries too hard, it feels uncomfortable though so I would try to end the interaction.

I remember once being pitched next to another solo woman traveller. She was the sort of person who talked out loud about what she was doing, or talking to her dogs loudly, in such a way that she was trying to invite interaction, but she wouldn't stop, wouldn't let me be in peace, and was unable to pick up on the social cues.

I don’t think OP was expecting a “review”, it was a basic attempt to make conversation?

She wasn’t expecting the woman to become her BFF, just wanted two minutes of chat. The woman could have replied in a sentence with a brief description and a smile and she would have been done.

When did that become “intrusive”? It’s part of the basis building blocks of bonding with others.

When I was young this was seen as absolutely necessary and normal, not something to be shunned. Why have we come to see normal human interaction as something malignant and rude?

As opposed to people thinking they have the inalienable right to foist themselves on strangers for no reason?

Of course it’s sometimes necessary to interact with someone, like to ask them a question about whether this is the right train or whatever. Nobody has an issue with that.

But there is a difference between asking for and giving information and being expected to listen politely when someone decides that you are remotely interested in exchanging small talk.

Apparently headphones, not looking at people etc are no barrier to that. They then decide to tap you on the arm to get your attention.

I note you are yet another poster blaming phones - it was books and a Walkman before phones. These should serve as social cues that someone doesn’t want to talk but apparently the lack of manners in society now has ensured that people just go on regardless.

I think you would find at most workplaces that ignoring two lots of strong social cues and going to sit by the person anyway is more than mildly irritating - it marks out the person as someone whom you dare not be too friendly with because she’s a bit full on.

I often have nothing playing but either way people seem to expect you to take them out and talk shit with them!

If you take them out to hear someone speaking to you (in case it’s to ask or tell you something relevant) then the ones who just want a chat don’t bat an eyelid.

Constant constantly have headphones on public transport.Because I don't want to hear other people's tinny mobile phone music, orvideos, their banal video conversations or their general annoying behaviour.

It gave plausible deniability, as you literally can't hear somebody speaking to you.Which is perfect.

Because it ignores and dismisses what the other person wants or needs. The op at that point had absolutely no idea about the other woman or her life, there could be thousands of reasons that woman did not want to talk , even for a second with a stranger. The ops need to talk shouldn’t trump the other persons very clear need not to. If you want to know what a class is like, you ask the person on reception, the teacher, or maybe someone who offers you a smile when you’re waiting. It’s just about reading the room, that’s all.

You come across as weird, intrusive and entitled.

That's why people don't want to talk to you.

And just a tip - people may be sitting on their own very happily and not want to meet anyone. You seem to think it's an unacceptable state that you must change which is one of the reasons you seem so weird and intrusive.

Are you interrupting people talking to others and trying to talk to them? Probably not, because you'd hopefully see that as rude. It's just as rude to interrupt someone sitting happily alone.

And with regard to ‘when I was young this was seen as normal’, yes, yes it was, but very very many people were masking to fit in with social norms, and then coming home exhausted from wearing a mask all day. I think it’s a good thing that people now get to choose. There are plenty of people who want and are happy to be social and friendly, but also many don’t. Both options should be available.

Yes. My last one of those was in a big department store where a little girl & her mum couldn’t find the toilets, so I pointed them out.

Quick, easy & helpful, & then we could all get on with our day.

The word "need" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Why is the OP's "need to talk" thought to be entitled and the other woman's "very clear need not to" not? You seem to take as your starting point that most people would prefer not to talk than to talk. I just don't think that's normal or healthy and I don't think everyone shares this.

From what we can tell from what OP has posted, she made a casual, throwaway request to learn a bit more about what the class was like. If I'm standing in a queue for an exercise or a yoga class and someone asks me what it's like it costs me nothing to say "it's quite chilled" or "it's full on". Even people who are very tired or depressed can usually manage this and then go back to their podcast or whatever it is they are doing. Job done. No great stress, no trauma.

If the OP had then gone on to chatter away to this woman ad nauseam and ignored social cures then it would have been reasonable to be irritated. And in the bus example I think the OP did overstep

But to take as your starting point that no one should ever try to make basic, passing conversation with someone they don't already know is definitely a new phenomenon. If you take that to its logical conclusion, that takes you to a place where you have to ask permission to talk to people. Which is pretty dystopian.

@arethereanyleftatall

And with regard to ‘when I was young this was seen as normal’, yes, yes it was, but very very many people were masking to fit in with social norms, and then coming home exhausted from wearing a mask all day. I think it’s a good thing that people now get to choose. There are plenty of people who want and are happy to be social and friendly, but also many don’t. Both options should be available.

