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....

OP I get it. The fact is most people have been so worn down by having shitty lives and the relentless bullshit that they’re fed that they just give up. Can’t blame them even though it’s self fulfilling.
I would feel the same way as you. Some places just feel like there is no hope.

Oh FFS, stop with the “there must be some nice people”. Have you guys not heard of hyperbole? You’re not supposed to take it 100% literally.

I grew up in a town like this and unfortunately never escaped. Was pregnant in a shitty flat at 19 and my parents were literally delighted for me that at 19 I was settled with a bloke and flats.

My own DD is now 19 and in the process of moving to Canada and she gets laughed at and mocked for it, people have a “who the fuck does she think she is” attitude.

There’s also a lot of small-minded and generally thick people here. I’ve heard all sorts of depressing shit from fellow locals, such as:

“There were too many foreign (meaning non-Brits” staff, I wouldn’t go back.” about an all-inclusive resort in SPAIN

“Nah, I’ve never fancied Asia” when I suggested Croatia as a potential destination back when it was one of the only places you could go with the Covid restrictions at the time

“I went to Glasgow to see family and we went via Belfast” (we live in England and nowhere near a ferry route)

“My wife makes a lovely brown sauce with beef stock we have on our dinner.” (Meaning gravy)

I could go on and on

We also had an incident a few months ago of a neighbour from a few doors down coming round. Her son’s weed dealer had accidentally posted to number 8 (us) instead of number 18 (them). It had the proper address on the package (so it looks more legit I assume, I believe there is a local dealer that does post stuff himself and puts the address on to make it look like a normal package) and we’d kept the package aside to take round later, not realising what it was. When we answered the door to her she was perfectly honest and casual about what it was. “Oh I think my lad’s bud guy has accidentally given you his package.” A very “oh, hahahaha, what are they like lol” attitude. I was disgusted.

Gotta be Swindon.

@MiddayMass

There’s also a lot of small-minded and generally thick people here. I’ve heard all sorts of depressing shit from fellow locals, such as:

“There were too many foreign (meaning non-Brits” staff, I wouldn’t go back.” about an all-inclusive resort in SPAIN

“Nah, I’ve never fancied Asia” when I suggested Croatia as a potential destination back when it was one of the only places you could go with the Covid restrictions at the time

“I went to Glasgow to see family and we went via Belfast” (we live in England and nowhere near a ferry route)

“My wife makes a lovely brown sauce with beef stock we have on our dinner.” (Meaning gravy)

I could go on and on

Bloody hell, that is a whole new level of dumb isn't it? 🤣

@ThousandsOfTulips

I really could go on forever, tbh. The ‘best’ ones are definitely geography related though.

Have had to explain more than once that Canada isn’t a region of the USA.

Have had somebody assume that the NHS is a universal healthcare system, during a discussion about a mutual friend getting injured on holiday and ending up in an insurance mess. “Why didn’t they go through the NHS?”

Somebody droning on about how antibiotic (yes, really) resistant was why Covid was a thing. Explaining that Covid was a virus was futile.

And a bloke saying he didn’t like his girlfriend breastfeeding their baby because he thought it was unhygienic to feed a baby bodily fluids. I was speechless

*universal healthcare system as in global, exists everywhere

@ItWasTheBestOfTimes

What an incredibly vile post, in my experience it is just like most other places, a mix of nice and unpleasant areas. I certainly don't recognise your description of it except, perhaps, the town centre, although most high streets have been suffering for many years. You must live in one of the roughest areas to witness this. Perhaps if you had had a better income you could have afforded to move somewhere nicer within Wigan when your arrived? The part where I live is much nicer than you describe, house prices are around the national average, most people work from home in good jobs, including me. Our household income is 6 figures combined despite me only working part time. Our DC go to a state primary that has been in the top 10% of the country league table wise for the past 5 years. Culture wise you have big cities close by. I have 3 siblings and all of us have professional jobs requiring degrees, only one of us has moved from the area for work.

Right, so this is what we call “anecdata” where you share an anecdote and pretend it’s data and paints the whole picture. It’s not.

