Are people getting ruder and unfriendlier or am I just getting old and grumpy?

[Applescruffle]

AIBU to think people see not as nice as they used to be?

I never thought I'd be one of those miserable old "noone has any manners any more" people buy I am seeing it now.

For example, my son is 10 and my daughter is 6. When my son started in reception, everyone was friendly and chatty and I made new friends with the other school mums. I was hoping the same would happen when my daughter started too. She's now in Y1 and I've given up trying to get a "Hello" or even eye contact out of anyone.

I've also noticed that noone seems to care about the people around them any more. My neighbours across the road bring their dog out the front and stand there letting it bark every single morning at 6:10am, including Sundays.
People will rush in front of you in supermarkets or busstops, talk constantly in cinemas, take over restaurants with their loud conversations, play their music in public, park on pavements. Just my daily list of irritations.

What say you? Have you noticed a difference since covid? Do people care less about others?

people in the UK have never been friendly

I make a massive effort with shop staff these days because I see so much rudeness. Music in public spaces, cafes, restaurants, pubs and out in public drives me nuts. I can’t bear it. I’ve walked out of several places recently because I can’t hear myself think. Same in supermarkets. I don’t want Abba or Beyoncé blasting out when I’m trying to decide what to cook for dinner. Everything feels like sensory overload these days and it’s really hard to get away from it. I wonder if it is having an adverse effect on other people too and they are more stressed and don’t realise it. Everything is amped up so we are too just to get through the day.

I went to a cafe briefly yesterday and got some food to take out at around 5.30pm. When I was paying the lady at the till said "You know, you've been the most polite customer all day." I didn't do anything especially polite in the whole 5 minutes I was there.. in fact I barely spoke beyond saying "Hello, how are you?", "Could I please have two croissants." and "Thank you." when she handed it to me...

I see this all the time on here people who say I only care about my own family . People have changed so much . It's heart breaking really , we don't like each other anymore .

I think this is a big part of it. The sensory overload, the constant pressure to do several things at once, the feeling that everything is a battle and everyone else is a rival or a threat. And I do think covid exacerbated that.

Just before Christmas I moved from north London to the Isle of Man. The thing I immediately noticed was the lack of open hostility from complete strangers in public. People smile at you in the street. It’s a breath of fresh air

I agree, everyone out for themselves and its a culture the government have sadly created.

Open hostility from who? Are you BAME?

No, I’m not BAME. That was mostly the community who expressed the hostility I mentioned. After 40 years there I became feeling less and less safe

I've never known it so bad and I started waitressing at 13 and have done customer service on/off my whole life

The world’s gone to hell.

I think a lot of it is population density, combined with poor UK housing. There's no way for people to get away from each other or enjoy their own private space.

Like how when you put too many chimps in a cage together they start to get angry and kill each other.

We don't have the population density of eastern countries yet, but we have a more individualistic culture.

It’s the me me me culture that pisses me off. Plus customers who don’t seem to think shop workers are human.

Last year, I collapsed at work. Don’t remember what happened and feeling unwell before. I collapsed in part of a store with plenty of footfall. Customers were disgusted where I collapsed and tutted at my colleagues who attended to me. One customer almost put their foot on me. A colleague asked the vile man that’s not the way to treat a colleague.

Agree about sensory overload. It’s not just the noise, lights have also got brighter in the last ten years due to LED bulbs everywhere.

I was going to say we had some lovely friendly people serving us everywhere yesterday and the people volunteering in the lifeboat museum were so kind and helpful - it was in Redcar! Can't beat the north east.

Funny in my recent experience as an older lady driver it's the younger women who scream and mouth at me if they are thundering along. Pure entitlement coming through. And some men but never lorry drivers and I try to let delivery drivers get on their way because I know how many parcels they have to get through cannot be easy.
I had an incident last week where a bloke pulled out on me in his golf but didn't speed off and then started slamming on and waving his arms about .weird as I hadn't reacted to him pulling out on me he obviously saw me as an older (52) lone female driver and thought he could take out his miserable life on me. Culminated in him stopping in the road where he was going to turn right and not letting me past trying to intimidate me but an oncoming driver flashed him to turn and he ended up looking a dick and having to go.
No idea what his problem was. But I have had more incidents of road rage in the last couple of years than in the 30 years previous.

Some dog walkers! Went out for a stroll the other day along a public footpath and a couple refused to put their 2 large dogs on a lead despite me asking and despite one of the dogs circling, barking and jumping up at me.

They both had a right go at me for asking and were shouting it was their right to have their dogs off lead.

I was quite upset, though the next few people I passed did however put their dogs back on their leads.

I have noticed this as well!!!! Before the pandemic I started several friendships with the other mums at school. After the pandemic we had to move and I thought it was just how this new school is but apparently it's the same now at our previous school. Nobody chats to anyone new. Just existing friends. As somebody without a bestie who's only existing friendships are occasional catch ups and am therefore v lonely, this makes me really sad. Interactions on the playground were very often my only adult interaction of the entire week, besides shop assistants

Whaaat? Somebody politely said excuse me and she rudely refused? JFC

Since when are creeps who hit on women at bus stops ‘gentlemen’? Especially when they don’t take no for an answer and demand a longer response on why she isn’t interested.

Before Covid I had a guy collapse in front of me
Started CPR, staff asked customers to leave. People were stepping over my legs to carry on shopping even as we were using the defib

I didn't see the thread so there's maybe more to it, but since when did politely saying excuse me make somebody a 'creep hitting on women'? He might have just wanted to know whether his bus had gone past?

Like many of you I have been pondering this - and some reasons might be

We live in a society where people are keen to be offended ( for nothing) so people are on the back foot not wanting hassle. Also - people are quick to excuse behaviour in terms of liberal freedom ‘it’s a free world and all that, if my child screams in the restaurant it’s fine, get over it’
We have lost the ability to think of others

We have a media that has to supply 24 hour news and so they stir the pot, in many ways to pit us against a celeb / woman ( Carolyn Flak, MM, Kate) the herd mentality about Kate recently was beyond words ( except now the media are now gaslighting us into believing they didn’t pose questions about her)

A government that favours the boys in the city ( Greed is good) and has no problem paying Michelle Mone money for nothing - but will tell you that teachers are lazy and any public sector worker is on a gravy train ride to pensions ( the gravy train seems to be stopped at Westminster in my view)

In the past swearing casually in front of women and children would be stopped by the ‘gentlemen’ of the group - we have lost some common decency. By that I mean common accepted behaviours
I know some elderly gents in their 80s who want to hold doors open but have been subjected to such anger and abuse they don’t - some people mistake good manners for ‘abuse’

Younger workers are on insane hours for
rubbish pay and in hospitality the general rules of HR are run roughshod by bosses - no wonder they feel
less allegiance

We seem as a society to celebrate bad behaviour- and if you are a celebrity in the dock - you are likely to get away with whatever you did

And as for thank you notes after gifting wedding or new baby presents - apparently that went out with the ark ( that I sailed on)

I despair some days

Good to know there are fellow ponderers out there

Here’s the “no” at the bus stop thread for those interested:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5057254-rude-or-polite

I held a door for a woman who shouted at me. Said to her if I let go of the door, you would have shouted at me with a bloody nose.

Dont get that at all.