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 just can’t be bothered arguing with horrible people.

Yeah, it's difficult to do so when you are called out on obviously false statements.

Like I said…

I want people to be able to access benefits, get help with substance misuse and be diverted from criminal behaviour and bigotry. I do not want to live next door to people who need those services. Doesn't make me bad. Just sensible. I lived in a lovely terraced street, full of older people. 10 years later they had mostly died, buy to let had taken over and the place was a fucking war zone. I was fortunately able to leave, but it was amazing how quickly the place went from lovely to nightmare.

@EllieLucy thanks for your post. I don't feel that it has received the recognition it deserved. I've taken a screenshot.

I understand where the op is coming from and I actually thought this thread was about the town in which I live because there are similar problems here.

It's awful when you feel trapped in an environment that makes you feel this way. I've also tried to seek out like minded people and join groups etc, but they don't seem to exist. That's the essence of the problem when an area declines, people stop caring and stop trying to make things better because everyone gets sucked into the same negative cycle.

My only recourse right now is to get outdoors as much as I can. Often, even the parks and fields around this area look like a dump, but if you can get out in the fresh air once a day, even if you have to drive for half an hour to get to somewhere more pleasant, you'll feel the impact it has to your mental health.

@OnenessWithAllStrife

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.

OP do you have any friends there? People you enjoy spending time with even if you don't always agree? Do your children have nice real friends?

There is a general air of brutality to everything, a leathery, hard resistance to any kind of sensitivity whatsoever.

Another vote here for test page of novel. A "general air of brutality"... it sounds positively Victorian! The "leathery resistance" I'm less sure about. Makes me think of an advancing herd of curious bovines.

@OnenessWithAllStrife

Yes i am angry being stuck with racist, sexist shit bags. I am tired of people abusing pets, setting fire to cars, spitting out of upstairs rooms onto the street, walking around with their hands in the pants juggling their balls. Im fucking tired of street shouting and seeing smashed windows.

I am obviously just angry, if i look at it differently it will all go away. It must be me!
It's ok to smack your kids around the face, leave dog shit on the pavements, shout at foreigners, block all passages along the canal with boozed up aggressive men, to see trash piled sky high at the end of your street.

i evidently am the problem.

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

I've lived in places like this and whilst, like you, I was never "ok" with it, I found it possible to accept the existence of it. You're a square peg in a round hole, so your going to feel some discord within you.

Living in an aggressive feeling atmosphere does create an underlying sense of stress and anxiety without you even realising it, until you move elsewhere and become aware of the absence of those feelings. The difference between hearing a noise and becoming instantly wide awake, thinking automatically on "red-alert" is someone breaking in? Having to get up to take a look. Versus, mentally shrugging and assuming it's a fox, not even waking properly and falling asleep 10sec later.

But day to day it's possible to live among it and be content IME. A lot of it is about learning not to look, focus on your own life and ignore others lives, unless perhaps they're asking you for help and even then, being careful not to get well and truly sucked into the drama.

If you do see something bad, it's deciding it's either bad enough to dial 999 or else choosing to think "not my circus, not my monkeys" and put it out of your head in the interests of staying sane. Brooding on what you've seen is best avoided.

It's accepting that you'll only ever walk the long way round to avoid the group of aggressive wankers blocking the way, or that there's some areas that are no-go areas for you, or that going out alone after dark isn't wise. That thing of knowing how to stay safe and not thinking beyond that to how unfair it is or why it's necessary. Instead, thinking of your friends and meeting up having happy times with them. Literally choosing positivity even though you're in a negative environment. For me, although it's not ideal, it doesn't affect me the way it has you.

Meaning I'm ok with it on some level, I guess? As in, able to survive amongst it but not being truly part of it, having my own opinions and morals, maintaining my sense of identity.

Maybe it's learning to compartmentalize a bit? So eg donating to NSPCC or RSPCA but saying nothing to the person who I see smacking their child or dog full force for no logical reason. Taking a deep breath and letting it go, because the alternative is to be constantly upset by witnessing others lives. An acceptance that I'll do what I can, but knowing I can't fix the world. Choosing not to beat myself up about that. Believing that a thing is wrong but choosing not to get angry about it, if there's realistically nowhere for my anger to go, except inwards. Feeling consumed by hatred or turning anger back in on myself and getting depressed about things I can't change helps no-one, especially not me.