Here’s a bigger picture:

All your siblings went to university.
REALITY:
National average with no academic qualifications: 7.5%
Wigan amount with no academic qualifications: 38.5%
(England stat: Centenary Commission on Adult Education; Wigan stat: census results from Wikipedia for “Wigan”)

Crime (as stated on several links):
Amount that reaches court: 4% (or less)
Amount crime rose in a 12-month period: 7.3%
#1 type of crime in Wigan: violent crime (#2: antisocial behavior)

And as for your mention of Wigan “six figure salaries” being so easy to come by…
REALITY: Wigan has the fourth lowest average weekly wage in the country (£436):
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43729508.amp

Maybe your child’s primary is okay. But the future?
REALITY: Of 3,297 secondary schools, there are 380 that don’t meet minimum standards in the whole country. And SEVEN are in Wigan. There are only 32 in Wigan, period. So over 20% don’t meet minimum standards.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-englands-worst-schools-revealed-13899939.amp

So. A personal story doesn’t invalidate actual data about a place. Unless a majority of people are like your siblings and going to university and getting six-figure salaries and have children going to top rated schools… then that’s NOT an accurate picture of the city at all.

What’s even worse is that Wigan is its own local authority. It’s not like a town in a LA being forgotten in favour of several other towns. They essentially can’t look after themselves.

I live somewhere exactly like that. Shootings, stabbings, drugs, violence etc. I've lived here all my life and cant afford to move. We aren't all like that though, most of us want something better, we just dont know how to achieve it. Our council wont spend any money on the area, they've let it rot and it's truly depressing to look at. We have volunteer community groups who go out maintaining the area but there's only so much they can do, these are people with full time jobs spending their free time trying to make a difference. We have people who organise activities for local children with no council funding, totally reliant on donations from people who dont have much themselves.

We do what we can, but there comes a point where you have to accept your lot because you dont have any other choice and it would drive you mad. That doesn't make us bad people. I dont scream at my dc, they dont drink on street corners and have never been in any trouble, they're polite, helpful young adults. So yes, good people live in shite areas too, not just the scum

@OnenessWithAllStrife

I would love to hear how to fix this, not feel it! If any of you have experienced this and managed to come to love it like a fucking zen master, i would welcome your helpful advice!

can people honestly say they would like it in a place like this and think themselves ignorant for noticing the rot?

The only way to "fix" misanthrope (the hate and disdain of humankind), is to recognise you can go round the world a thousand times and you'll feel the same way wherever you land. Everywhere you look you will always be able to identify arseholery. Equally if your perspective were to change, all you'd see is kindness, humour, generosity, civic pride whatever it is you want to see. You'd just pick it out from the rest of the flotsam and jetsam of life.

In short, you are where you are, own it and don't necessarily look for a magic wand to be waved over you.

It is like a self perpetuating cesspit of no hope and hard hearts

And if you're on social media of any description, come off that, it's just adding to the pain, people you're seeing in RL are probsbly the same keyboard warriors who spout off their "finely tuned, well informed" opinions on Twitter.

It wont out me, there are over 500,000 of us here

No, you did just out yourself. There is only one family in Wigan that is not antisocial.

I understand the difference between anecdote and data already thank you. My point was that the OP states that 500,000 people, including my family and I, are violent, stupid, sexist, racist idiots who have never opened a book in their lives and live on fast food. Oh and that she loathes all of us. Presumably she also believes the residents of the 30+ LA's that are below Wigan in the deprivation index are the same. I have no doubt that there are some people like that who live here, but my experience is that the vast majority of people are not like the OP describes at all, including those who haven't been to university, don't have a high income and live in the not so nice areas in town. I must admit that, among other interests, I do also quite like football. She's got me there.

OP I know what you’re talking about. It sounds as though many of the people have given up. There is a generations deep lack of ambition and anyone perceived to be trying to get on is dragged back down like crabs in a barral.

I don’t know what can be done, the mentality is endemic and anyone who wants to get on leaves, meaning the younger generations don’t see enough locals to live up to.

It’s about education but how do you educate kids when their own parents don’t see the point? You could build hyper-speed rail lines and shiny regional offices there but who’s going to work in the shiny offices when the local population is poorly educated? Why would business people invest when outsiders are treated poorly?

These areas were hit hard by austerity and their solution was to vote a harder version of the same people in to government. Due to being poorly educated they can easily be manipulated into blaming the wrong people and voting against their own interests.

I’ve seen a couple of people claim the North should be angry and will rise up? Firstly, there are lovely parts of the North and I’m certain quite a few Northerners get pissed of with the narrative that the whole North is poor. Secondly, who are these poor Northerners going to rise up against? The South, immigrants?

Reminds me of when I worked for a shitty employer and everyone was bloody miserable and did as little as possible - the culture was embedded and every enthusiastic new starter very quickly became just like the old guard. Those who expected better left and things just hit worse.

This thread is begging for these songs to be played:

More please @MiddayMass!

Thanks for sharing your perspective @ItWasTheBestOfTimes. I'm a bit stumped as to why the OP's lived experience is deemed more valid than yours.

