to think that basic social skills have for the most part gone out the window

[ohboob]

I recently joined a craft group. I've been about 5/6 times. Everyone is very nice and friendly. They are all intelligent, university educated, mostly married, kind people. And yet every single time I go I get very brief hello's from all of them but no one ever says 'how are you' or asks the new people in the group their names or introduces themselves. I've seen 3 people start coming since I joined and all have had the same reaction. I find it so rude. They literally just sit there. My first week another new person joined and despite the fact that it was my first evening I was the only person to welcome her and ask her how she was, and how long she had been doing her craft for, where she was from, etc. etc.

Surely that is just basic manners (and social etiquette) to say hello and introduce yourself, so that the new person feels welcome? And then to ask them a bit about themselves and maybe tell them what they are working on. There are anywhere from 5 people in the group to 15 each week.

I took a friend with my last night who was really interested in joining and she had the same reaction. People looked up and said a brief hello and then just carried on working and chatting amongst themselves. It takes place in a pub and the whole point of the group is supposed to be the social side. My friend said that if she had turned up by herself she wouldn't return because it felt so unwelcoming. The very first week I joined it was the same and if I wasn't chatty and comfortable with just jumping in and making conversation I could have easily sat there all evening with no one talking to me at all and without knowing a single name of anyone there.

The funny thing is that if I make conversation and ask people how they are they start chatting and all are very friendly, so it boggles me as to why they are so rude initially. Do we just not learn manners anymore? I've come across this problem a lot with my generation (late twenties, early thirties) and it is just not how I was brought up. Very few people seem to have the basic social skills. Ironically one of the women last night was saying that she was terrified when she first joined because it's daunting walking into a group of strangers (as I found it when I joined) but she still wasn't welcoming to my friend who was in the same position as she had once been in. Why do people not connect that if they have found it hard, then others will and they need to make the effort to smile and say hello.

Gah! This is really bugging me. I don't know if it is shyness or rudeness.

Haven't read throught he whole thread but what LeQueen said about her MIL got me.
I am a chatty person too, not too scared to go into a room full of strangers and make conversation, though I am not as brave as to throw ropes to the quieter ones. I find the whole thing hard enough for me, with out doing it for others. Though sometimes I just can't stand it anymore and haul them in anyway.

I end up talking away to the few around me, perhaps move on to another group if I feel I am boring the ones I am with.
And that is my fear. If no one talks, I probably will. But does that mean that they are now stuck with this crazy who is gabbling away. But how can you go and not speak to anyone?!

My mum takes me as the social glue to hold things together, even with my sis. Time was mum couldn't even be alone with her and needed my gabbling to keep things moving.
I have attended a couple of night classes with my mum cos she was a bit fearty to go alone.

I don't remember her always being this way though, think she has got worse as she gets older.

Another lightbulb moment - I wonder if actually it is useful to me to be overweight to defend myself from some of the more aggressive stuff from other women .... a sort of force field.

With MN who needs a therapist???

I think it is habit and practice, twinkling.

Fearty is a fab word, btw.

Yeah, cos I am not as good as I used to be, even a couple of years ago.
Though I do think that has a lot to do with a run in I had with someone at a toddler group, not in front of the group, but still never had verbal aggression from a virtual stranger and I think it has rocked my core a little.

aaaaanyway. Fearty is a great word

Woman can be so ridiculous, to be mean cos they are jealous. Makes me [cross]

I am quite self-deprecating and I do tend to enquire about people's hairdressers or ask where they got a particularly nice garment. Hopefully that helps. But random nastiness is experienced by the Boff on a weekly basis, I have to say. Even DH notices.

What kind of nastiness boffinmum?

OP YANBU. I have noticed this at toddler groups. Everyone seems to go with friends and not talk to anyone new.

You think? ...it seems to be the overweight and / or plain mums left out in the social wilderness around my manor! I have become much more socially acceptable after losing 50lbs....

Come to think of it though - the exceptionally attractive may well get a hard time too.

Perhaps it doesn't do to be on the 'extremes' (sad inditement of society really, isn't it)

I'm really impatient with people who are not friendly, but others tell me they're just shy. My DS is really quiet and prefers small groups to large, but I really encourage him to shake hands , look at people and say hello. It may be hard, but why do we let people off the hook. It only gets harder when you haven't made friends because no one told you manners were important. Most adults my kids meet want to be friendly and ask how they are. they also appreciate a conversation with a teenager that isn't grunting!!

Not really a point, but just an experience - I started a new job a few years ago, but was one of the first members of a rapidly expanding team.

When new people started, I'd welcome them, take them to the canteen for tea, offer to show them around and introduce them, until I realised that the (mostly young, male) new team members apparently thought I was some desperate older lady trying to chat them up . Oh well, their loss, if they wanted to spend the first two weeks trying to find the canteen...

