To think people are not nice anymore.

[SofaKingFedUp]

I get that we live in a crazy world nowadays, you never know what people are like, what they are going through, what they are capable of etc etc and you have to protect yourself and children etc etc.
But I feel like people just can't be bothered anymore, they feel like it's ok to be rude or cold towards people they don't know.

For example, on a bus the other day and an elderly man was sat behind a mother and her child, child looked about 3. The elderly man was talking to the child as she had stood on the seat and turned and was looking at him. Just general questions like "what's your name, how old are you, that's a pretty name etc" and the mother snatched her child away and snarled at him saying she's not allowed to talk to strangers. The gentleman appeared to be upset about it, he didn't say anything, but you could see it in his face.
I have a 7 month old girl and although I will teach her to be wary of strangers, never take anything from them or leave with them, I don't want her to grow up thinking that all strangers are evil, and that you shouldn't even talk to them or that it's ok to be rude.
When you look around people are constantly on their phones, even when dining out with friends. If their phone is not in their hand, it's beside them on the table.
Also totally understand people need their phones for emergencies too, but most of the time it's the youngsters on social media (even though that's what I'm on now but I'm alone while DD is out with nanna)
Also good customer service seems to be dwindling away. A staff member of a supermarket made us feel as though we were an inconvenience the other day because my mum picked up some slippers, they were reduced. She scanned them but they scanned at full price, she called the member of staff over and it was as if we'd asked her to reprogramme the whole computer system. Rolling her eyes, tutting, telling us she will have to take us to customer service as she was unable to sort this at self service, but with a really negative tone. Also in a different supermarket on a different occasion, someone had smashed a bottle of wine, near the checkouts. I made sure the pram wasn't in the way of the staff member sittin on the floor cleaning it up, but I heard a voice abruptly say "can you move your pram so I clean this up?" Now a simple please would've been ok, obviously I moved the pram even though it wasn't in the spillage but manners seem to be non existent recently. Maybe it's just where i live. Maybe I need to move...

AIBU to think this? Does anyone else feel the same? I feel quite sad that people don't interact much anymore.

I've moved areas quite a few times over the decades and there's a marked difference in peoples manners and friendliness I found.

Where I live now is exceptionally pleasant with friendly well mannered people.
It's the nicest place for friendliness I've ever lived, by far.
I usually move home every 5 or so years but I wouldn't move from here now.

Of course there are some lovely people but there are far more rude and selfish people.

I am sick of moving out of people's way as they walk straight at me, usually engrossed in their phone. I am sick of holding doors open for people only for them to sail through them without so much as a nod of the head let alone a "thank you".

The selfishness of most drivers is absolutely unbelievable

Working in retail opened my eyes to just how rude so many people are

This morning we have been for a two hour walk through the woods. Every group of families or dog walkers smiled and said hello/good morning etc and I commented to DP that it was really nice you just don't get that anymore on the average street or shop.

I might agree with not appreciating a stranger on the bus asking my child her name where we've been or going etc. It's hard to teach boundaries around strangers although I would still engage in polite conversation and would offer non personal information and not be rude about it.

Well, we got to page 2 before the nasty ageist shite then!

I'm not sure. I pass people of all ages who are focussed on their phones, they just don't notice you.

Others who I strike up conversation with, daft 20 second chats, big smile, have a lovely day and they're gone. All ages, on Friday one started with a young lady of about 3 years old, the merits of skipping across a busy road, and continued with a young gentleman of about 80, the merits of being able to skip at all!

It's just people being people and I choose to ignore the grumpy buggers!

Aye, it were all grand in the good old days

Well I'm in my fifties. When I was young there was massively more racism, sexism, disablism and homophobia.

When I was in school teachers were often violent and bullying was rife. Men beat their wives and kids with impunity. Women were more resigned to sexual assault. Disabled people were ridiculed and shoved in institutions. Gay people were also ridiculed and abused.

Yes people are less polite and more self absorbed now but on the whole society is much kinder.

