I'm not a very nice person

[Everly82]

Ok, that's not strictly true. I'm very friendly and polite, treat people equally, hold doors and smile at strangers. But...I'm often pleased when things go wrong for others (not major things like illness, but if they were to get a house that I would want to live in and it fell through, for example). My friend recently failed her driving test and I wasn't unhappy for her because I can't drive and she has made snide comments before. Next door's house is a tip which pleases me because it makes me feel better about my own and weirdly superior. My high school bully is now obese. Very satisfying.

Am I an arsehole? The reality is, I'm miserable and not where I want to be in life. Is this jealousy? I'm starting to dislike myself.

@vanillandhoney but the OP is genuinely coming on a public forum and asking people. So people are replying.

Schadenfreude doesn't really cover what's come up in this thread in the end. It is more of a lighthearted "haha" when someone slips over on ice. Not a spiteful glee at genuine misfortune. I am saddened to hear that so many people are living such bitter and sad inner lives.

Well put.

It is quite obvious, at least to me, who feels bitter and happy about other people's misfortunes. I can get quite cross and fed up with the stupid behaviours of some people in RL and I will judge them and actively not like them but I'd feel awful if I found myself wishing them actual ill.

I wonder how representative this thread is of the general population.

I don't feel the need to challenge random strangers on their private thoughts. I certainly don't feel the need to tell them their thoughts are vile and disgusting when they have literally no impact on me or anyone else.

It’s not a private thought when it’s shared on a public discussion forum though is it? And that post about wishing harm on an unborn child led to responses from other posters who clearly found it very distressing and upsetting, as did I.

So it’s ok to say you’ve wished harm on an unborn child? You think that’s acceptable?

I don’t understand. The thought existed. It is not for me to accept it or not. I can draw inferences about the character of the person who had that thought. I can’t tell them it is “unacceptable”.

@Halli2020 but how do you know other people have had things handed to them on a plate and therefore deserve it less than you do? How can you possibly know that. And to be happy your friend didn’t pass her theory test. That makes me sad. That you actually even admit that.

@itsbeen84years nobody is "policing thoughts". 🙄 The OP was specifically about whether such thoughts are normal. They are not. Hence in such extreme cases being called "intrusive" due to their abnormal nature. Wind your own neck in.

If you're engaged with schadenfreude, how about gluckschmerz? That's pain at the good fortune of others.

I think that most people are like this to some degree. The fact that you recognise it's a reflecton on you is important.

I think you're very normal. I'm the opposite, I want people to do well and be happy, but I think I'm just a weird Pollyanna type. I sometimes wish I was a little tougher and a little less nice.

I don’t understand. The thought existed. It is not for me to accept it or not. I can draw inferences about the character of the person who had that thought. I can’t tell them it is “unacceptable”.

Meh - you’re just being pernickety now. Other posters have been normalising or attempting to justify that thought (wishing for strangers to lose their unborn child) and I think that is wrong.

I didn't assume anything about you. I simply said that the implication that such cruel thoughts are normal is bizarre (when even the poster who described them said they were intrusive so recognised that this is not ok).

@Ahorsecalledseptember

I must admit I am hard pushed to think of a more unpleasant character trait in someone.
Me too.

I'm surprised by responses on here suggesting it is fairly common to feel this way. You must be deeply unhappy to be pleased at the misfortune of others.

@echt

Temporarything We can’t always be Pollyanna. I except many people have these negative thoughts and wouldn’t admit to it but recognise it as an unpleasant aspect of their personality. I doubt it’s unusual

I suppose this is why friends must be selected very carefully. If I get even a hint of this type of mindset from anybody, they cease to be an acquaintance, let alone friend

Then you'd be doing them a favour, JinpingShuffle, getting your judgy ass out of their life. I hope you'd have the intestinal fortitude to tell them why, though I doubt it.

Wow. Another one. 😆

Meh - you’re just being pernickety now. Other posters have been normalising or attempting to justify that thought (wishing for strangers to lose their unborn child) and I think that is wrong.

I am not normalising or attempting to justify it, though. I am just pointing out that thoughts and feelings are involuntary, to a large degree. They might make someone what we think of as ‘nasty’, but they are not for us to accept or reject. They just are.

[quote Nc135]@vanillandhoney but the OP is genuinely coming on a public forum and asking people. So people are replying.[/quote]
But there's a huge difference between saying "I've never experienced that" or "I don't feel it's normal" and telling people they're vile, horrible and disgusting for having thoughts they probably have zero control over.

What does telling someone you think they're vile and disgusting achieve? Does it make people feel better to say that about others? I don't get what the purpose of it is.

Disagreeing is one thing, but calling people awful names on the basis of a thought is just unpleasant and there's no nice reason for it at all.

