Some people enjoy patronising and depressing others

[Esprohuy]

Clearly everyone is having a different experience of the current situation. It seems to me from the posts here and elsewhere that MN is full of people searching for threads from people either asking genuinely when others think the restrictions may be reduced, or people expressing mental or emotional.distress due to being locked away, sometimes alone. The pattern is the OP posts, there are a couple of sympathetic/in the case of lockdown speculation dovish opinions then the Depressor swoops, usually with a formulation along the lines of:
If you think these restrictions will be lifted anytime soon you are a naïve fool. Christmas will be cancelled and things will never fully return to normal

In the threads expressing mental distress their standard formulation is a variety of:
FFS pull yourselves together. It's been (insert number) weeks, how the F do you think people coped in the war the. All you are being asked to do is stay in and watch Netflix

There seems to be a remarkably large number of people among this cohort who claim grandparental involvement in WW1/2 and have a partner/sibling serving as a front line NHS worker. These depressors seem to scour MN looking to pounce on people expressing povs like the above.

It's the holiday dementors I can't stand.

OP posts wondering if their holiday abroad in let's say September will take place. Honest answer - nobody knows, and if it's already booked not a lot you can do about it right now.

Cue posters with " How can you even think about holidays at a time like this FFS don't you know people are dying " and " Well there's no way anyone will be going anywhere until at least 2022 and if you do go earlier you deserve to catch Coronvirus and die you selfish Covidiot"," Anyone booking holidays now deserves what we get ( conveniently forgetting OP says that they booked it months ago" or " Well I'm glad for the planet that people aren't going on holiday ( which is to an extent true but not so good for the economies of those reliant on tourism)"

I think there are a lot of people who don't like holidays- we have some at work who prefer to DIY when off work - and this has given them an excuse to rant and rave at those who do like going away.

Well one of the dementors will explode tomorrow when I take my disabled son out to the shops. He hasn't been out in 4 weeks; he lives alone and I want him to have fresh air but he won't walk far. So we will queue more than likely outside a shop that lets 2 people in, observing 2m rule of other people so he can buy what he wants and is out of his flat for an hour or so.

Oh GODDD I really fucked that up, I'm sorry!

I do think some on here would have loved to have lived during the Interregnum. Though they might have thought Cromwell was a bit too free and easy.

The other kind of patronising that seems to be fairly common is people saying sorry. Clearly not sorry at all.

Typically someone posts and says: ‘can I buy an Easter egg/go for a run after I’ve taken DC out/buy paint/order something from amazon’. Almost always the first post says ‘no you can’t, it’s against the rules. Sorry’. Why the need for the sorry?

I always see people comment that the Uk is a laughing stock to the rest of the world.

I know, this is so weird. Surely this is a hangover from Brexit?

Marginal, I've definitely seen that even before Brexit was ever discussed.

It's a weird kind of British arrogance, the shadow version of Americans thinking they're the greatest nation on earth.

I saw a comment today from a UK citizen bemoaning the fact that the UK lacks the intelligence and maturity to comply with lackdown. Unlike other countries

The other ones are

OP: My elderly relative is in good health are they allowed to go out to exercise?

Dementors: No op you have to tell them to stay indoors otherwise they will pass it on to everybody in the entire universe. They are not allowed to think for themselves and because they are old they are clearly not thinking straight. Keep them locked up never to see daylight again otherwise we're all doomed for eternity.

Come to think of it there is another constituency who revel in exceptionalism, are Disney-haters and also for some reason very frequently and publically mention that they don't own a TV, and that is academics. My experience is of those in the humanities, unworldly types who were experts on medieval German literature but lacked the social skills to order a Bratwurst at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. Again a similar pattern, wilfully badly/eccentrically dressed, disdainful of popular culture and often with quite compromised personal lives.

It's Virtual Signalling at it's vitriolic worst.

Dementors is the perfect term.

Oh, damn. Its, not it's.

No one likes a moaner but sometimes those people are really suffering. A lot of what is being described here is depression and anxiety manifesting in moaning and negativity

Well that is understandable but not when it is offloading that onto others making them feel bad to help them feel better. Moaning in general is very different from shaming and blaming people.

On the psychology, it reminds me a bit of the obsessive / compulsive types at times, such as OCPD

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is a personality disorder that’s characterized by extreme perfectionism, order, and neatness People with OCPD will also feel a severe need to impose their own standards on their outside environment.

Often also associated with moralising etc..

