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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

....to challenge people with bad manners?

130 replies

thefifthheffalump · 08/09/2012 09:12

Not really bad stuff for the most part. Things like people not taking their rubbish in a food court and putting it in the bin, but leaving the crap all over the table so nobody can use it without clearing it themselves. I did this today to a couple of 20ish girls (asked them as they left the next table if they thought it was polite to leave their rubbish behind for someone else to deal with - they didn't say anything but looked a bit shamefaced, turned back and took it to the bin, so they obviously recognised it as the right hing to do, they were just being lazy and inconsiderate). My DH was slightly shocked and commented that lately I seem to have less tolerance for this type of thoughtlessness (I'd had a go a couple of days ago at an absolute twunt thoughtless person who was driving dangerously fast through a cramped car park and I am also prone to speak up to people allowing their kids to be absolute little shits in public).

I don't know if this is age - having hit the big 50 I'm less worried about what other people think of me if I speak up - or if I'm actually getting a bit menopausal or something! I think I'm just feeling less patient with the culture of entitlement and lack of consideration that makes life that bit less pleasant for everyone else, but I'm worried I'm descending into 'when I were a lass...the world was a better place' territory.

Do other people feel like me, or am I really becoming a bit unreasonable? I hasten to add that I'm not violently confrontational or anything, my challenges are always polite!

OP posts:
RebeccaMumsnet · 08/09/2012 22:21

@wellwisher

Unbelievable... my calm, profanity free post gets deleted while Dawndonna's charming post telling me to fuck off - because I expressed an opinion that isn't compatible with the PC consensus - is left up. The PC thought police strike again... what's the matter MNHQ, do you all have special needs kids or something? I haven't posted anything that breaks the guidelines. Well, apart from this maybe...

Hi wellwisher,

That personal attack has now gone. If you report posts to us that break our Talk guidelines, we will take a look. If you don't report them, we don't always see them.

Can we please ask everyone to try and be a little more supportive to one another. We know that folks don't always agree and debate is fine but personal attacks really aren't.

Please do bear in mind how difficult this parenting business can be, and if there's one thing all of us could do with, it's some moral support.

wellwisher · 08/09/2012 22:38

Erm, I was coming back to report that last post of mine for being arsey. Sorry MNHQ I have had several margaritas Blush

thefifthheffalump · 08/09/2012 23:48

Gosh, I didn't mean to upset anyone with SN children, I'm glad people reminded me that I should consider this before saying anything about perceived bad manners. Blush

OP posts:
perfectstorm · 09/09/2012 00:00

I was at Bristol Temple Meads with DS in his buggy once, and there was a huge queue for the ticket machines. And this smug, chubby little man in a suit just sauntered casually past us all and stood at the front. I was just Shock. I'm afraid I darted forward and said extremely firmly, "Excuse me, I think you'll find there's a queue." And he immediately began to wander off away from us all, but making wavy hand gestures and saying in the most obnoxiously sneery, amused, patronising fashion, "It's okay, calm down dear, calm down!" and sort of congratulating himself on how superior he was to all of us.

But he failed to queue jump, and given he disappeared he must have been embarrassed. (He'd have been a damn sight more embarrassed if he'd heard the language the rest of the queue used afterwards. DS learned all the new words that his presence had restrained me from yelling after the cock-maggotty little ferret.)

It was almost 2 years ago and the memory still makes me steam. The pausing at the top of escalators bugs me a lot because it's downright bloody dangerous, but I think it's more being away with the fairies than actually rude. Queue-jumping, though, is the assumption that other people can go fuck themselves, if it suits you. It really, really makes me angry when it's done that deliberately and that shamefacedly.

When I was about 7 I was in the queue for an icecream at a cinema in Eastbourne and this adult man said "excuse me" and being well brought up, I stepped back to let him pass. And he just stepped in the queue ahead of me. I was 7, there was nothing I could do, but my fury and shock that an adult would do that was so intense, I can still remember it more than 30 years later.

Most people are lovely. Sadly the ones who are not, even in minor matters, spread their unpleasantness over a very wide area.

GhostShip · 09/09/2012 10:25

I'd say something about that because that's personally effecting you ^

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