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?

There's also a whiff of competitive connecting with Westminster too. I work very close and watched the emergency response out of my window. We could go out the front door of our building but not the back door. Felt a bit of a surge of shock and watched the news unfold like the rest of the country, but in practical terms it didn't make a blind bit of difference to my day.

I text my Mum (who worries) to let her know I was unaffected but nothing else. I have had 2-3 over dramatic texts from acquaintances wanting to know if I am OK. It seems that I am their tenuous connection to the drama and I am sure they are telling their friends that they have a close friend who cheated death by minutes. I really didn't.

I agree with you OP.
I'm not on FB or IG, so thankfully have missed all this. I find it distasteful and cringy. I fully own that these my feelings only. People do what they do. I don't really know their motivations. Only that I wouldn't do it.

If dozens of people died I could (perhaps) understand people marking themselves safe on FB.

Five people died and their identities (or at least descriptive information) were released quite quickly. And yet some of my friends, many who live miles outside of Central London, felt the need to reassure their FB friends they were still alive.

This nonsense finally prompted me to delete Facebook yesterday.

There were 50 odf injured though , dont they count

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

That's very cynical thinking about your friends' motivation for contacting you ratonastick.

Of course the injured matter. But if you were nowhere near the incident at the time of the attack and were not in any way affected why the need to mark yourself safe? If you work in the Houses of Parliament or are known to frequent the area on a daily basis I can understand an update to reassure friends. The messages I saw on FB from people who live and work in Croydon or Essex but felt the need to tell people they were ok following a terrorist incident in Westminster...ridiculous and attention seeking.

I do know what you mean OP. I was caught up in 7/7 pretty directly, although in no way harmed. I did raise an eyebrow at the time at some of the "my God, if I'd taken a completely different, nonsensical route to work using Tube lines I never go on, it could have been me!" type stuff which I read.

Posting it on FB seems somehow more self absorbed than saying it out loud in conversation IYSWIM.

These thoughts and words really just seem like expressions of fear.

My most eye-rolling experience of this was with a friend of mine after 9/11. We were talking about how awful it was and she said that she was extra worried because her uncle had been there. So I asked her, in a concerned manner, if he had been in lower Manhattan and was he okay? Turned out he´d been there two weeks before the attack. She´d even spoken to him after he´d got back home again. So why the hell was she so worried about him??

Ooooh I know... I know, Sonja! Was it because she is fucking stupid and self-absorbed?

My worst grief vampire was my ex h. My dm had suddenly died and his response was 'well, I knew her too' - as in I should be comforting him through his devastation.

But I wonder if it's something more about people's reactions of shock and fear. And the sense of connecting into other people on social media, coming together.

I felt a bit silly signing in safe when I lived 200 miles awsy, and I am sure that some prople judged. However I have a lot of American clients at work who honestly think that everyone in the UK lives within sight of Big Ben and had had messages asking if I was ok.

I found this with the "eyewitnesses" that were on the radio shortly after it.

"Now we're going to speak to an eyewitness, Simon, who was caught up in this morning's carnage. Simon, what can you tell us? What did you see?"

"Well, I was in my workplace, which is about a mile away and suddenly we realised we could hear a lot of sirens and a helicopter in the air."

"And could you see anything on the bridge?"

"I'm looking out of the window now and I can still see lots of police cars coming and going."

"What about the attacker? Did you see him?"

"No because I'm too far away I didn't realise anything was going on until I heard all of the sirens."

"Thank you for speaking to us Simon, stay safe... that was Simon, an eyewitness who was caught up in the chaos and panic of this morning's attack."

You can't be an eyewitness if you didn't see anything!

They were mostly annoying because the presenter kept saying "we are going to speak to xperson who is the eyewitness."

Yeah i agree with you op.