I'm sorry, I'm familiar with the concept of masking and I know this is very draining and stressful for some people but the idea that you have to "mask" to say "yes its a good class" to someone in a queue before going back to what you were doing is taking this to ludicrous extremes. Getting on your high horse and saying, in a snarky, bitchy way "it's a fitness class" is far more stress inducing for all concerned than a simple, courteous throwaway reply.

It's perfectly possibly to reply courteously to someone in a single sentence without it causing psychological damage. We seem to have got to a place where people think a need to be untouched by human contact on a daily basis is a right. This is far more "entitled" than making passing conversation.

If you really are unable to deal with a five word reply to another human being without having a meltdown then you shouldn't be going out of the house at all.

Because if you decide to initiate social contact, you are making that decision for both you and the other person. The other person is just minding their own business until you pipe up.

As for being dystopian, being made to feel crowded or uncomfortable by a stranger because they are too thick to read social cues is pretty dystopian too. Why would you deliberately want to put someone in the position where they either have to pretend and be polite or they feel they have to be blunt? That’s really crappy.

People have to interpret body language all the time so why is this so difficult to understand? Speak to people if you get the cues that it’s welcome. If you don’t, then leave them alone. Otherwise you are doing it purely for your own benefit.

The reason I hate interaction is because I’m ND not because I’m an introvert. I have had to learn social cues but I find it tiring, I can be polite of course usually but I don’t see why I should be subjected to having to feign interest in someone’s conversation when the very fact they have approached me (and in the case of the OP’s scenario, actively sought the person out) means that they aren’t someone I want to interact with due to their lack of knowledge of social cues.

The fact she seems to target people on their own despite them showing no interest in talking to her is going to elicit a negative response potentially. It sounds so bloody intense, and those of us capable of picking up on social cues will often instinctively want to avoid someone like that.

Because, as the OP has said in her post, she got the vibe that her colleague didn’t want to chat, yet she cheerfully ignored that.

Exchanging a few words is okay but some people are too intense to be satisfied with that.

That's an odd reply. Yes I have drummed into my child that she does not owe anyone a conversation - well i will be more specific, she does not have to pander to creepy men as I was taught to be. She is however exceedingly polite, can make conversation with lots of different types and ages of people, volunteers at our local library when they have craft stuff for kids where she has to interact with some quite demanding grandparents.

But you are saying that the ops need for conversation and he wants and needs trumps anyone else's need to not talk. It doesn't.

I think teaching children (esp girls) that they don’t owe ANYONE a conversation outside of say professional interaction) is a good thing.

We are still so conditioned to be polite and that is why menopausal women often get this revelation that they no longer feel obliged to be ‘nice’ no matter what.

Weirdly I have found the phrases that people tell their children to use (‘don’t touch me’, ‘please leave me alone’) quite useful when dealing with pushy adults! Probably because if someone has been that full on despite cues to the contrary, it shows they have no more awareness than a small child. 😬

@Anarchy99

As for being dystopian, being made to feel crowded or uncomfortable by a stranger because they are too thick to read social cues is pretty dystopian too. Why would you deliberately want to put someone in the position where they either have to pretend and be polite or they feel they have to be blunt? That’s really crappy.

I think it's a question of setting and intensity: if someone is yammering away at you for minutes, talking to you when you have headphones in, talking away when you've made it clear that you don't want to participate in a conversation, sitting next to you on an empty bus or train and chatting away ceaselessly then clearly that is intrusive.

But the logical conclusion of what you and @arethereanyleftatall are saying is that the default setting for everyone should be to never initiate any contact with anyone who they don't know other than transactional discussions. So, for example, you should never ask anyone at the bus stop how long they've been waiting for a bus, or never say "what a grim day" when you're caught in the middle of a downpour with a bunch of people. You really think that's "crappy" behaviour?

I just don't accept that these basic throwaway interactions are automatically intrusive. I'm perfectly capable of reading social cues and if someone doesn't want to talk much to me I won't push it. I don't want long chats with strangers either. But I don't want to live in a world where you have to ask permission to interact with people. I don't think most people want that and I do think this leads to a place which is, yes, pretty dystopian.

I find the ability to sit quietly and be happy with one's own company quite often has a correlation with ones level of intelligence. It's the type of person who talks back to the screen when at the cinema or theatre who just has to be talking all the time, where is your inner world?

I also can't abide those people who try and include you in their conversation, quite often they will be complaining about something and trying to get you to join in by speaking loudly and making eye contact. There is a bloke at my gym who talks to everyone, it's 6am and peoples body language is screaming please stop but he cannot or will not for some reason.