Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

What is wrong with these people? Genuine question

79 replies

GreenTomatoes2014 · 26/04/2020 13:18

Some people are clearly displaying their worst sides in this crisis. Absolutely NO self-awareness whatsoever. Across the age ranges too. Some very recent examples:

Young couple in furious debate with staff outside Sainsbury's for not being allowed to go in together, despite arriving hand-in-hand so clearly from same household. Lots of shouting/swearing/vicious words from said couple. Poor member of staff, I felt really bad for her. In front of

Older lady in the park, maybe late 60's, early 70's, looked very well-to-do, walked past a dad with his two young children who were very close to him and sneered, "Kids, taking up all the path." Path was extremely wide, she didn't even have to leave it to pass him. Again, felt very sad to hear such aggression, felt bad for the dad.

Couple - middle aged, man pushing his partner in a wheelchair. Midday, outside supermarket. Man ignored the queue of otherwise patient people, went straight up to the front, tried to gain immediate entry. Was halted by a member of staff who told him there was one queue. Man argued the point, staff member reiterated "there's one queue." Man started mouthing off, "rude bastard," as he wheeled his equally thwarted partner away - to rejoin - yes, the back of the queue like EVERYBODY ELSE.

Older woman, possibly late 70's, outraged that a man with vulnerabilities was permitted into the co-op ahead of her. Again, quite middle-class lady - she said loudly and angrily to my friend "Well, aren't you going to say anything?"

W the actual F is wrong with people like this? Why do they feel it is their privilege to behave so badly when others are showing their strength and behaving so considerately and positively. Are they mentally ill? Are they stupid? Are they just nasty fuckers? They clearly give 0 fucks about anyone else to start with. Shocking.

AIBU to expect that a crisis like this should be seen as a chance to display our best selves? I have no respect for people like this!

OP posts:
Grumpbum123 · 26/04/2020 14:48

I’m mentally unwell and I’m not a dick

beebeedandelion · 26/04/2020 14:49

Whereas the OP......

Mapril · 26/04/2020 14:49

People often don't recognise their own twattishness.

As this thread demonstrates.

wildcherries · 26/04/2020 14:54

There was a wheelchair user on here a few days ago. Whilst they were happy to wait their turn, the queue went past curbs and obstacles that they would struggle to negotiate

This is so often the case. The number of looks I've had from people for simply daring to be outside.

wiltingflower · 26/04/2020 14:55

I feel like I've always lived in not so nice areas because the examples you've given are things I've always seen happen, even as a child. Good will, manners and politeness are ideals which I don't often see from many people under normal circumstances, maybe because it doesn't occur to them that they're not displaying it/ they don't know what it looks like/ they haven't experienced it from others so copy the behaviour they see as normal. I'm not surprised that some people are not at their personal best and are behaving poorly. Not everyone feels a sense of duty and togetherness, everyone is at different levels of thinking.

mrsBtheparker · 26/04/2020 14:58

Your use of the descriptors 'well-off' and 'middle class' tell me all I want to know about you.

imsooverthisdrama · 26/04/2020 15:04

I think the mental illness comment was a suggestion is there a medical condition or are they just rude ignorant fuckers .
It's a fair comment because often you wonder there is something wrong with you because no one is that stupid ...
I came off here for a while because I was tired of the unnecessary comments but here they are again , you lot really are bored .
To answer the op question I think it's people just don't want to change their name ways as in they have always gone to the supermarket together and no global pandemic will change that because they are selfish.

BronwenFrideswide · 26/04/2020 15:05

GreenTomatoes2014 to answer to your question, because MN at the moment is full of threads just like yours detailing behaviour of others during this pandemic and they only seem to be posted so reams of posters can respond with comments along the lines of:

YANBU OP, people are dying/such selfish bastards killing people/stay at home fgs/we are all going to die/get the Army on the streets/these people need locking up and on and on and on

What purpose does it serve?

There are rude, inconsiderate, nasty people amongst us at all times, you can see, hear and experience appalling behaviour at any time a pandemic doesn't change that, read any of the threads posted by people who work in Customer Service roles for evidence of that.

MissHoskins · 26/04/2020 15:13

There are rude nasty people everywhere, why don't you ask the people why they're behaving badly. Nobody here can give you the answers you want.
This pandemic is bringing out some really excellent behaviour and some really awful behaviour

quietheart · 26/04/2020 15:20

@GreenTomatoes2014 You’re welcome

Thinkingabout1t · 26/04/2020 15:32

I saw a woman slagging off a doorman outside Poundland. She kept saying she had social anxiety and needed to go in because she couldn't queue. He was being polite but said he couldn't let her in before everyone else.

She walked off, snarling "I hope you suffer the way you've made me suffer". I'm glad to say people were giving him friendly sympathetic looks, even though none of us felt justified in challenging the woman as she was claiming MH problems.

