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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:
Scattymere · 18/08/2017 12:12

#alerting you

MagicalMrsMistoffelees · 18/08/2017 12:15

A relative of a friend posted on Facebook, 'I was only there a few years ago. I enjoyed a drink on that very street.'

It was the word only that made me chuckle. Was it necessary or just just for dramatic purposes?

PigOnStilts · 18/08/2017 12:15

Fekko, did he make it?

I was at edgeware road on a tube when the edgware rd bomb went off on 7/7, even though I was on the bakerloo line and was therefore OK, it did freak me out. They made an anouncement regarding the smell of burning that it was only the brakes, which i found odd at the time.

celeste4 · 18/08/2017 12:17

That FB post would annoy me. Its attention seeking pretending to be a victim when you are not a victim.

JemmyBloocher · 18/08/2017 12:18

Guardian Angel? F@ckers. Seriously. So the people who died didn't? You are more important to God than them? Definitely YANBU.

BoggledMind · 18/08/2017 12:23

YANBU. I hate this kind of behaviour as well. I've got one friend on FB who does this constantly. After every atrocity she will post something along the lines of: "I can't believe it Sad I was in this part of Spain only three months ago. It could have been me Sad I'm actually shaking Sad

It's so bloody attention seeking. But then she's like this in general as well. She shames her teenage son on FB constantly, tagging him into posts so that his friends can see it, and she did the same with her ex boyfriend. She's a complete idiot and I would get rid of her off FB but she's also great entertainment value at times so I've kept her for that reason alone.

celeste4 · 18/08/2017 12:30

@ Boggled Grin I have someone like that who I keep on my friends list for entertainment.

InigoTaran · 18/08/2017 12:38

In the eighties, me and my partner, who was a college lecturer,had booked to go to France by ferry courtesy of the Mirrors cheap tickets offer. Woke up that morning to see horrifying pictures of the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry lying on its side after capsizing.

We were worried, but still went on our trip. When we got back we found out that his students had assumed that we were on that ferry, and the party they were having, had turned into a wake! When he went into work on Monday, they thought they were seeing a ghost. There were no mobile phones or Facebook in those days so no one could get hold of us. Different times...

Original poster
PyongyangKipperbang · 18/08/2017 12:49

Its not the fact that if you know somewhere and have visited that place and can imagine the situation and the horror of it having happened when you were there that I have a problem with. I get that. I had similar feelings over the Westminster attack. Not in a "OMG it could have been me" way but at how it so easily could be any of us at any time.

Its the posting on FB in such a way that implies that they were somehow special or #blessed Hmm for not having been involved.

I haven't unfriended for political reasons but I have hidden their feed.

I still don't really have the words to describe what it was like to see the planes going in to the 2nd tower live on TV

I was watching the BBC when they cut to the second plane and saw it go in and I still cant square it in my head with reality iykwim. It still, all these years later, doesn't seem real :(

OP posts:
PandorasXbox · 18/08/2017 13:00

But that's what FB is all about. Just come off it.

KurriKurri · 18/08/2017 13:00

I've never been to Barcelona - so obviously I have an extra special guardian angel.

I hate it when people try to make everything about themselves - it shows total lack of empathy 'how can I relate this to myself' as if unless you have some tenuous connection you couldn't care less.

(It's a bit like our local TV news - they try to make everything about our region - 'Olympic gold medalist X who once drove along the A47...' type of shit Grin)

Sprinklestar · 18/08/2017 13:04

YANBU, OP. Some people love to make things all about them when really, it isn't. They're just not that important.

Original poster
PyongyangKipperbang · 18/08/2017 13:06

But that's what FB is all about. Just come off it.

Not in my experience it isnt. And why should I not use a convenient way to keep in touch with old friends and distant family because of the odd fuck wit on my feed?

