To be pissed off with people making it all about them?

[BeaderBird]

I'm so sick of hearing people say things like 'God, I was only on that bridge last Wednesday' and 'Did you know that DS was in London on Monday?'.

It's the same when someone dies. 'Oh no, our DD's best friend from primary school (that she hasn't seen or spoken about for 17 years) has died, it's been a real shock for her.'

Are people really this selfish, attention seeking and self centred?

AIBU?

I dont miss the point Beader, i can see exactly what is going on, virtue signalling at its best.

I really don't think anyone I know who's said "I walk across that bridge every day" or "my office overlooks the bridge" is trying to play Greif top trumps.

I really don't see it as them making it all about them or seeking sympathy - they're just expressing that this IS close to home and yes it could be any of us next time and yes terrorism does get under your skin sometimes even if we mostly minimise it.

I actually think it's pretty mean spirited to be so scathing about people who are essentially just admitting that they've had a bit of a scare.

[for the record I was in south Ken and we were all "oh it's miles away" minimising which isn't necessarily healthy either]

I'm sure some people are just attention seeking but I think most are just genuinely shocked and thinking about how easily it could have been them. I was caught up in the 9/11 attacks and had been planning to visit the the world trade centre that day (tourists could pay to go and see the view from the top). We had decided to go in the evening and watch the sun set. Even years later I wonder what would have happened if we had decided to beat the queues and go first thing in the morning instead.
Neither I nor anyone I know was injured or killed that day, I didn't have to run for my life and didn't directly witness anything horrific. Despite that, it still affects me!

Bruffin and StrageLooking, I think you might have missed the point.

Nope.

The facebook thing is a bit two edged - As Tim Burrough wrote in the Guardian yesterday www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/23/facebook-safety-check-westminster-attack. People with lots of friends overseas, will have received messages asking if they were safe- and worried because they hadn't checked in.
I was prompted to declare myself safe, and I was 30 miles away - I ignored it, but if I'd have thought people might be worried for me (especially if I had parents overseas) I might have done so.

Some people do just have a tendency to "say" whatever is in their head. But I know when they found a car packed with explosives in Paris my first thought was "we walked past that spot last summer".
We are human and we are frail. This attack could have happened to anyone anywhere really.

Yabu. Its scary when you walk across that bridge regularly and then something like this happens, and you suddenly realise it could have been you or your family in that situation.

Its not being selfish, it actually made me appreciate my life so much more and realise that we can never be too careful.

I'm devastated for the family of the victims that were cruelly murdered, just going about their daily lives. That doesn't make me selfish, and I don't expect any means of attention or sympathy over it, because it didn't happen to me, nor did it happen to one of my family members or anyone I know. Its called empathising and it's what makes us human. Of course, unless something like this has happened to YOU before, you can never truly understand the devastation it causes, but you can certainly appreciate it.

But there are lots of different thing being lumped together here.

The facebook status I'm Safe stuff is in some cases valid i guess - if you live or work in London - but in other cases it's a 'bandwagon' thing. I can see that.

The make it all about me people do it all the time like the pp's MIL. My mum has form for this. Nothing is as bad as her x, y, z was, she'll say as she visits you in hospital

The near miss stuff though; i was there the day before/i would have been there if it weren't for a missed bus/my aunt walks over the bridge that time most days sort of stuff is just people relating to the event. To the near miss. Over with quickly and better than maybe silently fretting about what could have been. People do it when ever someone dies: but i saw them Wednesday! as if that automatically should have granted at least another 7 days life. It's just shock/worry.

People respond to shocking events in different ways. Some people also have different approaches to analysing risk. I'm very much of the mindset that if a bomb blast or bullet misses you by 100 metres or 30 seconds it might as well miss you by 100 miles or a week. We need to get more people over to that way of thinking so they can calm the fuck down. All those fretting over having almost been near the incident scene a week ago or considering not going to London in the future etc are just adding to the terrorist's collateral damage.

Strange the OP is saying that your son having been actually caught up in the Charlie Hebdo attacks means that you were personally affected, unlike the people she is complaining about.

You seem to think you are one of those she is complaining about but she isn't, hence her thinking you have missed the point.

How would you feel if you told someone your son's story and they said, oh yeah, know just how you feel, my son walked past that office only the month before? You'd say FFS it's not the same, MY son had to run for his life!

I have an ex-acquaintance who is like this over everything.

She's probably milking the London thing incessantly as I type, but thank fuck I no longer have to see it. Because, you, you know, she lives somewhere in the UK which includes London. I bet she "marked herself safe" as well. Stupid attention seeking cow.

She was all over the Paris Je Suis Charlie thing too, you'd think she was a bloody Charlie Hebdo employee the way she went on about it. Utterly deluded.