@PotatoPie888

What’s the point of having an EU passport *@ThousandsOfTulips* when the Tories have decimated modern foreign languages in schools? The people I see mostly moaning about their dc not being able to work abroad are those who want them to work in chalets for the season so they can keep up their skiing. Everybody else is worrying about food banks and university fees.

Many, many students studied abroad every year with Erasmus. Many stayed in those countries for good. Many UK citizens have family in multiple EU countries so would sometimes choose to relocate. Again, what an insular perspective.

You have spectacularly missed the point @ThousandsOfTulips.

@Otherpeoplesteens

But hey, they "knew what they were voting for!". And it's offensive to say otherwise, apparently. Even when it is patently obvious.

I think it would be more accurate to say they didn't care what they were voting for, given that almost everything they've been told by politicians in living memory have turned out to be lies. It'll be interesting to see how everyone around here reacts to the cancellation of Northern Powerhouse Rail. For a group of people who have effectively decoupled from civic participation, it was little more than the equivalent of going down swinging.

Of all the groups likely to show buyer's remorse over voting to leave the Left Behind of Wigan aren't going to be in the first wave. They'll probably point out they were lied to by the Leave campaign - slogans on buses, that sort of thing - long before the realisation that everyone is (even) poorer because Remain might have had a point.

Might have had a point?! 🤣🤣🤣 If it hasn't become blatantly obvious to them by now then there's no hope for them really.

I agree with you though. We still get the insistence that they weren't at all moved by any campaigning and made a rational decision independently for the diehard delusional nutters. However most of the ardent leavers seem to have gone remarkably quiet and dropped this line. I expect you're right that in a few years they'll just contradict their whole "we knew what we were voting for" mantra and start blaming everyone else for their stupidity. But sympathy for those in difficult eceonomic predicaments was decimated by them deliberately screwing the whole country over so they really have shot themselves in both feet.

@Sn0tnose

I did indeed grow up in an underprivileged background, an appalling and abusive one. And I don't agree with what you are saying, at all. That doesn't make me a "dick"

Yeah, me too. And you’re absolutely right, it doesn’t make you a ‘dickhead’. Getting snarky with me because you’ve responded to the wrong person does though.

And I believe you were misquoted by another poster earlier when it was something I’d said. I did post earlier this afternoon to confirm it was me who’d said it and not you.

Apologies for replying to you in error.

I like Wigan. Lovely people and a decent town centre. Haigh Country Park is a delight.

@EllieLucy. Some great posts— as I’ve mentioned above do I see exactly what the OP is getting at— yes, I grew up till 31 in a similar place — could I live there now— yes using the kinds of tips you talk about— would I choose it- not on your Nellie- . I do think people thinking the OP is hating on the white working class maybe just are different people— my own view having grown up in a similar place is that it isn’t necessarily a money thing or even a working class thing- - going on about having an issue with the undeserving poor is a bit simplistic— plenty of people in towns like this aren’t poor materially, plenty do have just as much disposable income as what on the surface seem more prosperous places— it’s more an attitudinal thing— and yes Its ‘not me’ i— thing is with Wigan though , it’s between two rather excellent cities in my opinion- so I would just get out - a lot!! There really are way worse places too that don’t have that advantage. It is to be honest each to his own— I see people posting they hate London— I was lucky and lived for a while in Richmond/kingston area and loved it — .

OP why don't you move to one of the more decent areas in the vicinity?

Sounds like my exes family in a town I feel for you

Brilliant advice @EllieLucy.
Very thoughtful post.

Wow, just wow. I had absolutely no idea that Wigan and its residents were so bad. Sorry, but I still struggle to believe that there aren't any decent people, with interests, culture, and aspirations living there. Having said that, looking at the responses on here, it would appear that those in the know, actually agree with op.

@Viciousrooster Essentially OP is stating that she has a visceral loathing of the white working classes.

