Why are people so rude & weird?

[Maryqueenofscots83]

I'm currently looking after a friend's house in a town on the South coast.

I've been here for several weeks and I can't believe how rude and deranged strangers are here. Normally I'm up north or overseas.

In Tesco, I got called a 'stupid cow' for dropping my keys on the floor after checkout, by a customer, a woman she was with laughed at what she said and they both sneered at me. I'm not sure if I was supposed to have heard. I didn't put anyone else out by dropping my keys, then they walked really close behind me whispering loudly. It was bizarre. I wondered if they were on drugs,. I said nothing because my instincts told me these women were asking for a fight somehow.

Today I was outside Aldi and a guy in a car made kissing noises at me as I got out. Then when I got back in the car after my shop, carrying flowers and he made kissing noises again and said "ah she bought flowers" in a silly, take the piss voice, stuck his hand out the window towards me, not sure why? and his friend in the car with him burst out laughing and then drove off. I just gave them a strange look.

A couple of other incidents like this involving men, total strangers, who appear to be taking the piss for no reason.

A man sort of blocked me in to a parking space, I had a hell of a time getting out of the space, I asked him to move and he wouldn't, with a sneering look on his face and then when I rolled my window down to give him a piece of my mind, he said with a lascivious look on his face "doesn't it feel so good to get in and out of tiny little spaces?"

I went out with a friend to a bar and a man came up behind me and grabbed my head for no reason. I shouted at him to get off me and he did. He kept approaching me after that trying to apologise, but it was like he was taking the piss, it wasn't genuine. In the end we left the bar because of it.

Anyone else get strangers doing this? How do you react?

This isn't a particularly rough place.

i bloody love boscome, me. the cellar bar could easily be one of my favourite places on earth. there are definitely a high percentage of slightly strange characters there, but i love that.
i spend a lot of time there visiting friends and the worst time i ever had was coming home and getting mugged at my local train station, there are wankers everywhere.
your job sounds awesome OP!

@OwlBeThere - OMG the cellar bar. You're not going to believe this given my original post and all the weird stuff that's happened to me in the last several weeks, but I went to the cellar bar with a friend last summer. I was wearing a dress which was a bit revealing... I had on a nice bra was showing a bit at the back, and I had a really old drunk guy come up to us and said to me "you look like a slut in that dress", he was so drunk he could barely stand up, we just laughed it off.

I don't know if I'll be back to Boscombe, haha, I think me and the drunken/drug addled men of Boscombe don't mix!

However my friend loves the cellar bar and is always asking me to go with her. I keep saying no. Lol.

That's what Britain is like

DP nudged her trolley into someone at a small village supermarket earlier. (DP is registered blind). DP got a glare and told to "watch where the fuck you're going". DP had apologised and upon mentioning her blindness was told "I don't fucking care, stay out of the fucking shop".

@maryqueenofscots83......yeah, sounds like its not really for you hahaha.

Bournemouth is also (still?) a popular spot for hen and stag parties, many of whom seem to think that all normal social rules are "off" during these events and behave in utterly disgraceful ways! (See also the thread on York, quite recently)

Didn't know about the drug use being on the rise there but it wouldn't surprise me. I gather Brighton had the same issue.

@skybluee

how mean of them!

@SimplySteveRedux Wow. Beyond rude!!!

Oh,it's most definitely much better up North, you can get a lot of smart arse idiots down South. People are generally much kinder and more friendly in the North. Northern folks like to be funny and jokey at times,,but not rude,weird and piss takers.

I grew up in a neighbouring county and one of my childhood treats was a trip to Bournemouth. Went back a couple of years ago and was shocked at how much it had changed, and not for the better.

I live in a seaside town in Sussex now and agree with a PP about people being dumped here. The drug and alcohol problems are like nothing I've seen anywhere else and I spent 20 years in London.

Where do you keep your belongings?

I've got a car full that I bring with me to house sits.

And the rest in a friend's attic.

Haven’t RTFT but I visited Bournemouth about 4 years ago after remembering a lovely holiday as a child in the late ‘80s. The road from the station was horrible; full of cheap takeaways with rubbish piled up. I walked down to the park near the beach where a bloke walked up to me and said “Nice tits. Fancy a shag?” Haven’t been in a rush to go back there.

I went to a conference in Bournemouth a few years back. I hadn't been to to Bournemouth in years but had a vague recollection of it being a nice place. I was shocked at the decline. It used to be quite genteel, now it's a shithole.

Similar to Torquay. I haven't been for a few years so it may have improved. But years ago it was considered a lovely place but again when I visited it years later the decline was incredible.

I think drug taking seems to be at an all time high. I live in south west London, in the last few years we have seen an influx of addicts sitting outside our station being aggressive, and house burglaries have gone on the rise. I have lost patience with them. I used to think there for the grace of god go I, but now I just think they are a bunch of wasters bringing the area down with their lifestyle choice and antisocial behaviour.

I reckon they all notice that you're not a local so they 'pick on you', I know it's incredible in this day and age but did you know some people still believe stereotypes about others based on where they're from?

Sadly, the global village doesn't necessarily promote tolerance and an open mind.

Oh, there can be rude arseholes in the north too, and I speak from experience. But somehow, they're less intrusive than the kind of harrassment being complained of in this thread, and of which I also have personal experience and especially in the south can be. Cross a northerner, and they can be as rude and confrontational as the next person. Some of the drinking behaviour I've witnessed is atrocious. But that's not quite the same thing as getting into someone's face and going out of your way to FIND confrontation.

But IME, there's less of the coming up into people's space, deliberately discomfiting people for no apparent reason, being unbelievably rude just for the sake of it; or mocking and ridiculing complete strangers, just because they can. All this I've experienced or witnessed in London or on the south coast. The M on F harrassment - again IME only - also seems to be much more prevalent in those areas, where that old mantra 'don't look for trouble and none will find you' seems to hold less a little less sway.

People are also lovely - Brighton's incredibly friendly as a rule - northerners are generous-spirited people; it's really only London where I won't make eye contact with anyone unless it's absolutely necessary. There's good and bad everywhere. But I do agree that the form of the rudeness tends to vary!

I was in a pub once with a friend. A man (not particularly drunk) came up and pinched my friend's cheeks, sort of pulled them about and said "I bet you've had some salty bollocks in there in your time" then walked away.

Strange

@MissCharleyP

"“Nice tits. Fancy a shag?” "

How could you refuse such an eloquently expressed and delightful sounding offer

My goodness! Haven’t been to Bournemouth in years, but it used to be so genteel...,. I was once invited to fight someone who decided I’d given her a funny look...at 9am ...in Barnsley. I declined her offer and fled.

There are a lot of angry people about these days .... but there are a lot of lovely kind people too

@cavalier

That is true

Funniest thing I've ever seen in my life: in America, on the subway. Fat woman is talking into her phone quite loudly. Fat guy (trendy, bearded, possibly gay) gets on the train, then aggressively tells her to shut the eff up. She rolls her eyes. He then calls her a fat pig. She slams down her phone and points out that he's fat, too. They scream fat insults at each other until the next stop, where the fat guy alights, all the while shouting "FAT" from the platform as the train continues on.

@breakfastpizza

Lol. That's so weird!!

I used to go to Boscombe, Christchurch and Bournemouth on holiday every year to stay with my relatives in New Milton about 45 years ago and they were lovely places. At least I thought they were lovely when I was ten. It sounds like they have changed a bit :(