AIBU to loathe the people here?

[OnenessWithAllStrife]

Some people say that feeling a negative emotion or having unpleasant feelings about something shouldn't define you, that you should let the thoughts flow and then let them go. OK. I hope this to be true :(

But i have lived somewhere for the past 6 years that has brought me to conclusions and created feelings in me that I am not proud of. For the first time in my life I have actually come to loathe people and feel a sense of terror about being stuck with them. This is not particularly politically 'correct' when put into words, unfortunately, but I can't think of any other way to express it.

I moved to a town6 yrs ago in which I don't have much in common with the residents. It isn't unusual, just an ordinary large town which at one time contained more diversity, but in recent years has become very insular and homogenous. Everyone is angry, anti social, or depressed. If you don't openly discuss some sort of prejudice (racism, sexism, anti-intellectualism) you're 'soft in the head' or a 'bloody weirdo'.
Wherever I go here, in any direction, you will either see kids or drunk adults destroying property, or else screaming at each other in the street. There are a few select areas that are less challenging and rough, but the vibe is somehow the same.

Education or reading is a mugs game, football is the only passion, kids are yelled at for merely existing. Any conversation with a seemingly friendly stranger results in them wishing all the foreigners to go home. There is a general air of brutality to everything, a leathery, hard resistance to any kind of sensitivity whatsoever. Art, creativity and self reflection are suspicious, and the only permissible clothing is black or sport branded. Every damned street is choked with the fumes of endlessly revved up vehicles with ear splitting exhaust modifications. The environment is filthy, full of dog shit and bordering on dereliction.

I would once have considered all of this a problem of poverty, but it isn't quite that easy to determine, having witnessed it. There is no seeming variation in behaviour across income brackets here, it looks to be more cultural than income related, although the attitude towards learning, etc will obviously have the effect of creating more poverty regardless. It is like a self perpetuating cesspit of no hope and hard hearts. I thought i was a leftie, a socialist, but when I leave here I will be fucking marked by this and hope to never exist within it ever again.

We moved here for DP's work and are set to leave this coming year. I also appreciate that the residents and I have experienced very different upbringings and we do not share much in common, but even so, I think that you have to endure this to really, really see it, to come to fear it. It is easy to sit in a comfy armchair miles from it and 'defend' this stuff because you haven't truly sampled the existential sickness of it on your own doorstep.
I wish i didn't feel it, but it is difficult to lie to oneself, and the fear has probably evolved from having felt 'stuck' in it for so long. I wfh and DP does part time (some here regard us as 'pretentious' for this and have suggested we ought to do some 'real' work). It all feels very dated and odd, to be surrounded by values that repulse me and contain so little diversity. I mean, this is the type of place where you'll get side-eyed for cooking from scratch or having the audacity to flavour a dish with pesto.

Does this mean I loathe them? I don't know. I imagine I will chill with it when we have moved, as it all becomes a distant memory, but it has certainly left a mark. It feels wrong to state these feelings and observations, but I bet I am not the only one who has thought them....

@PrinnyPree

Hi OP as someone who's moved around alot (6 different cities/towns in total) I have landed in one for a short stint for a year that sounds like what you're describing.

Yes it was hell, my flat was burgled and my car broke into twice in the space of a year and threats and intimidation just walking home even in daylight hours. I'm also already Northern, originally from a working class background so not hard to blend in but some places have just been allowed to rot and turned into "crab buckets".

I am however still super Left wing because it is the Right that has allowed this to happen. It suits them to have pockets of angry working class people with no aspiration and hope, blaming "foreigners" rather than Tories for their lot. I remember some nearly spitting that Jeremy Corbyn was going to spend spend spend from the "magic money tree" (that would have literally helped these places recover) but not a word about tax cuts for the rich and the dodgy PPE contracts we've seen since the last election.

I used to work in an outreach to help people get into education, training and work but all funding has gone and those outreaches no longer exist, same for youth sevices, social care has been cut to the bone and in some places jobs with career progression are non existant and high streets are pawnbrokers, pubs and betting shops. If you've grown up somewhere like this all your life it is so hard to break free without being ostracised and there is less lifelines than ever before.

I totally get everything you're saying OP. Noone will understand unless they've lived somewhere like this. Its not these peoples fault though, their lives have purposefully been made shit and a sophisticated propaganda machine is being used to keep them angry at the wrong people. Xxx

Thanks, i dont exactly blame the people themselves, but it does produce moments of loathing that i think are natural if unpleasant. Im not used to this kind of environment so it feels so alien to me.

of course we can leave and are lucky to have the means to do what we want, but this has been a shite few years.

people make very broad sweeping assumptions from one OP. It is just a post moaning about something, it does not define me and is not on my mind 24-7. Some people need to calm their tits.

A lot of the time your neighbours really do make a place. If you're living somewhere with a constant turnover of people, it's trickier to make a connection.

Agree with a previous poster who mentioned that social media (or maybe just widespread internet use) makes people a bit less connected to what's going on around them. You see so much bad stuff, it starts to seem normal. Well if most people are seeing the same, maybe they are just inured to it?