Theweasleytwins · 26/04/2020 15:33

I was happily sunning myself in the queue outside aldi- first in the queue (after a couple of minutes) a man strolled up to the member of staff said hi and walked in
I recognized him as the nice security guard from the previous week
The staff member said sorry (he was going in for shopping)
Didn't bother me as long as he didn't buy all the wool there😋

Northernsoulgirl45 · 26/04/2020 15:35

Yavvu about the wheelchair user abd hypocritical.

Northernsoulgirl45 · 26/04/2020 15:39

Late 70s woman also possibly classed as vulnerable.

thesesocksaretootight · 26/04/2020 15:49

And don't get me started on all the families out for a walk along country lanes, who don't seem to realise that they can't just spread themselves out all over the carriageway. It is a road like any other. Get out of the way of traffic please.

Taliya · 26/04/2020 15:50

Yes it's unreasonable behaviour by those people you have given examples about. Normally people don't behave in this way but I suppose under stress and pressure some people lose their rag. You don't know what their situation is and maybe little things like queuing or only one person allowed into the supermarket was the straw that broke the camels back. Not condoning the behaviour. This whole lockdown experience is quite anxiety inducing though!

MereDintofPandiculation · 26/04/2020 15:52

Everyone's under stress and finding different ways to cope. Some do it by obsessively reading the news, some by making graphs of the stats, some by being angry at what they see as breaches of the rules, some by being angry at people being angry at others.

usernameannonymous · 26/04/2020 15:54

"What is wrong with these people?"

I want to know what's wrong with you thinking that someone having a mental illness would make them rude, "stupid" or "nasty f*ckers".
Mental illness does not mean people are bad or rude.

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 26/04/2020 16:01

Undeniably. But what purpose do threads like this achieve, other than to continue the cycle of negativity?

Enforced, semi-voluntary imprisonment at home is clearly going to be very hard on some people and for a variety of different reasons. None of these are invalid: you feel how you feel, that's allowed. But there are also a large number of people who are genuinely supportive and do good for others. Maybe hitting the 'pause' button on their lives is making some people take stock of their lives in a different way, recognising what's wrong with the pace at which they normally live and making changes. Maybe in some strange sense this enforced lockdown is having some positive as well as negative affects.

Dicks will be dicks. They'll always be with us. But why don't people ever focus on the good in this world - even if it's only a cheery exchange with a stranger in which you see the humour in an undeniably awful situation, for just two minutes out of your day?

These things do make a difference. I'll take this stuff, and would rather leave the prefects to it.

flirtygirl · 26/04/2020 16:09

People, the op never said those with mental illness are stupid or rude.
Bloody get some comprehension.

Usernameannonymous, read the ops replies, they are usually highlighted.

roe05 · 26/04/2020 16:13

It is true that something similar happened to me when I went shopping at the supermarket, a lady who only talked about 123 movie was standing in front of the entrance; I asked for permission to enter and what he did was insult me just for asking something politely. The world upside

Original poster
GreenTomatoes2014 · 26/04/2020 16:21

Oh my goodness. I am not saying that people with MH issues are nasty or stupid. Why must some people insist on taking offence and grabbing the wrong end of the stick? I meant "what can possibly be wrong with someone to that degree where they forget the normal societal boundaries of politeness and consideration?"

Perhaps they have a mental health condition. Perhaps they just don't care. It's bizarre to witness it. And yes, I have also witnessed acts of extreme kindness and courtesy. And no, mrsBtheparker, I don't have a problem at all with people who are well-off or middle class. Not all the examples I gave were middle-class or well-off people!

OP posts:
Original poster
GreenTomatoes2014 · 26/04/2020 16:30

Thank-you flirtygirl. Exactly. I think some may be deliberately misconstruing the meaning here. Very irritating! I wanted a better debate than this

OP posts:
usernameannonymous · 26/04/2020 18:53

@flirtygirl

I read the reply, and still don't understand why mental illness needs to be mentioned.

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 26/04/2020 18:56

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

Agreed that this is odd. The rest of the world is preoccupied with its own domestic issues. It doesn't really concern itself with what's going on on a cluster of rain-soaked islands in the North Atlantic.

I'm grinning at the searing assessment downthread of Humanities academics. Mainly because I am one, and thinking of some of my colleagues and admittedly me too, the picture isn't altogether unfamiliar! Especially in my case, a slightly bizarre dress sense. Although I do like Disney World. And own a TV. Which reminds me ...

Dementors. Wouldn't it be scary if these were really a manifestation of the Freudian return of the repressed? That scary stuff in our psychosexual history including separation from the body of the mother, that we shunt off into the unconscious and then develop a complex about. Odd that it's the screaming of his mum the dementors have captured and replay on a loop too - repetition being an aspect of Freud's uncanny and separation from the m.