All because she once had an illness that thousands of women get - many thousands die from it and/or suffer far more extremely then she ever had to, she recovered from it and yet you'd think she was some medical miracle 8th wonder of the world for her bravery. Get the fuck over yourself.

I completely agree with you OP.

It's very specific to terrorism though and how we respond to it. It's interesting. If there's a fatal car accident on the M25 people don't rush to say "how scary, I was on the M25 last weekend" or "my DS is meant to be going on a school trip but the coach will be going via the M25 so I don't think I will let him now". Even though statistically the risks may actually be higher.

People just love to do this i'm afraid - if its not about something as bad / evil as the recent attacks in london, its about them in general, twisting conversations to be about them ( see the 'draining thread on here this week) just me me me attitude that has crept into people's lives over the last few decades. Not sure why its happened and not everyone is like it - but lots of folk are and it is annoying. How did we become so self absorbed - ( or maybe people always were and you notice it more as you age or something!)

I confess I do find that I think "I could have been there . . . what if? . . . what if? . . . what if?" after these events. But I do always give myself a shake and say to myself "Well you weren't there, and someone else WAS, save your energy for feeling sorry for them etc" and feel ashamed of myself. And I never vocalise these thoughts.

I think it's maybe a way of acknowledging the frailty of human life. How making a decision 5 minutes or even a year ago can mean you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I live in NI and have had internal 'what if?' moments in the past to think about for myself and family when bombs have gone off. I would never mention it out loud or milk it in any way but it is understandable when people are shocked.

You understand that people outside of London may not be exactly aware of the geography of London and so messages about safety that you classify as attention seeking may actually be valid?

The most annoying people in tragedies are people like the OP. They're the "atheist prayers" people. The people who will never let any amount of death stop them from being smug as fuck. So well done for that!

When I saw the news on Wednesday, my first thought was 'god we were just there last month.' It's not because I was making it about me, it was because as I walked across it, I was thinking what a brilliant view there was and that London was the greatest city in the world.

I'm In two minds with the "I'm safe" thing. I lived in London during the height of the Ira bombings. Each time there was an incident my mum (in manchester) would be frantically trying to get hold of me - no mobiles or social media back then - convinced I was hurt or something, to her London was just London despite the fact that I didn't live in the city.

These days she would probably expect to see a message saying I was safe if I didn't now live out in the sticks!

bruffin I agree with you. I think you're missing the point OP that people react to situations in different ways. Also a lot of us can empathise - I remember when the Croydpn tram derailed last year. I've been on a tram once in Croydon years ago. But I regularly commute on overground trains and just remember feeling how awful it was that those poor people had set out to go to work early one morning and never made it there and died in an awful way. Also for the people that didn't die but witnessed the carnage. That will stay with them forever. Who are we to judge how people react??

Even if you live nowhere near Westminster, it brings it home to you how tragedy can strike anywhere at anytime. That's why people might write on social media how it's affected them. Because on some level acts of terrorism affect all of us in different ways, even if we're not directly involved.

Yes, totally agree. One of my df put on fb how she had to go up to London in the evening after the incident. People were saying stay safe hun.

ApplePaltrow21 I was just coming on to say that!

I live 400 miles from London and have no idea what is where.. to me it's all London so I would be imagining people I know who live/work there could easily be mixed up in the incident. It might be obvious to people who know the city better that so-and-so would be nowhere near Westminster but I was glad my friend said she was safe as I'd no idea if she could be caught up in it or not.

I think people saying "I was just there the other week" have had it brought home to them that it's people just like them who have been affected. I don't mind it.

Apple, I want people to focus on those who are more deeply affected rather than themselves. How is that 'smug as fuck'? What's wrong with being frustrated at inappropriate tenuous links that people use to put the focus on themselves rather than others?

I suppose these things make you think. Ok so the mememe Facebook generation is well and truly up its own arse, so that doesn't help.

I have been close to so many ira bombings (most places I worked were 'on the list' and I lived next to a couple of places which were also bombed), may day riots (ditto), 7/7. I know what a bomb sounds like after hearing quite a few go off.

You just get on with it.

I think many people have a ‘there but for the grace of god’ moment when something like that happens. I can recall watching the Twin Towers attack on 11/11 and thinking ‘I stood on top of that building’ and my friend who was there with me said she thought exactly the same. I wasn’t making it all about me - i was just realising the fragility of life and that bad things happen to unsuspecting people.

My DD lives and works in London but not near Westminster. My DH was in an office nearby for meetings that day and was in lock down for a while. I felt compelled to contact them both just to reassure myself that all was well. It is just a human reaction to something overwhelming and tragic.

I think this thread is attention seeking OP! 🙄

Personally I think what is worse is people complaining that the Queen hasn't been in TV or that Theresa May didn't issue a statement early enough.

There are even people moaning about the just giving pages.

That is a heck of a lot worse!