I suspect quite a few people are like this tbh, I had a best friend who would systematically cut friends out of her life if they had things she wanted, friends she was incredibly close to and had known for years. First it was the friend who bought the house first, then the friend that had a baby first, then the friend that got married first, then it was my turn, not sure what exactly my crime was, but it hurts to know that someone you consider a best friend is unhappy when good things happen to you.

I applaud you for recognising this in yourself and hopefully you will try to work on these emotions and not act upon them.

I have a relative who seems to dislike nice things happening to other people. It’s not a nice trait.

[quote echt]**@echt It's definitely reminded me that the internet is a strange place sometimes. The irony of posting about teaching your kids to be kind and then posting such judgemental hogwash about 'evil thoughts'. If I was being kind I'd put it down to a lack of self awareness, but I think I've already been told I'm not kind. I'm quite happy with that if that's what it is to be kind though. I prefer my position

👍[/quote]
Perhaps you should do some CBT. Kindness and contentness is as much about how you think as how you behave. Kind people don't just pretend to behave kindly. Honesty when asked for opinions is not unkind either.

But there's a huge difference between saying "I've never experienced that" or "I don't feel it's normal" and telling people they're vile, horrible and disgusting

Who are you addressing these comments to? Because I haven’t used those words anywhere on this thread.

If you don’t find it shocking though that someone could actively wish harm on an unborn baby, then I suggest you take a long hard look at yourself.

I have a friend who lives very much on impulse whereas I overthink and agonise over life decisions.
Without fail things always work out for her!!! Its annoying and I do wish that for once something wouldn't work out so she couldn't carry on smugly believing if you hope for the best then good things happen, when she's just had good luck!!
However I think that for a split second and immediately check my thoughts. I love this person. I don't want her to be unhappy and there are children involved. So whilst the thought fleetingly crosses my mind, I don't allow myself to dwell on it or imagine things going wrong for her rubbing my hands in glee. That would make me a horrible person I think.
I also sometimes follow her example and try to expect the best to happen and you know what, it often does.

My mother used to have a sort of grim satisfaction when unfortunate things happened to other people. Or a kind of jealousy/"it's well for some" attitude if people had more or went on a holiday etc.

Genuinely I am never pleased if something bad or unfortunate happens to other people in general, especially people I care about. I think it's totally normal if someone has wronged you to want to see things made 'fair' or 'right's somehow, but things like friends' driving tests or house purchases would make me feel bad for them if they didn't work out.

I also think it's quite obvious when people have that kind of gleeful attitude about misfortune befalling others. You can see it in their eyes and reactions. It makes me distrust someone who acts like that. A cousin of mine who I no longer see used to have a grim satisfaction about a friend of hers who was a single mum with two children on the autism spectrum. My cousin was jealous because her friends got benefits.

They might make someone what we think of as ‘nasty’, but they are not for us to accept or reject. They just are.

@flaviaritt If someone had racist thoughts would you say the same thing?

I agree with what a lot are saying in that I think it's quite common. I can also be like this but I think lately I have come to realise it is probably because I am unhappy within myself. Queue therapy

@vanillandhoney

I find it quite ironic that the most judgemental sounding posts on this thread have come from those who claim never to have nasty thoughts about anyone, ever.

Having nasty thoughts is one thing, being judgemental and rude to people who have opened up in good faith is quite another and I know which quality I'd prefer in a friend.

Yep me too. I'd choose a friend who is a decent person who genuinely wants to best for their friends but is honest and not afraid to tell the truth even if it hurts my feelings every day over someone harbouring bitterness, jealousy and resentment and secretly wishing for me to fail while pretending to be a friend.

On another thread recently, someone was talking about how their brother had died of a certain cancer, and then another more distant relative had got it and were doing fine, but the mumsnetter couldn't be happy, truly happy for them. Most people on that thread responded with empathy and understood that when you are grieving, or really traumatized, your thought processes are distorted. I sometimes feel really angry on here at people moaning on about living through lockdown when the person I loved most in the world isn't going to get to do that this year when he would have loved to carry on living, but I realise that my anger and distress is manifesting in bad thinking towards them. I'm guessing that is what the person having distorted thinking/intrusive thoughts after so many miscarriages was having.

Luckily on that thread most people were very sympathetic about the weird and unpleasant bad ways your mind can go when you've lost someone.

I don't see why it matters really if someone's walking down the road thinking a bad thing about you, you don't know about it. Lots of people may well be, they may not like the look of you, may be jealous of you (being pregnant, being alive) or just a hateful kind of person. As long as they don't articulate it out loud, I don't see the issue myself!

That's not the same as what the OP was talking about.

I think this is an odd thread and don't know what to make of it, some people seem astonished that everyone around them doesn't wish them the absolute best of happiness, I don't find that astonishing. I know my friends basically like me, support me and help me through their actions, if they had the odd negative thought about me because they were feeling low or rubbish themselves, I wouldn't feel bad about that.