When places aren't getting any investment, opportunities for communities to experience something else are limited. And in any society, a portion of it will be perfectly happy without seeing what else is out there. (There's nothing wrong with people staying in the same place/job for 40+ years if they are good at what they do and are content to do it). And if the area is generally pleasant, that's fine, isn't it?

But surroundings can make people feel depressed. Run down areas do attract more anti-social behaviour. It doesn't mean there aren't some cracking people there, just trying to plug on.

I lived in an area that was up and coming for about 4 years and then declined for the next 8. More inconsiderate/antisocial people moved in and local investment really declined. I stayed because I knew all my immediate neighbours and joined in with the local school/ street activities (using local Facebook groups-can be useful for something!) so it was bearable for a lot longer. I've left the area now to try a more rural experience. I wouldn't say where I am has more investment, but people seem happier here, so are naturally friendlier.

*is not in
** who not you

Good luck with your move OP. It sounds like a very depressing place.

@TheYearOfSmallThings

just fucking tell me you'd be ok with this.

The thing is, I don't think you'd be any happier where I live (East London, stabby, few gang issues), but I find plenty to like. It's not like the rest of us live in Utopia.

All the anger isn't doing you any good...

I know places like the OP describes. I now live in a stabby gangy part of London. It might not be Utopia but believe me, you would see the difference. There’s a good reason I’m here in a tiny 2 bed and not there in a huge detached house.

You can say “well everyone there can’t be bad” and you are probably right, but over time the people who don’t think that way and don’t want to live that way leave and raise their families somewhere else. Bad towns act like a reverse sieve…the stuff you want to keep flows away and the stuff you don’t gets stuck.

Doesn’t sound a great place to live!

At first I thought it was going to be Hemel Hempstead where I went to secondary school!

Wigan is number 20 on the worst places to live in England in 2021

www.ilivehere.co.uk/top-50-worst-places-to-live-in-england-2021

Yes, she did. It was as a result of her DHs job at the time.

Kendal is a one hour commute to Wigan.
And they're both largely working from home, why move there and why seemingly pick the worst part of Wigan to live ?

@PrinnyPree

Hi OP as someone who's moved around alot (6 different cities/towns in total) I have landed in one for a short stint for a year that sounds like what you're describing.

Yes it was hell, my flat was burgled and my car broke into twice in the space of a year and threats and intimidation just walking home even in daylight hours. I'm also already Northern, originally from a working class background so not hard to blend in but some places have just been allowed to rot and turned into "crab buckets".

I am however still super Left wing because it is the Right that has allowed this to happen. It suits them to have pockets of angry working class people with no aspiration and hope, blaming "foreigners" rather than Tories for their lot. I remember some nearly spitting that Jeremy Corbyn was going to spend spend spend from the "magic money tree" (that would have literally helped these places recover) but not a word about tax cuts for the rich and the dodgy PPE contracts we've seen since the last election.

I used to work in an outreach to help people get into education, training and work but all funding has gone and those outreaches no longer exist, same for youth sevices, social care has been cut to the bone and in some places jobs with career progression are non existant and high streets are pawnbrokers, pubs and betting shops. If you've grown up somewhere like this all your life it is so hard to break free without being ostracised and there is less lifelines than ever before.

I totally get everything you're saying OP. Noone will understand unless they've lived somewhere like this. Its not these peoples fault though, their lives have purposefully been made shit and a sophisticated propaganda machine is being used to keep them angry at the wrong people. Xxx

SO TRUE!!! You have described so accurately what is happening. The kids in the 'Rough' areas would do things like urinating into a pile of smouldering mattresses on the 'Rec'.

Deeply depressing. They had no hope, their parents had no hope.

Generations of poverty and social problems, kids not being encouraged to do well by their parents..
Lots and lots of shouting and raised voices.

A cycle of deprivation. The Tories don't give a tinker's cuss about these families.

@HairyFanjoBanjo 😂 absolutely!

I feel like it’s somewhere in the Midlands

You can say “well everyone there can’t be bad” and you are probably right, but over time the people who don’t think that way and don’t want to live that way leave and raise their families somewhere else. Bad towns act like a reverse sieve…the stuff you want to keep flows away and the stuff you don’t gets stuck.

This is a brilliant description of it. It becomes more and more concentrated as time goes on.

@Pigeoninthehouse

Yes, she did. It was as a result of her DHs job at the time.

Kendal is a one hour commute to Wigan.
And they're both largely working from home, why move there and why seemingly pick the worst part of Wigan to live ?

it wasnt bad here at the time, was quiet and mostly elderly who had died of moved on. Noisy businesses and drug houses only moved in recently.

we also only planned being here for 2 years.

it isnt hard to grasp.

Oops - have just seen it’s Wigan! Should have read the whole thread before commenting

OP, your writing style, your patent loathing of the place... all of it comes across as very superior and smug.

I'm not saying bits of Wigan aren't a shithole - they certainly are - but there's loads of it that's perfectly nice.

