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Original poster

So many angry people around

138 replies

RainCloud · 27/07/2022 09:57

Has anyone else noticed this? I've seen arguments over parking, people arguing in shops, mumsnet threads turning into fights (more so than usual 😂). I generally keep myself to myself when I'm out and about and ignore most people but I've had people tutting and foot stamping behind me in queues. There just seem to be so many people getting angry at the moment.

Is is the heat? Finances / cost of living? Post covid lock down trauma?

OP posts:
antelopevalley · 27/07/2022 14:02

@Festoonlights Leaving the EU is stopping many people moving to Europe. I did not move and now wonder if I should have when I got the chance. DP and I are in our fifties, do not do jobs where there are shortages and are not high earners, no bugger would want us. But we didn't move before because our kids are in secondary school, so a tricky time to move. Ideally i would like to have moved abroad in about five years time. They will not take us.

Kamia · 27/07/2022 14:06

I always felt like this in London especially people are just miserable, up north people seem a bit more friendly. Particularly when I come back from holiday where there's happy, carefree people and then come back and everyone is standing in long queues looking fed up and miserable I think yup I'm back in the UK.

Festoonlights · 27/07/2022 14:07

The most striking anger I notice is angry male drivers. Always been polite before but lately just so rude and aggressive,

customer service has plummeted almost everywhere causing resentment and anger as we are paying the same or more for an inferior experience/product

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Cost of living
Suzi888 · 27/07/2022 14:09

Thereisnolight · 27/07/2022 10:34

I think everywhere is so crowded and human life is not valued. Everyone shouting and jostling to be heard. We’re like battery chickens. We need fewer people in the world.

Made much worse I imagine by Twitter - I never go on there except by accident, and even a minute or two on Twitter sends my well-being plummeting and my fury rising. Everyone there so convinced that THEY are so important and right. I can’t imagine if helps anyone’s mental health.

Too many people….. ^

Festoonlights · 27/07/2022 14:11

antelopevalley · 27/07/2022 14:02

@Festoonlights Leaving the EU is stopping many people moving to Europe. I did not move and now wonder if I should have when I got the chance. DP and I are in our fifties, do not do jobs where there are shortages and are not high earners, no bugger would want us. But we didn't move before because our kids are in secondary school, so a tricky time to move. Ideally i would like to have moved abroad in about five years time. They will not take us.

You can easily move if you want to - you just need to spend some time on holiday/elsewhere for a short time each year. No big deal at all.
There is a whole world beyond a few countries close to us. We plan to try out Canada!

antelopevalley · 27/07/2022 14:15

@Festoonlights anywhere we would want to move to as residents, we are not eligible. We have to be able to work, we are not rich. We have looked.

Original poster
RainCloud · 27/07/2022 14:16

Dinogirl50 · 27/07/2022 13:15

I’m on a new estate ,it’s so packed tightly together,from my bedroom window I can see in to around 10 small back gardens,in the summer everyone is playing music ,trying to use their garden as much as possible,one family rigged up the Tv so they can watch in the garden,and everyone else has to listen to what they are watching.
no one is considerate of anyone else ,next door have long conversations on loud speaker ,teenagers playing thumping music with windows open ,and so many having arguments that we can hear every word of .
it’s very very squashed and claustrophobic.
the town we live in has Expanded with 3 new housing estates ,I’ve been here 20 years and the towns housing has doubled .but there are not double facilities,not double swimming pools ,and actually less shops ,because so many are now sitting empty,.the town center has no shoe shops ,no clothes shops ,no greengrocer,it’s all charity shops and coffee shops ,with 4/5 barbers .that’s about it .

Your post sums up how life is for so many people. A lot of people just don't care for their neighbours anymore.

Gosh, my OP has turned into something much more existential than I first thought.

OP posts:
Original poster
RainCloud · 27/07/2022 14:17

Kamia · 27/07/2022 14:06

I always felt like this in London especially people are just miserable, up north people seem a bit more friendly. Particularly when I come back from holiday where there's happy, carefree people and then come back and everyone is standing in long queues looking fed up and miserable I think yup I'm back in the UK.

I'm in the north. It's just as bad up here now.

OP posts:
Ohthatsexciting · 27/07/2022 14:19

Most on mumsnet

not in my RL. Not even close. Friends and family and general experience of going about life - most seem happy!