Also, I once hosted a dinner for work and, as my events manager introduced me to a (mildly famous) film director, he turned his back halfway through the intro and pointedly talked to someone else (as he continued eating the dinner I was bloody well hosting)! I'm still waiting to bump into him again so I can bop him on the nose...

And CurrySpice, I don't think it's necessarily true that London and the South East are unfriendly - I just moved from Birmingham, which was very unfriendly, to Oxfordshire, where everyone is lovely. Complete strangers say 'Morning' when I'm out and about and I've got to know everyone in the local shops, all my neighbours and most of the fire crew at the station opposite my house . When I lived in the West Mids, most people were rude, snidey and very much 'here's-me-and-who's-like-me', as my mother used to say.

To illustrate LeQueen's point and to confirm this is a problem of all ages: There is a quote in Pride and Prejudice where Lizzy tells off Mr Darcy for his lack of social skills and says that it's lack of practice, not lack of talent that is to blame:

I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,'' said Darcy, of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.''

My fingers,'' said Elizabeth, do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault -- because I would not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution.''

What happens if you just want to talk to the nosy fecker who feels it their duty to pester you with annoying questions

just don't want to talk

I know for a fact that I often come across as unfriendly/standoffish/ignorant when in fact I'm simply painfully shy. If I were in your group, I'd be one of the "rude" ones

I have been to 5 new baby/toddler groups this week. The groups in the more middle class area have been far less friendly and welcoming. No one spoke to me at all in one group, in a couple of others I got a few smiles and the odd sentence and then they turned back to their gang. In the more working class area(s) people were lovely.
There is only so long I can sit there trying to look friendly and approachable! (too shy to do the approaching unfortunately)

Calamity, I don't know that that's the case. In the group I'm talking about there is one girl who is very clearly painfully shy. It stands out a mile amongst all the other people who just don't bleddy talk. So don't worry too much. And I do believe that even very shy people can get past it to a degree (speaks someone who has had a lot of anxiety in life). It's about learning ways of doing so.

Hi there.
I run a sports club. We always make a huge effort to newbies in our club. & I think it's the job of the people in charge to set example & that everyone in a group has the responsibiliy to welcom newbies.

It is terrifying to walk into a new environment & once a person has had the guts/courage to do this, the other people in the group should remember their 1st time & BE NICE. After all - it's the members that make the group !

Unfortunately- I've had a rubbish experience a few times. I went along to
a orchestra, turned up & no-one even said Hello. I had to tap someone on the shoulder & ask if I was in correct place, they shrugged & turned round to carry on their conversation . I stood around for a while trying to work out who was in charge until I just said very loudly "is anyone in charge here?" - a sheepish lady came forward & said oh hi I'm ..... take a seat there & promptly walked off & no-one else said anything.
I stayed the evening & wrote a complaint email when i got home. the following week the 'real' in charge person came along, introduced herself, but still no-one spoke to me.
I never went back - I was disgusted. I am a friendly person, tried to chat to the people around me, asking basic questions etc... & they were just rude & really horrid. URGH -
second experience was in a sports club.
Same thing - I arrived & no-one noticible in-charge to introduce myself to & when I asked someone they didn't even speak to me... this time I just went home...

Tutting and humphing at me, ignoring me deliberately (the woman leading Slimming World locally did this for an entire year every time we went around the circle and it became a class joke - she did it to another woman as well), pretending not to know my name or not recognise me even though we've met repeatedly for years and years and sat on committees together, undermining me in meetings, bitching behind my back (which is usually reported back to me by more loyal types) and even the odd trumped up grievance (which tend to disappear due to utter lack of evidence, but still, it's not nice at the time). It's really quite bizarre. Almost always middle aged women doing it, although occasionally it might be a middle aged bloke of the underachieving and bitter type, or a school gate clique.

I am not a sociopathic wierdo, honest. I am quite nice in RL.

Actually I am a teensy bit upset about this now, having worked out the extent and frequency of the bad behaviour. Perhaps I am hanging out in the wrong places or something. Maybe educational circles attract nasty people or somefink. But it sounds from this thread as though this stuff is everywhere and lots of people are getting it.

I am quite shy but for my job I have to be very outgoing. I cba being the hostess with the mostest in my private life.

I can completely understand someone joining a craft group for the learning experience, not the social aspects. If people kept badgering me to talk to them it would annoy me - I'm with bronze there.

I love riding because I enjoy being on a horse and looking at the countryside. My dream group is about 5 of us - small enough so we can all ride fast safely and big enough so I don't feel the need to talk to people who rudely interrupt my daydreams.