Are people really as unkind and mean spirited in real life as they are on here?

[BertrandRussell]

Or do they get it out of their systems by posting on here and are truly lovely in real life?

Oh the irony!
😂😂😂

@SperanzaWilde
I think the difference on here is that it's written down and sometimes painfully visible for all to see so it seems like "judging" goes on a lot more?

Also people think they are being judged when they just dont like an opinion that isn't the same as theirs? I'd say it was a generational thing that "younger" people don't know how to deal with criticism these days but my parents age group are just as bad

And I'm sure you've done the odd eye roll or huff at something someone has done around you 😉 (or is that just me! 🤣)

I can be blunt sometimes, I’ll admit that. I do try though to be thoughtful and think about someone’s situation most of the time.

I think a lot of people on here are very insular. They can't imagine doing a favour for someone with nothing in return. Whereas I believe there's always a benefit even if you learn that someone is a wrong 'un. Cast your bread upon the waters.

I agree, @derxa. It’s the tally chart mentality.....

In the years I’ve lurked/posted on here, it feels that posters have got less tolerant of other human beings and also less funny. I often look through active threads and find nothing I want to read because they are all full of people sniping at others for, as Bertrand said, hoping for other people to cut them a little slack. I wouldn’t dream of posting anything personal on here any more because of it, which makes me sad.

Also people so often don’t READ posts. It’s so common to see an OP that sets out a situation and then half the thread is critical posters who haven’t absorbed the details or are asking questions already answered. Eg the poster who posted a jokey thread the other day about her husband going out and leaving her without chocolate but clearly said that her child was asleep; I swear there were the best part of two pages of posts saying ‘what’s stopping you going out yourself?’.

There seems to be a lot of resentment on MN too, which makes for uncomfortable reading. Maybe because the UK is such a challenging place at the moment. Many of my friends are miserable and anxious at the movement.

I find the people on here ok and don’t have a problem with any of them..

I did once ask the anti brexit lot to stop swearing and they told me to fuck off which confirmed what I suspected anyway. I now know all I need to know and it’s fine. It saves a lot of wasted time.

I

People in real life rarely ask me if they are being unreasonable. If they did I think they'd probably get a "robust" answer occasionally too.

OP isn't a poster I associate with shying away from a bit of, ahem, blunt talking

As I said- i’m not talking about the “robust” boards! Plenty of scope for stomping there...

A surprising choice of topic for the OP - just goes to show that it is all in the perception of the comment!

I can't abide whingers so I'm probably equally harsh IRL and I'm quite happy to be a lone voice among a group

Recently IRL a group I am in had a meet-up and deliberately left someone out (I wasn't able to make it so was never in the organisation for that one and I didn't find out until afterwards) and I did say that I thought they had been mean - they were visibly embarassed. I doubt it will stop them or change their minds about doing it again, but I don't see why it shouldn't be pointed out. If you do it, own it - don't whinge and blame others for your actions.

Also, as I've got older, I find I am less willing to put up with poor behaviour from others. I'd have been more tactful in my long-gone youth.

I’ve posted a couple of times about work situations to seek advice. But at the end of the day, I still do what I want to do or what DH suggests rather than an aggressive internet random.

One involved whether I should start an NHS admin job that I knew I would be leaving in a matter of months. Some of the responses...you would think I had murdered somebody! I was called a drain on the NHS, a selfish person etc. Some comments were really quite viscous.

Well I DID start the job despite being told not to by MN! I left a month later as it was crap! 😂 I’m sure that someone will read that and be frothing. Oh well. As a said, do I care about the thoughts of a random on MN?

I’ve encountered lots of angry MNetters but I just remind myself they are words on a screen. They don’t actually know me. Meh. People are largely dicks on here and in real life. Best avoided!

I think we've lost the ability to disagree with each other without being insulting or nasty. Oneupmanship and generally feeling superior (when we actually feel inferior) seems common now.

The internet has allowed people to be unpleasant and get away with it. In RL, it's not as easy to do so.

“I think we've lost the ability to disagree with each other without being insulting or nasty”

I also think we’ve lost the ability to be disagreed with without feeling that we’ve been personally attacked.

