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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

"I was in Barcelona two weeks ago...it could have been me!"

223 replies

PyongyangKipperbang · 18/08/2017 00:02

"But it couldnt have been because you werent there when it happened."

WIBU to have posted that in reply on FB? According to the amount of abuse I have had, I am. But I really dont think that I am!

The person concerned (a friend of a friend I sort of know) wasnt even in that area of Barcelona, and yet has done the old "OMG I must have a guardian angel!" thing.

I would have deleted them but they got in first, which is quite annoying.

OP posts:
Fekko · 18/08/2017 08:47

We were watching 9/11 when they started showing it on tv. Where I worked we had offices in the second towed and most places people had worked had offices there too (City). We had some people over from the ny office.

It was awful - not 'omg - I was there!' But 'fuck - bill is in there'.

Cantsleep12 · 18/08/2017 08:48

Tbh I think anyone watching 9/11 on TV found it surreal. I had never known a terrorist/disaster event on that scale. It was hard to process that it was even real.

spidey66 · 18/08/2017 08:52

I'm going to go against the grain here.

On 7/7, 2 of the tube trains affected were on my route (Piccadilly and Circle Line trains.) If it hadn't been for the disruption on that day, I could well have been affected. Thinking ''That could have been me'' made me process the severity of it and gave me a huge amount of empathy for those affected.

Mineshalfamilkstout · 18/08/2017 08:57

I think you were too harsh op.

What did you get out of the exchange and was it worth it?

Then again I don't subject myself to Facebook. I have a hard enough time nodding and smiling irl with daft relatives.

NC4now · 18/08/2017 09:04

I understand people being shocked that somewhere they walked a few weeks ago has been targeted. It brings it home.
I think my sentiment would be, 'I was only there two weeks ago. How awful. Thoughts with all those affected.'

SongforSal · 18/08/2017 09:04

This pisses me off no end. I have seen 3 lots of posts on social media along the lines of ''Just called 'Mary' in Barcelona. Wanted to let everyone know she is safe'' ect.

It's like when celebrities die. People feel the need to post to establish a connection to a strange situation, or they feel the need to be the first to tell the world of the news.

My Db was at the site of a terrorist attack, saw it happen and was thankfully totally unharmed. It did not occur to me once to put that information on social media, I find it totally disrespectful to the people who actually lost their lives.

Nettletheelf · 18/08/2017 09:11

Nice one, Bringmetea.

Facebook is the new version of those bloody ostentatious 'books of condolence', isn't it? The whole point of them appeared to be that people could see that you were signing them, which proved that you felt more deeply than anybody else.

I remember after the 1997 Diana pantomime watching a programme where people put forward a counter position to the 'national mood of sorrow' and images of weeping idiots that we'd been force fed for weeks. One of the interviewees was Mark Thomas, the comedian. He described it as having been a cross between Disneyland and Nazi Germany: you WILL cry and grieve ostentatiously, or suffer the consequences!

So, OP, I don't think you were unreasonable at all. In fact, I wish more people would challenge attention seeking stupids.

Cantsleep12 · 18/08/2017 09:13

I don't think it has anything to do with empathy.

silkpyjamasallday · 18/08/2017 09:14

YANBU to comment as you did, this sort of post making a catastrophic event all about themselves when they weren't even involved is ridiculous, just as bad as the people who mark themselves as 'safe' or whatever on Facebook when they were nowhere near what happened and would have had no reason to be. DP saw people on his Facebook marking themselves as safe after the Manchester attacks who have never left the bloody midlands.

My dad works in London and has a flat in spitting distance of London Bridge station where we regularly stay if we are visiting friends in London. Neither I or DP felt the need to spout off on social media about the attack there, a few people texted or messaged us as it was happening but luckily we were not in London at the time and my dad was safely in his flat when it happened.

SunshineAndSmile · 18/08/2017 09:15

It's not something that I would post on FB but I understand that some people are trying to grasp that it could have been them if they were there only recently.

Cantsleep12 · 18/08/2017 09:15

Songforsal - completely agree.

YouRat · 18/08/2017 09:21

is there a "proper" way to react to tragedy i don't understand.

MeMeMeMe123 · 18/08/2017 09:22

This is why I hate Facebook. It comes across to me as competing to say the nicest thing, get some likes and maybe a share or two.

Generally i find posters start with the best of intentions but end up distorting the poster's sense of what they can influence/control.