Do you really believe that it is the norm for white working class people behave like the people described in the OP? She is not stating she hates WWC people - just the behaviour of a certain percentage of them who live in her neighbourhood .

Honestly, the deniers on this thread are part of the problem that is faced by people in areas where poor housing, crime, drugs, violence, lack of aspirations and hope are the norm . You need to accept that is some people's reality before you can get behind any solution . The posters who recognise there are areas where traditional industry has gone and there has been lack of infrastructure funding going back for several years are correct . Add the additional problems of Covid and Brexit . And quite honestly saying that people in these circumstances deserve what they get for voting for Brexit is akin to victim blaming .

I don't think it's as simple as north vs south either .

Some interesting observations but also lots of hyperbole and stereotyping going on on this thread. I've lived in places that many consider "rough" and that are regularly featured in "crap towns" type of lists.
None of these places were uniformly bad. Yes they had some of what the OP describes, in certain areas, but there were always nicer areas too - lively student-y neighbourhoods, cul de sac type places with young families, nice suburbs and villages on the outskirts. Surely if the OP is such an intellectual and so educated, she can afford to live in one of the nicer areas. Even in the most deprived towns there are teachers, doctors, nurses, small business owners, college lecturers, trades people, hairdressers, nursery workers...in other words normal people, living normal lives in normal areas.

Actually the OP strongly reminds me of a former colleague who moved up to my neck of the woods for work...she too was very left wing, in theory. But the entire time she was here she moaned about how rough it was, how the locals are too narrow minded/racist/sexist/anti-intellectual for her liking and how the place is 20 years behind London and wherever else she'd lived. How she felt lonely and people were unwelcoming (unsurprising as she so obviously looked down on them), she was bored as the place was "too quiet", blah blah. She never actually made any effort to get to know the place properly or join any clubs, or to do a bit of research on the different neighbourhoods, which all have their own "vibe". She was adamant that she was looked down on for being educated and well spoken.
It really is a case if you see what you want to see. I too am a graduate with a professional job and was able to meet similar people, mostly through work and hobby related clubs. I was never bored or lonely as I sought out things to do and groups to join. Made plenty of friends who aren't racist/sexist/whatever -ist. Some of them are incomers to the area too and are happy and settled here. There's a lot of deprivation too, I'm not saying that everything's rosy, but I don't really get people who write off entire cities and towns as "shit holes".

None of these places were uniformly bad. There are areas where criminals specifically take over entire streets though, so it's entirely possible to live in an area completely immersed in crime. It's a pretty shit situation, even if a few streets over there are perfectly nice parts.

@lazylinguist

Essentially OP is stating that she has a visceral loathing of the white working classes

No she isn't - well, not unless you believe that all white, working-class people display the attitudes and behaviour that the OP describes in her first post. I hope you don't believe that, because that would be a very prejudiced point of view.

Read the post. The reference to the dislike of outsiders, specifically foreigners, is an explicit admission that the town referred to is majority white. The overwrought references to a tired, dirty and brutal air mark it out as a working class town that has fallen on hard times. The inhabitants of said town are therefore, by definition, predominantly white working class. It is the OP who has then gone on to ascribe to them a preference for various dismal behaviours, preferences and prejudices. Clear as fucking day.

And quite honestly saying that people in these circumstances deserve what they get for voting for Brexit is akin to victim blaming.

Victims don't have a choice about what happens. What an offensive post.

@ThousandsOfTulips but people
Who are manipulated to vote a particular way because they can see no better way forward in their current circumstances are victims in a way .

I believe you and don't know how you've coped so long. I definitely wouldn't. Our surroundings are so important and it's not snobbery. Its not about money etc. It's about the vibe. Can you access nature? I find my whole body relaxing when I'm in nature. Whereas tired urban sprawl kills me very quickly. That's not snobby, it's scientific fact that humans do better surrounded by trees etc. Perhaps if those people you're describing are like they are because they're disconnected from this fundamental truth.

Victims don't have a choice about what happens. What an offensive post

What makes you think FPTP gives anyone a valid choice?

As a pp said, the North is angry. I think it has every right to be.