Lovely very affluent SE town bathed in beautiful weather - probably has something to do with it

Kazzyhoward · 27/07/2022 14:20

@Whitehorsegirl

I am leaving London because of all the above.

Good luck finding somewhere without all those issues!

TammyOne · 27/07/2022 14:25

I think a lot of the things mentioned contribute: overcrowding, stress about money, powerlessness, Covid, Brexit, computer says no, social media but at it's heart a lot of those things come down to the effect extreme Capitalism has had on us in the last 15 years.
I remember the years post 1997, after Labour got in, and life felt easier (having grown up in the 80s in a depressed part of the country). Although New Labour were capitalist, and did some things that were very foolish in the long term, the sense was that the boot was off the neck of the country for a while. I benefitted from things like Children's centres and Sure Start. This was before the media started all the benefits scroungers TV shows, and before Tony Blair tuned out to be a liar about the Iraq War. The mood was optimistic and society felt more socially mobile.
After years of austerity and Tory rule I just think that the current mood is a result of endless cuts-to mental health services, to schools, to social care, to benefits, and the accumulated stress is showing.
When you have a government who let massive corporations do what they like (so the Tesco lady has shit working conditions), sell off all the country's assets, decimate Legal aid, allow housing to become unaffordable, and on and on, the end result is a people who have no control over their own lives, and who have to work 3 times as hard for less reward.
When I first left school in the 90s and had a boring office job, it was at least quite fun and a bit of a doss. Are any jobs a bit of a doss anymore? Is there any fun left to be had in any workplace? It just feels like the bosses want to squeeze more out of you, for less money, and there is fuck all we can do about it. So, people do what trapped rats do when they are fighting over scraps-bite each other.
Wow, now I am depressed!

SirenSays · 27/07/2022 14:25

It's definitely increasing. Everyone seems to be in a rush to complain about everything. I have a friend who is getting at least one customer complaint a week, compared to zero before the pandemic.

Bloodyel · 27/07/2022 14:44

We have made a mess of the world with our greed and carelessness and now we are suffering living in the vile place we created

SophieHasOneQuestion · 27/07/2022 14:45

hamstersarse · 27/07/2022 10:37

what I seem to see a lot of is people who demand that their wants/needs/preferences/opinions be taken in to consideration and respected regardless of effects on others, while completely refusing to do the same for other people. They demand tolerance but have none for other people and get angry when that tolerance isn't delivered or when they're expected to do the same.

I totally agree with this and for me this has come via all the social justice movements and the demand for rights.

An unintended consequence of course, but very real. People have developed a sense of entitlement based on whatever group they have identified with. Their needs come above all other groups. So whether this be based on race, gender, sexuality (big one right now), class, whatever, people go into the world expecting that their group deserves more than any other group. Again, it's divisive, and encouraged by the media in every form.

@hamstersarse

Very very well said. We need a solution before we lost all the good/kindness of the society.

hamstersarse · 27/07/2022 15:04

Interesting about a populist leader popping up to fill the vacuum. I think it’s more than possible, probable even.

I heard an analysis of how Trump got into power recently that I thought was interesting. In short, the hypothesis was that people felt / feel so disempowered that he represented a way in which to fight back. He was a way in which the ‘people’ can feel empowered. His rudeness,, brashness, outright aggression was ‘used’ by people to play out their suppressed anger and disempowerment. Sort of makes sense, people powerless so elect a fighter and maverick to take it all on 🤷‍♀️

Brexit was probably a hint of this vacuum too. I voted remain and couldn’t for the life of me work out why people voted leave. Now I think part of it was an attempt to find a national identity which was being eroded by the EU, getting more and more powerless as time went on. More rules, more bureaucracy, less say….so we went drastic! However, I can see how the fantasy of a strong national identity would have been appealing, as that is a ‘higher purpose’

antelopevalley · 27/07/2022 15:38

Social justice movements exist because a lot of groups are very badly treated.
They are not to blame for how shit things are. That is down to the elite and the government.

ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 27/07/2022 15:53

I’m on a new estate ,it’s so packed tightly together,from my bedroom window I can see in to around 10 small back gardens,in the summer everyone is playing music ,trying to use their garden as much as possible,one family rigged up the Tv so they can watch in the garden,and everyone else has to listen to what they are watching.
no one is considerate of anyone else ,next door have long conversations on loud speaker ,teenagers playing thumping music with windows open ,and so many having arguments that we can hear every word of .
it’s very very squashed and claustrophobic

This is what l meant about overcrowding. Everyone’s on top of each other.

ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 27/07/2022 15:54

When I first left school in the 90s and had a boring office job, it was at least quite fun and a bit of a doss. Are any jobs a bit of a doss anymore? Is there any fun left to be had in any workplace?

l agree with this too. I started working in the late 80’s. It was just a laugh. No targets or performance management.

ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 27/07/2022 16:02

*ArseInTheCoOpWindow · Today 10:32
I think Brexit division is worse than ever. Like in Dover, Leavers in denial, and blaming the French. Remainers simmering with anger.
arseInthe It’s precisely inflammatory comments like this that are just constantly adding fuel to the fire and creating anger and division and arse is either too dumb to realise it’s offensive or does it deliberately.

The French did not turn up for work after agreeing to ensure the booths were fully manned on the busiest weekend of the year! How is the the fault of brexiteers? Now it’s fully manned it is working like clock work. No surprise there.

Remainers should direct their ‘simmering anger’ towards the people not turning up for work!

If you want to live/work in Europe go ahead - nothing stopping you at all*

This is incorrect.

The French workers at Dover got stuck in the gridlock trying to get to work. One of the main reasons for the gridlock was the lorry park which is used as an overflow. This was built to cope with Brexit. I understand it used to be a road, but was turned into the park. So one road has disappeared due to Brexit, and it was taking 3 times as long to get through passport control due to passports being stamped.

So find someone else to pick on. You bet we’re simmering.

Ohthatsexciting · 27/07/2022 16:09

ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 27/07/2022 15:53

I’m on a new estate ,it’s so packed tightly together,from my bedroom window I can see in to around 10 small back gardens,in the summer everyone is playing music ,trying to use their garden as much as possible,one family rigged up the Tv so they can watch in the garden,and everyone else has to listen to what they are watching.
no one is considerate of anyone else ,next door have long conversations on loud speaker ,teenagers playing thumping music with windows open ,and so many having arguments that we can hear every word of .
it’s very very squashed and claustrophobic

This is what l meant about overcrowding. Everyone’s on top of each other.

oh come on.

Spain, France, South America, I literally could go on and on naming countries where flats dominate the housing landscape

Ohthatsexciting · 27/07/2022 16:10

And have done so for decades and decades

indeed in this country - those terraced homes probably were around forty years ago and likely many more people in them!

EternalPoinsettia · 27/07/2022 16:10

Really interesting thread. I agree with much said, and I am not at all religious but have often thought something that brings society together, perhaps even just on a local basis, is missing. I do see people coming together over issues- climate, identity etc, and it seems to give the comfort and security of being around like minded people. Especially when everything feels out of control around us. It's having a cause isn't it, a purpose, which alleviates some of the helpless feelings we've all had to experience - abd continue to

greatblueheron · 27/07/2022 16:48

ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 27/07/2022 10:32

I think Brexit division is worse than ever. Like in Dover, Leavers in denial, and blaming the French. Remainers simmering with anger.

Completely agree.

Was listening to Brexit supporters on the radio and they were going on and on and on about how it was everybody and everything except Brexit. Mind boggling.

Heatstrokeunsteady · 27/07/2022 16:54

The thing is, when people try to be kind, they turn up in the daily mail for humiliating people so even that is wrong- that puts people off trying.

In my opinion even if you are kind and put it on social media, at least you are putting positivity out there and people might join in.

We need something to motivate us to a higher purpose and to do good despite no tangible benefit to ourselves .

Babyroobs · 27/07/2022 16:56

What makes me grouchy and miserable is the noise levels everywhere. I know you expect a certain level of noise and I think I'm probably hypersensitive to it at the moment due to feeling rough with covid but its just constant. next door neighbours kids screaming, car doors slamming at all hours, bloody motorbikes ( hate them ), sirens ( sorry I know essential ! ), even the bloody loud new neighbour across the road who has to stop and bloody chat loudly with everyone, the woman who has an ongoing very loud conversation / shouting match with her dog every evening on it's walk. There is never any peace and quiet unless I can afford to live somewhere rural which I can't !! Sorry I sound so grouchy just had enough of noise !!