Why do people think Londoners are rude?

[beejeez]

I'm obviously biased as I'm originally from London, but why do people think Londoners are rude?

I was there a few days ago and it was so great to be back. I find true Londoners so friendly (OK, maybe not when commuting in and out of work, but definitely the rest of the time).

If you talk to them then they are really friendly back!

Well I got stabbed twice last week, once for making accidental eye contact with a women on by the ticket barrier and again by a man on the platform who took offence at me saying 'awful weather' when it was pissing down. Back in October I got pushed onto the tracks for standing on the wrong side of the escalator. I am better now.

My theory is that London has changed due to the demographic shifting younger and even more international than it used to be.

I grew up in Essex, we went to London a lot and it definitely felt unfriendly. I now live in rural Yorkshire and the first time I went with kids I was dreading it but I actually found people friendlier and more helpful than most northern cities. I don’t think it deserves its traditional reputation.

You are Miss Hoolie and live in Balamory and I claim my £5.

🤣

I’ve never found London particularly unfriendly, it’s like any big city ime; people will respond if you initiate an interaction. I think in central London the concentration of tourists is a big influence. I commute through the centre of a very touristy city, and I really get (unfairly) exasperated by tourists taking for ever to get on and off the bus, insisting on counting out change when you can just tap a card, asking if the bus goes where they want when there is information on every bus stop (and every online map) etc. I’m sure I radiate irritation as I watch my journey get longer at every stop. Londoners are trying to live their lives amongst hordes of people who probably just seem intent on getting in their way.

an ability to apply winged eyeliner on a wobbly train is an under admired skill!

Is this you?

Agggh, post fail

Londoners are LOVELY. I had baby in sling/luggage/preschool er on the tube and someone carried my luggage all the way down a huge flight of stairs (going out of his way) for me. Visited again a few years later with approx 5 and 7yo and they were offered seats in the tube all the time. Nobody was impatient with us.

I lived here, lived 70 miles away and recently moved back. I think it's very friendly. I know my neighbours. I've met several people dog Walking which has led to coffee mornings. Shopkeepers are welcoming. I also have a rental property in more central London and the neighbours there are lovely and the Oddbins next door happily held on to a large delivery for a month without complaint.
Where I had moved to - one neighbour slammed the door in my face when I went around with my young daughter to introduce ourselves. I have an accent and was slandered by a workman who assumed I was someone else (I flipped properties at the time and he said I was a terrible boss who never paid her bills). All the friends I made were from somewhere else.
Im dure other parts are friendly, but I certainly don't agree with London being unfriendly. If you come and go to touristy places you are generally meeting ... other tourists.
As for not engaging on public transport - I've never used it anywhere where one does.

Usually because when visit London they only stay around central and the tourist areas, which are always rammed and everyone is just trying to get to work/home and don't want to miss their connection.
I reckon a lot of people who aren't from London think all of it is like Leicester Square at rush hour.

When THEY visit London

Some people in London are rude. They are not necessarily Londoners.

Loving all the Northern allusions to general bonhomie. Having spent a week in the North East over Christmas I came across one of the rudest women I have ever come across. MIL is a Londoner, living in Yorkshire and she and FIL (born Yorkshireman) would cross the road rather than stop to speak to a neighbour.

This is definitely a combination of confirmation bias and people visiting central London and generalising about the whole city from there. Some Londoners absolutely are friendly and helpful. Some are rude or wrapped up in their own problems. Same as anywhere else. People obviously can’t greet every passerby on their commute the way they would walking in the Dales.

And this is the most obvious example of confirmation bias I’ve ever seen:
I have found that on the tube especially, there is no allowance for the normal range of humanity. Having taken my kids (not travelling during rush hour) there twice last summer for days out, people will huff and puff and literally shoulder barge my kids to get where they need to go. We followed the rules about standing on the right and tried not to get in anyone's way but we had to walk at the pace of a 4 year old who refused to let go of my hand. My eldest was in tears after someone bashed into her & didn't even say sorry. I have also seen blind and disabled people being shouted at for taking too long on the escalators, etc. So yeah, that is some evidence for why people view Londoners as rude.

