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....

i evidently am the problem.

OP, no you’re not.

but it tells something of my previous reticence to judge people who are technically at the shitty end of the economic stick.

Not so reticent any more, I see.

@ThousandsOfTulips As I said, this is one place of many who are doing excellent things culturally.

Snort laughing at someone generalising the entirety of the NW.

Yes. It's quite a big area... Encompassing big, diverse cities, stunning countryside attracting tourists from all over the world, pretty villages with posh cafés and lovely market towns. But yes there are some not very nice bits (as there are down south). And some places which seem nice but definitely have a lot of people with insular attitudes (as there are down south). I've never been to Wigan. Workington is... not very nice.

@TrulyPistoff

i evidently am the problem.

OP, no you’re not.

Not unless you've failed to tell us that you are actually a pyromaniac, serial-killer, drug lord, OP.

This is not because of you. And to be honest, even if they'd been prepared to let you integrate, why on Earth would you want to? Best to get out asap and do lots of research and spend lots of time in wherever you are moving to before you make the final decision.

This is very much like the place I grew up. It's not poor, but suffering from a massive poverty of education and aspiration.
Just get out and go to a city.
As for me, I made it to London and now I'm here I'm never ever leaving

[quote PotatoPie888]@ThousandsOfTulips As I said, this is one place of many who are doing excellent things culturally.[/quote]
Great. Although based on many of the personal accounts on the thread though, including the OPs, it doesn't seem to be transferring much into the general cultural mindset of the town.

It reminds me a bit of when Liverpool was declared "European city of culture". 🤣🤣🤣 A little bit of cleanup in the centre was never going to be enough to make it anything of the sort.

@ChurchofLatterDayPaints

knew it would be the north west. . There is something about the culture there. Very male macho, very aggressive, very destructive, very, I don't know commercial. The only value they have is conspicuous consumption, and it is very very insular. Yes some individuals are nice, but it is a depressing region

Wow, what did I just read. Do you enjoy goading northeners? Some of them, like me, can actually read proper English, you know. I think some kind people from the Home Counties travelled up for a day to show them how it's done.

They've also learned how to get on trains and travel out of their designated territory... Wretched inconvenience for you, I know. Were you thinking Trump-style Mexican wall?

Ffs

I'm from the North and I recognise the picture she paints. That culture does exist. It wasn't clear to me when I was in it because it was just normal to me, but when I moved to the South I was surprised to find that an ever present risk of recreational violence due to unintended offense being taken (and the source of offense could literally be something like "looking down on us by having too posh shoes") wasn't part of everyone's Saturday night out.

And yes @Birdsnesting I've lived in a place like that too. Stultifying.

I've lived in a few of the places suggested as the shithole in question (before and after it was revealed as Wigan!) and quite a few others I've visited and I don't think they're all bad. Many towns have a rough area with a criminal and anti-social element dominating. The investment, employment, opportunities and hope disappeared years ago. I'd hate to live in the environment you're describing OP.

However, the places I've known have their good points: nicer areas, cultural stuff going on, pleasant countryside nearby etc. but some people just write them off as dumps.

@Birdsnesting

I spent eight years living in a chocolate-box pretty, prosperous English village, and had come to absolutely loathe the collective mindset of most of the inhabitants by the time we left -- this wasn't any kind of side-effect of poverty (the village had just come out close to the top of 'most prosperous parishes' in some C of E survey), it was a kind of big and small-C conservatism, an insularity and deep suspicion of any form of novelty. It was easily the most depressing place I've ever lived.

Yes, I lived in Stratford upon Avon for a spell and it was awful, very much as you describe. A nice place to visit, but I would not want to live there (again).

Hi OP

Name change here. I'm from an old Lancashire mill town and thought it would be one of them, but Wigan is near enough. It's a shame you haven't found any common interests with folk, but I feel the same about where I come from. There are pockets in different towns that are much better, but my hometown is such a shithole I say I'm from somewhere else because I'm so embarrassed and ashamed of what it's become.

I now live in a fairly humdrum town with low crime and fairly decent people. Even the "worst" areas are nothing like the crime hotspots of other places.

I think poverty, deprivation and lack of investment are the issues, though. Since 2008 we've had austerity and low economic growth, now compounded by Brexit and Covid.

I'm one of those people who want to encourage education, growth, etc. and I feel sympathy for folk stuck in situations where they feel racism or drugs, etc. is all there is, and who are suspicious about education. Whilst I feel that, I don't have to like the people either!

My relatives back in the town I'm from are all racists who are into Britain First etc. One had a business that was successful, then an Asian person started a similar business (and had other branches which made it more cost effective) and my relative ultimately had to close down. That's market forces for you, just like when Tesco open up in a town with a local minimarket, but he hates brown people because they took his business away.

I also feel angry because whilst there's so much of that mentality I could never think of returning, it would grind me down and I too would find it difficult to find people who didn't conform to the town norms.

@ThousandsOfTulips

The high Brexit vote in many poor areas was directly correlated to a dire lack of prospects

Also this is just bonkers. Anybody with a reading age above 10 was capable of accessing the many freely available robust studies which unequivocally showed Brexit would make sure people poorer and drastically reduce their standard of living and opportunities, even if they were not great to start with.