And if you're so convinced there's no 'culture', you're not looking hard enough - I've just googled and there's been a gorgeous outdoor art exhibition on at Pennington Flash recently, plus upcoming various bits of theatre, a book fair, open mic poetry nights regularly, a talk from a celebrated local photographer, an artisan craft fair for creative small businesses...

And then - "a general air of brutality". Haigh Park? The beautiful walks along the towpath on the Leeds Liverpool? The beautiful redbrick and Tudor buildings in the centre?

As others said, the idea that everyone in an entire town you meet is a horrible destructive racist who never eats a vegetable, except you, the patron saint of culture and polite society for West Lancashire, is just so insulting and small-minded.

Whatever chip you have on your shoulder, maybe you should take it elsewhere. They like anti-Wigan snobs in Worsley, have you thought about moving there?

Sounds grim op. You’ve two choices. Get the fuck out ASAP or find a decent, reliable dealer. I’d go with the second.

it isnt hard to grasp.
I can see why you don't fit in.

I would also love to see how the posters who are mocking this would feel if their naice local shops became kebab shops, pawnbrokers, payday loan joints and nail bars overnight.

oh lord just think of the children!

Also the misogyny here is awe inspiring. Perhaps i ought to look for the plus points though....perhaps i could seek therapy, assisting me to learn to embrace toxic masculinity.

If you’re making some godawful joke about The Road to Wigan Pier I am going to hope really hard you step on lego soon.

@Pigeoninthehouse

it isnt hard to grasp. I can see why you don't fit in.

you must be one of them, surely. i absolutely would not want to fit in to a racist, sexist shit hole, would you?

This is my experience of a lot of England outside London. As someone who looks very foreign, it's what's put me off moving elsewhere and working remotely for a 'better quality of life'. A lot of places people think are great and quaint are only that way if you happen to be white British. No thanks - I'll stay somewhere I can go to a hobby group or down the pub without being asked how long I've been here and where I'm 'really from'.

OP - I read your op and thought it was really accurate description of where I lived for 10 years and left 4 years ago (though not Wigan). The leathery hard-hearted no hope outlook of the people is so sad. I know it comes from a gradual dismantling of so much that made those communities work in the past. I know that some people there are great and there are individuals who are going against the grain and resist getting dragged down by the prevailing culture, but for everyone who manages that that are a good few more who can't because it's all around them and you have to be a stubborn goat to swim against the tide.
I wish society offered an answer but I don't think one is coming anytime soon, and in the end I left as I couldn't watch what it would do to my kids who were small and going to start school.
I reminds me of an anthropologist (can't remember the name) who studied a tribe after famine and war had ravaged their lives and were blank and brutal, lacking in empathy or cooperation - the anthropologist concluded they were inherently devoid of civilised charctaeristics and his writings influenced the field for years, only for someone to eventually do a follow up study and found that once the pillars of a functioning society had gradually returned and trauma had loosened its grip they were as pleasant to one another as anyone. The lesson being that we are all products of our environment socially speaking and give communities what they need to thrive and they will. I hope that areas such as the one I left and the one you are talking about can be turned around with some helpful social interventions that support people trying to create a good quality of lives for themselves and if people don't get marooned economically they will be able to build something better and resentments and entrenched hopelessness can fade in time.
Will it happen? I'm not holding my breath - but it could if people with the ability to make changes did so.

@Slothkin

If you’re making some godawful joke about The Road to Wigan Pier I am going to hope really hard you step on lego soon.

people in wigan think Orwell loved it here. It's quite strange.

Don't worry OP, I'm sure you'll be back soon with like minded people in your nice bit of the SE away from those horrible, poor "locals".

I've noticed that when mumsnetters talk about their lovely "diverse" areas, they mean that their next door neighbours are either Black or Asian but invariably middle class.

They don't mean that they live in a tower block crammed full of refugees and illegal immigrants.

And you wonder why working class people voted Tory? Because they know that left wing pseudo socialists/London types despise them.

@kindlyensure

Morrissey, is that you?

Haha! Good one !

@ThousandsOfTulips

You can say “well everyone there can’t be bad” and you are probably right, but over time the people who don’t think that way and don’t want to live that way leave and raise their families somewhere else. Bad towns act like a reverse sieve…the stuff you want to keep flows away and the stuff you don’t gets stuck.

This is a brilliant description of it. It becomes more and more concentrated as time goes on.

I'm from a town exactly like this. Not far from Wigan, in fact.

There's still a beautiful, thriving arts community; small businesses popping up left right and centre to rival any genteel hipster Cheshire town; local investors (including many I work with) regenerating areas and working with the council to offer new jobs and new opportunities and to improve the place. The tide is turning there - many of the people I was at school with who moved away as quickly as they could are moving home, seeing the potential for a new lease of life and what the town could be, opening businesses, starting new groups, holding the local council to account over problem points in the town and refusing to accept that the place is just irredeemable.

I'm not saying everyone is obligated to live somewhere they hate and help change it themselves, but if we just stick 'DO NOT CROSS' tape over the road into every economically depressed town and call it a write off, we ignore the real efforts of people to change these places and make them better and shift the mindset of those who can't see a way out and act accordingly.