Kurri When there was the terrorist attack on the beach there was an article in my local paper about a local couple who had a "narrow escape" from the terrorist. It gave the impression that they had actually been on the beach that day. They had been there something like a month before but had briefly considered going there on the date the attack happened but decided not to as it was cheaper to earlier Hmm

OP posts:
PandorasXbox · 18/08/2017 13:14

You don't have to come off it OP but you have to expect some posts like the one you're so offended by! That's FB I'm afraid.

Pigface1 · 18/08/2017 13:23

I couldn't agree with you more. I know Barcelona well and am so fond of it as a city, so I'm very shaken and upset by this (although tbh I'm sure many people who've never visited Barcelona are shaken and upset by it). But the 'it could have been me' - it wasn't you, you fuckwit. It was them. The ways people will find of making things about them never cease to amaze me.

StealthPolarBear · 18/08/2017 14:30

"(It's a bit like our local TV news - they try to make everything about our region - 'Olympic gold medalist X who once drove along the A47...' type of shit grin)"
Yes I've noticed that. "pensioners in Newcastle not to retire until 68" - yes same as the rest of the country!

LyndaLaHughes · 18/08/2017 15:02

I was in Cambrils port the evening before the second incident there. It has really shaken me because it wasn't a main city or anywhere like that and has really hit home that these things can happen anywhere. We came off the plane from Barcelona to the news of the first attack and I felt so glad to be home. Living in London (and being caught up in IRA attacks previously) I refuse to live in fear so am normally very pragmatic about these things but when I saw the breaking news of a smaller less known place far away I had literally just been to, walking in the exact place with my children where this has happened has really got to me this time. I do feel so very lucky to be home safe. Cambrils is a beautiful place and I'm still in shock as it feels so much more real than other recent events closer to home for me this time. My heart breaks for everyone involved. It does feel like this will never end.

Cantsleep12 · 18/08/2017 15:13

Thing is it's not just FB, we now have eye witnesses on the news who never actually witnessed anything.

LakieLady · 18/08/2017 15:26

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.

I heard it on the radio in the car, and thought it was the play that they have on at 2.15, after the repeat of That Archers. It was a good 10 minutes before I started thinking that it might be real.

PennyTentiary · 18/08/2017 15:32

I get that it's annoying it whatever but it doesn't make the situation any more or less tragic does it? It doesn't impact anyone affected as I doubt they'll be going through FB looking for stuff like this. Even if they saw it I'm sure they have so much more to worry about.

Acornantics · 18/08/2017 15:32

I was there an hour before the Barcelona attacks. Do I think myself very fortunate when so many others are injured or worse? Yes.

Do I make it all about me? No, because it's not, I wasn't there at that specific moment. It 'could' happen to anyone.

Sisinisawa · 18/08/2017 15:36

Omg hun I was there this time last year!! Such a close call. Hugging my kidz extra tight tonite. Thank u guardian angle xxx

YANBU OP

mikeyssister · 18/08/2017 16:24

DH regularly goes to meetings in Brussels and has been in the airport (obviously) but this has never upset us. In June he was due in Brussels for a conference, but had to attend a different one in Amsterdam instead.

This was at the time of the suspected bomb attack at the train station. This took place at a time he would have probably been walking past the train station.

For some reason I can't explain this has upset and worried us more than the attacks in Brussels airport. Irrationally, I'm more worried about him going to Brussels now than I was before.

I'd never try to make it about him, or forget that other people have died but it does seem to be different now - perhaps it's because a number of people know he travels to Brussels and we had a lot of texts asking was he ok. My feelings don't make any sense to me, because I know he wasn't there and he has never been hurt when he is there.

Flowersandbirds · 19/08/2017 13:43

I agree with you but I also think it's a social no no to comment on a friend of a friends FB post negatively. It puts your friend in a difficult position and in my view you should respect your friends enough not to do it.

PoorYorick · 19/08/2017 13:45

All the guardian angles are giving me a mental image of a protractor with a halo, wings and a harp fluttering over people's shoulders as they panic on Facebook.