For me I think it's just the general lack of manners, generally (but not exclusively) from men. In the last two days I've had 3 instances 1) walking through the local department store the man in front of me walked along arms outstretched doing the loudest yawn he could - no I don't want to see your tonsils and listen to a bodily function whilst I'm trying to shop thanks. 2) doing some gardening in my front garden, man walks past and lets out the loudest belch I have ever heard, no attempt to stifle/muffle it, in fact I think he was deliberately trying to get it as loud as possible. 3) again in front garden, different man walked past twice, one way then the other (going to a shop) and both times he snorted up his phlegm and spat it on the pavement. None of these are deadly serious and I'll have forgotten about them next week but it's just the lack of consideration for anyone but themselves

I was in ikea yesterday with my MIL and dc. The till queues were pretty bad but not horrendous. My MIL is anxious and was getting panicy at the speed her things were mounting up after the till as she wanted to wrap some glassware and there wasnt any paper. The check out man stopped scanning and quickly got some from the next door till and told her it was all fine, there was plenty of time. I then skipped around to help her and left my dc loading the conveyor. When it was my turn to pay I thanked him for being so kind to MIL. He was shocked that I thought to thank him and said it had made his day. I was just a little sad that something so obvious to me (thanking him for being nice) was clearly such a rare occurrence for him.

I do agree to some extent, I was made late twice last week by staff messing things up in a petrol station and then in Costa coffee, both times it was their error and neither time did it occur to them to actually apologise which would have gone a long way. I had a neighbour park in my allocated space and go away on holiday for two weeks (new car so didn’t know it was theirs) because someone had used their space which they never use normally (I always use mine) so I was stuck with nowhere to park as I wouldn’t dream of using someone else’s space. But then in the sameness breath another neighbour who saw my predicament has put a sign up by my space saying private parking and let me use their spare one

I live in Scotland and I would disagree with you. The vast vast majority of people are nice and mostly when someone isn't you can tell by their face it's not because of you, there's something else going on with them. I've had the experience of being pretty ill, but not an illness people could necessarily see and know that when you are struggling to be out and about and make it out to say the supermarket you could be spending your whole time trying to keep your shit together (literally in some cases) and it's not just in you to be nice that day.

Once you start noticing the good in people it's a lot easier to notice more. We are travelling in England just now with our 3 year old and I've had at least three people today tell me how it's lovely to see a smiley child. So it's clearly not just Scotland.

You get to a certain age in life when you become invisible, I have now reached that age.

I live in an area that is really supportive - admittedly it's the sort of place where people don't move to and can't escape (probs one of the cheapest in UK) and everyone knows each other. People chat and laugh in the street, help each other out with buggies in shops etc etc. Yes there are younger louts, but nothing too intimidating. The pub can be a bit scary at 3pm on a Sat, and eating out is dire, but we have clean air and lovely tap water. Ah my first MN boast!

Nah, I think the vast majority of people are nice and decent, but unfortunately the dickheads do stand out.

And social media has basically weaponised being a dickhead in many instances.

A man in the bakery treated my ds to a sausage roll today because he was smiling at him.

As a care assistant in a hospital I find that most of my patients & their relatives are usually nice & friendly to me.

I think most people in their hearts are good, In the last week I have seen both.

In the services we were having coffee & a lady who looked frazzelled was feeding her baby we were in ear shot and lady who went past stopped told the mum what a good job she was doing. I then told her we would watch her stuff after she needed to take the baby to clean him up.

Out running over the weekend several dog walkers and other runners said good morning or nodded. Drivers waved me across etc.

On the other hand we live by a busy traffic light crossing and a learner driver stalled over the crossing, the toss pot behind just sat there repeatedly peeping his horn. Dick Head!

@lovesugarfreejelly63 I feel your pain. On the other hand, perhaps we should get together and rob a bank!

Count, having opened countless doors for people to sail through without so much as a thank you, don't think I would have the energy to rob a bank!

I generally try to be nice, and people I think do try and be nice in general but there are some really selfish twats out there. Being too nice however seems to lead to being shat upon unfortunately I find :-(

Tbf I think some of it is as stated in your post - if you live in an area where are lot of people are struggling/have alcohol or drug issues they may not always been in the mood to be happy, smiley all the time.