"They may have felt that they needed to be a perfect or perfectly obedient child. This need to follow the rules then carries over into adulthood"

Makes sense, can imagine their DC being brought up the same way

www.healthline.com/health/obsessive-compulsive-personality-disorder#causes

The symptoms of OCPD include:

perfectionism to the point that it impairs the ability to finish tasks
stiff, formal, or rigid mannerisms
being extremely frugal with money
an overwhelming need to be punctual
extreme attention to detail
excessive devotion to work at the expense of family or social relationships
hoarding worn or useless items
an inability to share or delegate work because of a fear it won’t be done right
a fixation with lists
a rigid adherence to rules and regulations
an overwhelming need for order
a sense of righteousness about the way things should be done
a rigid adherence to moral and ethical codes
OCPD is diagnosed when symptoms impair your ability to function and interact with others.

Also says very common

The Dementors are also absolutely desperate for a second spike, preferably one after a very slight restriction easing in early May, which will lead to a longer, nore draconian lockdown that will give them joy unbounded.

They need to be careful though or else the peak might come too early to cause optimum misery. I’ve already seen people praying for December to be locked down. Heaven forbid businesses who have already been fucked can be allowed to trade in the most profitable month for many of them or anyone get any sort of enjoyment from the festive period eh.

Yes Majiid Nawaz is prime Dementor OP.

I had to turn off the radio last week as he was pulling last week's Times expose to shreds and essentially said if we don't lockdown for 18 months its game over for society. He jumped on any caller who dared to suggest otherwise.

The fat shaming has been horrendous. Even the long thread with people in many cases justifiably criticising the NHS (and I work for them!) created a lot of posts saying it's not the fault of the Government or the system but fatties.

Yep and a thread about the overall number of infections very quickly had a comment on it about the death rate of the obese.

Never mind the fact there isn’t much if any evidence to suggest that obese people getting ill or dying is any different to their distribution in the population and plenty of other countries without the U.K. obesity problem have millions of infections and tens of thousands of deaths

Oh and I particularly loved the thread yesterday about the '10 friends bubble' where posters were actually suggesting it's a bad idea because it will upset their friendship group if they don't get invited to join the bubble. FFS!

I hate to think this, but I think some people are disappointed that their predictions (while being abusive to posters buying hot cross buns or eating sat on a bench) a month ago that we'd have ice skating rinks full of the dead 'because of selfish people like you' haven't come to pass.

I think quite a lot of people who have relatively uneventful lives secretly fantasise about living through some kind of dramatic event, like a plane crash or terrorist attack. I certainly did when I was younger and stupider. For the vast majority, when they're faced with the real prospect of going through a terrible thing, like a pandemic where lots of people will die, those fantasies quickly dissipate as they realise they actually rather like being healthy and having their friends and family alive. But there are a few whose need to be a part of something huge and life-altering outweighs those considerations, and if the situation turns the corner now while they've barely been affected then it won't be good enough.

There are also people who get very very angry about others not following 'the rules' - not just in this situation, but also in terms of how they think people should live their lives more generally. To them, if we don't have bodies piled on ice rinks it means the rulebreakers have somehow got away with it, and it's not fair. For the most part I don't think these people actively want more deaths, they just have a very black and white view of right and wrong and a strong sense that 'wrongdoers' should be punished (with guilt, in this case). I used to be quite like this as well, and it took me a very long time to realise that if other people kept getting away with 'breaking the rules' then maybe it was my rules that were wrong, rather than their behaviour. I'm a lot happier now!

It’s interesting how many people scurry along with their heads down. As if they’ll be infected by eye contact.

Hey, I do this in normal times. I'm not miserable, just quite shy IRL

That's a great post @psychomath. I might save that one so it doesn't get away like the other analysis of "Why MNetters Love Rules More Than The Average Person" sadly did, and which I still think of and smirk to myself about five years later.

Something I’ve noticed is a kind of inverted exceptionalism. There’s a constant stream of comments along the the lines of Britain being the absolute worst country in Europe, or possibly the world, at handling this crisis and the British citizens the absolute worst people at being in lockdown

Yes! This puzzles me too. Its not like Italians or Spanish or French people are obeying it any better- they are just facing harsher policing!

There was a thread on Sweden recently and people were saying how herd immunity is a terrible idea, irresponsible, how could UK ministers live with themselves for even considering it, it was murder etc

The SAME people then said in the next breath how refreshing it was that the Swedish government decided not to lockdown and were doing a sensible herd immunity approach.

Lots of people were like, um....... WTF? cue, "oh but its DIFFERENT in Sweden, theyre much more obedient and sensible over there!"
No they arent. Ive been to Sweden, a few of my friends are Swedish and they are human beings just like we are. Some of them are decent and some of them are crap- which is the same in every country in the damn world. Maybe its sort of trendy to pretend we are the worst at everything or something but its such a load of nonsense. No country is "perfect".