Could you handle living in a rougher, tougher society?

[fuckingcoldshowers]

Thinking about this as it's freezing where I am, and thanking my lucky stars we can stick the heating on.

I would be 100% shit in a tougher world. Anything from the grinding hardship of WW2 to dystopias like The Walking Dead. I'd be so shit I mean, actually I wouldn't survive in the first place but if the universe was having a laugh and I did make it past the initial event, I'd be rubbish. I mean, obviously it would be very scary and devastating, but the sheer MISERY of it all would sap my motivation to survive, I reckon.

I can't think straight when I'm really hungry. Also, hanger would lead to some sort of stupid spat with the wrong person.

I'm also terrible without decent sleep. After enough sleep deprivation I'd give up.

Finally - even if fed and sleeping I cannot deal with no nice, clean shower or bathing facilities. I'd be SO CRANKY feeling grubby and dishevelled all the time, traipsing around trying to survive.

Could you adapt well and cope cheerfully without these basics after the apocalypse?

You know how we (mostly) all just accepted what the government told us to do and cracked on with lockdown? A situation like this would be the same. Your survival instincts would kick in and you’d do what you could to get by. It wouldn’t be pleasant but the alternative is what? Lying down to die one day, humans don’t naturally want that.

My boss always says he'd want to be with my in a zombie apocalypse: I think I come across as capable and physically quite tough/ confident. I can handle a gun, I can stick up for myself and I'm very observant and naturally suspicious.
However - I'm not great at running and need to eat every 2 hours so in reality I think I'd die pretty quickly.

If I was in a commune then yes, I tend to be good at managing people and organising things.

In the wild no, I snore too much I'd attract all the zombies or whatnot to me in my sleep!

There are loads of apocalyptic fiction books around, and most of them paint a worst case scenario scene of death and devastation, with looting, rape, pillage etc. Then there are some that are more realistic, especially for the UK where we just don't have the amount of guns available that the USA stories always seem to have.
There's a trilogy by Tony Littlejohns "The Hoffman Plague" that I like, that has (imho) a realistic view of what would happen and how people would react.

I wouldn’t survive past the first week. I can’t cope when my Just Eat order is delayed by a few minutes because I am an impatient, fat shit.

I was born in the 1960s. We had open coal/wood fires.

We also had an electric fire on the wall in the bathroom and electric fan heaters to move around the bedrooms.

We also had hot water bottles and electric blankets, so it wasnt as if we had no heat at all. Candles and paraffin lamps gave off quite a bit of heat too.

We also wore lots of layers (vests, slips, wooly tights, thick socks etc..)

I also remember ice forming inside the windows and snow drifts reaching the top of the back door.

We had great fun sledging though and never missed school as it was only a mile away.

This topic also made me think of the harrowing stories of the Leningrad siege. Those poor people.

I’m fine wild camping (and bivvying) but that’s with an end in sight. I also learnt a few tricks when camping out of a converted van… you get used to cleaning yourself with very little water, but there are ways to stay clean even with no shelter.

Oh lord, I have found my people. I think of this a LOT - I'm a gamer and play The Last of Us, Fallout, Dying Light etc etc and always think how we'd cope at the end of the world.

I need medication and glasses so am basically fucked. My DH however is one of those men who would just get on with it, he'd look after me. But in reality with no hair straighteners, no medication and cold I'd be a shit companion. Saying that, we do have a list of shops/premises to loot first.......

No. I couldn't handle it. I didn't even want to do Duke of Edinburgh. 😂

😆You think there'd be queueing in an apocalypse?

I almost started crying as there was a bit of a draft as I walked past the bathroom tonight. Definitely couldn't cope in any kind of discomfort.

Oh gosh, I am so incredibly lazy, I don’t think I would last long.

Having said that, I’m really good at making friends and being charming. I could probably persuade people to help me for a while, and I have very good organisational skills.

Not washing wouldn’t bother me (see lazy) and I think it would be a long time before the survivors ran out of kit Katz pilfered from corner shops.

The cold is what would finish me off. I hate it and couldn’t survive sleeping outside in winter. I would die of the misery. So much sympathy for the poor souls who have no option but to live like this. 😔

I thought that through most of Outlander. They'd just never have got their kit off as much if it was real life. They'd be jumping in out out of the covers shivering, grimacing, probably mumbling an f word or two at how cold it was, riffling through layers of clothing to find the erm, areas of interest.

As for going down on each other so enthusiastically when they probably barely washed their nethers... Nah, I'm convinced oral sex was invented after hot running water and soap was.

Traipsing around 😂

You'd probably run towards a zombie in that scenario. I've thought of this for myself, also a contact lens wearer and VERY short-sighted. I've said to DH in the past that if ever there was a zombie apocalypse we'd need a safe word so I'd know he wasn't a zombie. I've just got this image of me screaming at a lurching, smelly zombie "What's the safe word?" thinking it was an unwashed and in pain DH.

I simply can't live without a decent hot shower everyday 🤣

I was born in 1971 and I can remember ice on the windows .still love a cold bedroom now Coal fire, wed wait until dad got up and put the fire on. No central heating until they put in electric storage heaters in the late 80s (no gas, by choice of mam in.late 80s)

@CurlyhairedAssassin

@MaybeImbad yes, more people than what you would think are "voluntarily" homeless. As in, they have an active tenancy but choose to return to the streets for a wide variety of reasons. A lot of people don't have the same coping strategies as the majority and so what we would class as a minor issue within the home, can turn them back to the streets. And then it's a viscous cycle as the council class them as intentionally homeless, their tenancy ends due to abandonment but then there's often no legal duty to support them so there's no help. It's awful, it really is as times 😢

I have done. I was homeless for over two years. It's not very nice but it didn't kill me.
I don't ever want to go back.

I wonder what would happen to all the disabled people, like those who have autism or in some way physically or mentally disabled?

Why yes, I'm sure you could if the alternative is death.

Nah I'd be crap at it.
Its like in the movie Cast Away, when the plane goes down in the ocean. I'd just give up and drown. To fight to get to the surface, end up on a deserted island, and spend years trying to survive on nothing with no-one around you? Bugger that. I'd rather be shark bait.

I can barely get through winter in Ireland. I'm not interested in surviving but would not fancy being a zombie so I'd have to hope I met another quick and painless end before it all got really bad.