I also think you're taking things a bit too much to heart - for me to consider somebody rude in the example you gave they'd have to say 'move your fucking pram,' or similar. If they just asked me to move my pram without saying please I wouldn't give it a second's further thought, let alone extrapolate from 'one supermarket worker who's probably been at work for hours was a bit grumpy today,' to 'everybody is horrible nowadays.'

to be honest, fifty/100 years ago you, as a nice, youngish, white (I'm making assumptions based on statistics/MN reputation here) might have got a lot more people being outwardly polite to you when out and about on the street. However the same people would have felt it perfectly okay to be outright rude and discriminatory to people with disabilities/of other ethnicities/religions, and they might not have been so 'nice' to you if you wanted to open your own bank account, stand up for yourself if someone groped your bum, go into a pub on your own, run for election, or do something else outside the 'normal' female sphere. So who's to say people were 'nicer' then?

I also disagree with you about 'the youngsters on social media.' It's definitely older people too - up to at least people in their sixties I'd say. At least with teenagers most of them are so used to typing without even looking they can message on their phones while also carrying on a conversation - if I ask my mum something while she's on fb she doesn't even hear me, she's so engrossed!

You are right about people feeling they can be a lot ruder online hiding behind their keyboards though. I bet the most vicious posters in AIBU wouldn't say boo to a goose if you met them in rl.

My Mum has all kinds of odd mottos but always, always told me that if I couldn't see the kindness I should be the kindness. My DC are 12 and 7 but an old chap who lives locally walked past our drive the other day so I stopped going into the house to chat to him; he said he'd got onto the bus a while back and had a lovely chat to DS1, who had given up his seat for him and told him all about school and rugby on the journey home. It's sad that an older person is surprised at a youngster doing that, but also lovely that DS1 has grown up with that same attitude that my Mum drilled into me.

I work in customer service and have been doing the same job for 9 years. I used to be a Police Officer doing that job I expected to see the worst in folk, obviously people ring the police when things go wrong, they are upset, angry, the offenders can be vile etc, you are prepared for it and take it in your stride. Driving the police cars (other than driving to and from work 6 years of driving was done in a marked police car), most people drove well when they knew you were around.

Once I left the police and entered my current job I was disappointed with people, driving around in my normal car in rush hour traffic, impatient drivers, tooting and cutting up. Customer service job, I dont think people realise how rude they actually come over with out even trying, huffing and puffing when they cant reach over the customer in front to drop their tenner on the counter for their fuel, huffing and puffing when you say i'll be with you as quick as I can, being told you look rough and stressed, being told your rude and have an attitude problem when you say no its ok you dont need to remove your card just try your pin again.
You bend over backwards to resolve a complaint then they come back and argue with you even though you found the complaint in their favour and fixed it for them.

Good lord I could go on for ever, there isnt a day goes by when something low level like the above goes on. It can be soul destroying.

Like I say though I dont think most intend on being rude, they just dont think before they act or open their mouth infront of people who will only meet them for a short space of time and what initial impression they may leave.

""Well I'm in my fifties. When I was young there was massively more racism, sexism, disablism and homophobia.""

I was going to say the same.

What I will say as well, when you are a young Woman, Men are a lot nicer to you. As you age you get treated differently.

If you watch Classic Coronation Street, you would see how the Men call each other by their Surname and are really blunt. They also tried to undermine most Women around. Which is what I remember.

The old people would be happy to give us a smack.

When were people nice?

that was a great point well made Tinklylaugh !! Maybe it is a case of people being a little more self absorbed and half the time on our phones :-)

I think it varies by area. I moved from a grim midlands town a few years ago and whenever I go back I'm always surprised by the level of rudeness there. My latest theory is that people there have been so beaten down by life that they expect everything to be shit, and they leave the house every morning expecting someone to try to get one over on them. There's no benefit of the doubt - if someone happens to glance your way while frowning, or knocks into your trolley in tesco, it must be because they wanted to shout at you or steal your dog/shopping/kids etc, and not because they're trying to remember whether they left the iron on.