In either wilful ignorance or laziness they chose to make themselves poorer and diminish their prospects further. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I wonder if actually this is less bonkers than it seems. If you already have absolutely nothing, 'making yourself poorer' is actually pretty immaterial.

When I worked in Wigan I went with a colleague to a conference in London, which necessitated a couple of nights in a hotel, eating out in restaurants, etc. She could not believe that it was the same country. If you have never travelled further than Manchester, the immediate differences you see in nicer, richer places is palpable. It is like the difference between East and West Germany 30 years ago.

Brexit was never about the EU in places like Wigan. It was a straightforward rejection of the status quo by people who felt utterly abandoned, and for nearly every one alive in Wigan it was the first time in their lives that their vote actually changed anything.

@MadTilda

I also believe that liking where one is, is a totally subjective and personal thing and one's feelings about it are valid.

I live in chocolateboxsville and I have come to dislike it deeply, because everyone is a selfish tory (with campanulas and calendulas, but still a selfish tory). Brexiters. Racists.

My feelings about living here are as valid as their subscription to the Daily Mail is valid to them.

Absolutely. Me too. I have been extremely depressed recently by some of the opinions I've heard from complete strangers locally who seem to take it for granted that everyone agrees with their extreme racist views and conspiracy theories about Covid.

Bloody hell OP, if it's Wigan just move to Manchester. It's not much of a commute.

[quote Cordyceps]@Unihorn interesting to know that you believe that child abuse and sexual assault don't happen among the middle and upper classes.[/quote]
I wasn't aware I'd written those words, I must have comprehension problems.

It is also a shame we cant have a discussion about the stuff, it is basically shoving social issues under the rug and blaming the person who observed some of them

I agree with you OP.

And for what it’s worth I grew up in the North West (slightly north of where you are) and I recognise what you are saying.

What’s frustrating is trying to talk about how to improve those places (and most of the problems do stem from lack of money , lack of opportunity) and people try to solve poverty problems with middle class solutions, and will not listen when you try to explain why that won’t work.

Labour Party I am looking at you mostly !!

"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. " No need, that's already the sort of place I'm used to.

@Otherpeoplesteens absolutely right.

Brexit was a protest vote. Our industry made the rest of the country rich. Then we were abandoned. It’s frightening that the Victorian notion of the undeserving poor is becoming more prevalent after Brexit. Fuck them and let them rot comments are all over this thread. As I say, very worrying.

@ThousandsOfTulips Liverpool is a city I know well and culturally it punches well above its weight thanks to it being Capital of Culture 2008. You seem incredibly ill-informed considering how vocal you are.

The PP I responded to was claiming that there is a great cultural scene in Wigan. "Getting on with our lives" is hardly that. I mean, isn't that what everybody in the world does by definition? There's no really any other option. 😂

Don’t be a dickhead Tulips. You quoted my post mentioning community and asked what the community was doing. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that I may have thought you were talking to me. I did wonder about the cultural bit, seeing as I hadn’t claimed there was any, but just thought you were being a smart arse.

My response about getting on with ‘their lives’ was in response to what I believed was your question about what the community was doing. If you grew up in an under privileged background, you’d know they don’t have to be doing anything special to help out their neighbours.

Interesting- that's the complete opposite of my experience. I'm a teacher and have worked in everything from inner city comps to posh independent schools, in the SE of England and the NW. The most broad-minded, non-judgmental and outward-looking were the affluent, well-travelled and relatively ethnically diverse private school kids and their families. The most sexist, racist and insular ones were generally the white, rural/semi-rural families in the NW, especially the ones from the less affluent towns/areas or from local farming families. Not a particularly poor area. Not people who are being demonised for anything. Just ignorant, insular and set in their ways.

@lazylinguist Yes, this is the same as my experience. I've lived in quite a few places/countries and met a lot of people from different backgrounds. The more affluent families tend to be more well-travelled & better educated, meaning they are far more accepting of differences and cultures. The most racist and prejudice individuals I've met are white working class from insular rural areas - not cities. I've found that the cities I've lived in (London, Leeds, Manc) are far more accepting of difference, no matter what class people are.

To quote Thousands of Tulips
There will be a community. It won’t be inviting poets to give talks in the local hall or organising litter picking teams but it will definitely be there. You’re just too different to either see it, appreciate it or be a part of it.

Pictures taken from a local community page. No, absolutely none of those things happening here. Or maybe the OP is too busy being a snob to seek them out. Pure ignorance.

Wigan is also home to one of the top ranking 6th Forms in the country, but yeah, everyone there is thick and lacking aspirations.

@buntybanana Don't you see how you come across berating the plebs for their closed minds because they've never been to Tuscany??

[quote pucelleauxblanchesmains]@buntybanana Don't you see how you come across berating the plebs for their closed minds because they've never been to Tuscany??[/quote]

Funny you should say that - the countries I've lived in a post-conflict zones. I was there for development work. I've never been to Italy.

Thank you @FortunaMajor for that post.

Wigan borough has no private schools, so to have such a high performing sixth form is testament to the young people there (my own dc went and it’s wonderful).