^www.myeu.uk/area/WN^

Well then, let's see what the picture is like in 5 years time - if there are lots of little Union Jacks where the 'levelling up ' funds have been invested.

@JollyJoon

Speaking of Wigan I'll tell you where else is surprisingly shit near there and thats Lancaster. What's going on with that place? Great architecture, university, and just a really weird town centre vibe.

Yes! Like WTF?

The only way to "fix" misanthrope (the hate and disdain of humankind), is to recognise you can go round the world a thousand times and you'll feel the same way wherever you land. Everywhere you look you will always be able to identify arseholery. Equally if your perspective were to change, all you'd see is kindness, humour, generosity, civic pride whatever it is you want to see. You'd just pick it out from the rest of the flotsam and jetsam of life.

That's just nonsense though, isn't it? I mean you might get a few rare Pollyanna types who genuinely would just see sweetness and light no matter how grim the place they lived in. And some absolutely negative people who would hate wherever they were. But it would be absurd to claim that for the majority of people, how they feel about their surroundings is purely a product of their personality and attitude. If that were the case, nobody could ever look back on the places they'd lived and say they liked or were happy in one place but not in another, could they?

@Fluffymule

That’s a bit misleading. Longsight is a rough area, but those police officers are not typical of ‘police patrols’ in Manchester.

That image is specific to event security around Ariana Grandes appearance at Manchester Pride in 2019. With the history of the terrorist attack at Arianna’s concert in 2017 a heavy and visible armed presence was to be expected.

GMP use officers from their firearms unit to cover public events, concerts, sports matches and so on. This is no different from any other major city and has much more to do with terrorist type threats than anti-social behaviour or crime. I have a relative who works in the armed response unit.

Armed officers may be called to a serious incident in dodgy areas (or any) by unarmed patrols, they may be part of pre-arranged operations where criminally held firearms are suspected to be involved (eg drug busts) but day to day Police Officers are not out there openly carrying Heckler & Koch rifles whilst they patrol Longsight.

Seconded - I used to work in longsight and whilst it was a bit unkempt looking compared to some other parts it was not patrolled by armed police and actually has a really nice community there.

Tbh it’s the result of the increasing division within society. If You’re a young white working class boy, statistically you’re likely to fair the worst in education yet you’re constantly told you are “privileged” and no, you haven’t got the education to pick up on “what this actually means” you have no means (except crime) to get all these things you are constantly told you need. Ostracised by society you group together with similar people. All the things you can’t have, decent education, foreign travel, culture, arts etc are derided “ well I didn’t want that anyway, all the people who value that are twats” this is my tribe, the ones who do things I can, sport, reality tv etc” it creates an US to defend against the THEM. Anyone who isn’t US is a threat, educated, different ethnicity etc etc. Even if you have the ability to do the things that are seen as a THEM activity would you want to leave the safety of the tribe?

This is the result of all this diversity shit, put people in boxes, you create victimhood which makes people angry against everyone else. People start fighting over crap like who can wear their hair in braids or wear certain clothes etc, when you’re threatened you need to create tribe identifiers, to distinguish the US from THEM.

We need to step back from all this diversity stuff, it’s doing nothing but create diivision. We need integration. We used to have more of this with shared values (often under a religious framework which creates its own problems) people would know the same stories, myths, values, hymns, prayers. They would be working with the same symbolism. Now we have many people who do not speak the same language either literally or metaphorically.

That’s probably why you hate the place so much. You either need to search out your own mini tribe as safe harbour there, or move to an area which has a tribe you fit into. Without a tribe very few people feel safe.

@lazylinguist

The only way to "fix" misanthrope (the hate and disdain of humankind), is to recognise you can go round the world a thousand times and you'll feel the same way wherever you land. Everywhere you look you will always be able to identify arseholery. Equally if your perspective were to change, all you'd see is kindness, humour, generosity, civic pride whatever it is you want to see. You'd just pick it out from the rest of the flotsam and jetsam of life.

That's just nonsense though, isn't it? I mean you might get a few rare Pollyanna types who genuinely would just see sweetness and light no matter how grim the place they lived in. And some absolutely negative people who would hate wherever they were. But it would be absurd to claim that for the majority of people, how they feel about their surroundings is purely a product of their personality and attitude. If that were the case, nobody could ever look back on the places they'd lived and say they liked or were happy in one place but not in another, could they?

I know right @lazylinguist ? This is just one of those typical mumsnet threads where certain people have decided to bash the OP, no matter how obtuse it requires them being.