I’ve commuted into Oxford Circus for 10
years, including pregnant and sometimes with a toddler. Also go in regularly with my 3 kids. People were kind when I was pregnant, smiled at my toddler, helped with my pushchair and generally extremely polite. I’ve never had experiences like the above but I also never block the tube doors, block the escalator, dawdle with my family across the entrance to the platform etc. perhaps the problem is you?

I've travelled on the tube with my dc since they were babies. I've never worried about negotiating public transport with a buggy as I knew Londoners would help. And they did every single time and pretty much immediately.
As for stepping over a collapsed body! I've seen people helped all the time. We've had help from people when dc was sick once and dh actually did help a collapsed person along with a couple of other Londoners, until an ambulance arrived.

I am from another country and find Londoners super friendly and welcoming.
As pp said, it's international now.

I don't. I find them helpful when interacted with. Worst place for me in the UK was Sheffield. I was treated with contempt in some places and outright hostility in one.

On the whole, Londoners seem far less likely to criticise other people's hometowns out of the blue, especially if they've never even lived there. That kind of behaviour might be considered rude.

Also, in my Zone 2 neighbourhood we all know each other, help out elderly neighbours, do a group collection for the local foodbank, chat in the street, feed one another’s cats and take in parcels. It’s super friendly to the point I often miss the bus or wind up running late as have so many people wanting to say hi as I leave my street.

This.

For 25 years on and off I've traveled on public transport in London with children under 5.

People are friendly and helpful.

People will engage in conversation with the children, more recently my DD, to ensure they behave.

I've found the londoners I've met quite ignorant of places in UK outside of London. An example was getting my (quite obvious well known) city wrong in terms of which other UK country it was in. That always sticks with me.

I'm from NI and haven't been in London for a few years, but I didn't find people unfriendly at all. In fact, the handful of times I have travelled there, someone has struck up a conversation with me on the train or asked if I needed help when I was unsure about where to go. I was very grateful as I'm not great at being assertive and asking for help.

London, like many world cities, is a miracle of daily adjustments to ensure millions of people can broadly get on with their daily lives without clashes or friction. This involves observing certain shared etiquettes at the pinch points like rush hour.

Londkn like most places gives back what you out in. Get involved, talk to people, give and you become friendly with people. The difference is the size and population of London means people not willing or prepared to make the effort can pass by the other side.

Our little London suburb is very friendly. On a walk in NYD we found a terrified dog in the middle of a busy road. I grabbed him and went to the nearby park assuming he had slipped a lead.

Almost immediately a small committee formed - someone leant me their spare lead so I could keep the dog safe, someone else went looking for any frantic dog owners, another person alerted the park keeper, someone else called the mobile number on the dog's tag.

Because it is true...

I lived in London for more than 30 years and only recently moved to a small coastal town in the South East. The difference is amazing. People are friendlier and more polite. I am still shocked as a Londoner when complete strangers greet me in the street and when almost everyone is smiling and much more relaxed about life in general.

I think London being an overcrowded, stressful city where everyone is always in a rush means that people forget basic levels of communication and politeness and there is a lot of aggression in general.

Also, many people in London have a poor quality of life as it is such an expensive city with a lack of affordable housing and that does not make for happy, chilled people.

I remember going on a pro-EU march in London, and on the tube on the way home loads of people came up to us to thank/praise us…

…but only as they got off the train! God forbid they strike up any conversation while actually trapped on a train with you.

I’m a Londoner who moved to rural Devon 24 years ago, big culture change, I was (am still) considered incredibly “political and opinionated” down here, and not in a good way. In many ways I prefer having no contact with/not knowing the names of neighbours. Those Trollope Aga sagas are depressingly accurate.