Its a dreadful platform. Maybe I'm a bit de-sensitised but growing up in NI during the troubles there was never any question of not getting on with it and living our lives.

OP - delete Facebook - its the best thing you will do for your blood pressure !!

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 18/08/2017 09:22

I'm going to go against the grain here

On 7/7, 2 of the tube trains affected were on my route (Piccadilly and Circle Line trains.) If it hadn't been for the disruption on that day, I could well have been affected. Thinking ''That could have been me'' made me process the severity of it and gave me a huge amount of empathy for those affected

That is completely different. Circumstances conspired to prevent you being there when you otherwise would have been. It is the same as the person I mentioned who was booked to be on The Titanic but,almost unbelievably, missed the sailing.

Brittbugs80 · 18/08/2017 09:24

The safety check feature I don't have an issue with

That's fine but why safety check yourself when you are not in the country of the attack that's happened?

Uokbing · 18/08/2017 09:26

YANBU - it's the 'it could have been me' rather than showing horror for the victims (for whom it actually was) element that rankles here.

My friends was caught up in the 7/7 attacks, she was on one of the tubes that was bombed although she was uninjured. She has mentioned it on FB I think once, and then it was in the context of helping others and being horrified at what others had gone through, rather than a 'if I had been sitting in a different carriage it could have been me'.

I was in Thailand a full 6 months before the Boxing Day tsunami, but I was staying in a place that got completely obliterated. It was strange actually because I remember one night in that beach hut having a conversation with my friend about what the next huge world news diaster story would be (morbid I know but we spent a lot of time together on that trip!) and there we were sitting in the exact spot it would happen. And I must admit afterwards I did have a few thoughts about how it would have gone if we had been there - we would have been totally fucked, we would have still been in bed and were staying in a little bungalow in the beach - but I have never talked about that in real life and certainly not on bloody Facebook! Because as the OP said, it couldn't have been me because I wasn't there!

MrsJayy · 18/08/2017 09:28

A friend of mine was in Barcelona on Tuesday she did say something on facebook not in the omg it could have been us way but in an those poor people way iyswim I think people say these things are trying to process the randomness of terror attacks I don't think yabu to be annoyed but I don't think in general people are doing it to attention seek

maxthemartian · 18/08/2017 09:29

What I hate is the guardian angel bollox.
Basically saying that you must have one but obviously not the poor people who were killed. So not only making it about you but implying you're more special than the victims.

donajimena · 18/08/2017 09:31

I'm here atm we NEARLY went to Barcelona yesterday but we didn't. So I haven't posted a fucking twatty statement on Facebook. Because I didn't go there. We did meet some guests who were there and they are shell shocked.

Hulababy · 18/08/2017 09:32

I cant be doing with the FB status stuff and the 'I was there some 8 years ago in a totally different area' but then on the other hand I do understand why it makes incidents feel much more closer to home when it is an area they've been to and can picture themselves in the location.

Obviously I never commented at all onlinee but the Manchester Arena one did affect me a bit more and it was one of the reasons I was keen to get tickets to the benefit concert a couple of weeks later. Because I have been there for concerts, I have a photo of my and dd sat on the stairs where it happened, pictured in the media, and I have stood in that area waiting for DD to come out of a concert there on her own. And it was a concert she had been considering at one point. So, no we weren't there and hadnt intended to be that night so it could have been us, but seeing the photos of the location I could picture us in that place and that scenario, and it meant I could feel image those feelings the people had before it all occurred. So it did feel closer to home all of a sudden,. However, that was for me to feel and it wasn't something I shared with people, online or other.

MrsJayy · 18/08/2017 09:32

The Gaurdian angel thing is just nonsense.

PandorasXbox · 18/08/2017 09:33

But donajimena surely you must think that you had a close shave by the fact you could have been there! I find it strange that you wouldn't tbh.

whyhastherumgone · 18/08/2017 09:36

I don't think it's bad to think it - people process things in different ways and I actually think it's a natural response for that to cross your mind. I just don't think people need to post it.

PandorasXbox · 18/08/2017 09:39

But that's what FB has become. People posting everything that they think.

My advice is if it annoys you so much come of it. It's not compulsory.

Uokbing · 18/08/2017 09:40

Yes I do think it resonates more when it's somewhere you have been yourself, partly because you can picture it all before the event and you think about what it must look like now, and there is more of that 'it could have been me' element to it. But still, it's best not to go on about that, because for some people it was them Sad