"I also think we’ve lost the ability to be disagreed with without feeling that we’ve been personally attacked"

Aye.

@BertrandRussell totally agree.

I think some posters adapt an MN persona before posting. I can understand that, when I worked, I would adapt a 'fuck you' persona when dealing with a room full of bolshy men (for example), and I assume a lot of posters on here to likewise.

I have very rarely, exceedingly rarely, met anyone in RL who is as obnoxious as they are on here sometimes.

Having said that, I suspect (although this has not been tested yet), that I would be seriously crap at taking 'strong, forthright opinions', and would most likely go cry in a corner 😁

It's the ones where people say " I'd tell them to fuck off" that get me. It's generally something innocuous, and you get people come on and are so aggressive, and say they'd do or say horrible things. It's really bizzare. You think "no you wouldn't, and if you would then you shouldn't be allowed out on your own".

A recent example is, the thread about boys toys. Where a lady approached rhe ops child and said he could play with any toys, not just boys toys. Someone posted they'd have pissed on her. Literally that's what they posted. They would have pissed on her.

Another one from a while ago, old man says to thr op who is getting a sandwich in a shop, that's not good for your waistline or something, people coming on and saying how they would have told him to go fuck himself. It's so disproportionate. You do think either they are exaggerating and what's the point of that, or as said, if they would, they shouldn't be allowed out without supervision.

I know by your name you’re an old poster
(I don’t mean in age) btw .
Therefore you’re used to how MN works. So what’s suddenly upset you.
I personally would never saying on here that I wouldn’t say in RL.
However. Yes I suppose not just on here but most forums are a place for ‘Wouldn’t say boo to a goose people’ to bring out their inner feisty side’

Definitely, disagreeing with someone is often construed as a personal attack. I do think asking people not to swear is provocative, it’s never going to elicit a positive response!

My sister does this in the flesh, @Bluntness100. She once asked me what had made me finally decide to have a child when I’d been leaning towards not, and I said it was partly something thought-provoking said by one of my best friends at the right psychological moment.

Cue my sister breaking out into an aggressive fury about how blatantly interfering my friend had been, she’d have told her to fuck herself, smug parents unable to understand people wanting to be childfree etc etc.

All poured out in this stream of invective, even though I had not actually told her what my friend said (it wasn’t at all intrusive), my sister has never met my friend (they live in different countries), I was clear to my sister that I’d appreciated it, and this had all happened nearly a decade earlier!

It makes her incredibly difficult to be around at times, and it’s lost her friends — this sort of borrowed aggression about something that’s not at all to do with her, and that no one else is asking her to condemn...

Speranza that does sound tough, I was hoping it was just a made up on line race to the bottom thing, not something that happens in real life.☹️

And yes, to thr pp who said disagreement can be taken as a personal attack, you see that all the time on here. Op posts, people disagree and then the op goes nuts, accusing everyone of being mean, venomous, attacking her, when it's quite clear on that particular thread no one actually has.

Some people may well be but i think in general, probably not. The anonymity is probably a big factor in helping people voice their inner thoughts a bit more freely.

Tbh I think when someone does something sad and blatantly attention seeking, e.g., posts a (flattering) picture of themselves, or one of their dcs, then goes, 'oh what should I with my hair' or some such shit. Well, it is obvious that they are just sitting back waiting for people to go 'wow! You're gorgeous!,. That really makes me want to be unkind and mean spirited.

As I said- i’m not talking about the “robust” boards! Plenty of scope for stomping there...

I wasn't either...

But at the notion that you can pretty much say what you want, how you want to, on those boards and it doesn't count towards your MN reputation.

PastelPotential do headless shots count? Sometimes I've needed help with an outfit and people couldn't have been more kind or helpful.

It's very hard to say. I do think people are a lot meaner online purely for the anonymity factor though. Put them face to face with someone and they'd never be quite as rude as they are on here.

For me it's superiority a lot of the time on here. People just like to feel wiser, more moral, better than others. And they speak to them rudely or sarcastically to illustrate this. But it's usual those people who are insecure in other ways. I just don't get nastiness for the sake of nastiness especially when you're talking to sometimes vulnerable strangers online.

Gone off on a bit of a tangent but basically my motto in life and on MN is it's nice to be nice!