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?

I have been feeling this way for some time and wondering if it was a 'getting older' thing. We have just come back from a family holiday in Florida and found people, across the board, to be the same. They want your money but don't want to put the effort into providing you with a commensurate experience/service. It's not just the UK. Truthfully, I now think twice before I buy a product or a service, I don't want to have to rely on the human element and get disappointed or feel short changed. It looks and feels like burnout on a mass scale to me and I wonder if lockdowns, increased wfh, and virtual lives may have impacted our interpersonal skills.

I was reading an old book to DC the other night (Polly and Stupid Wolf) and there is bit where someone mentions that staring at someone because they are acting oddly is not polite.

I felt a jolt of memory and realisation that this is what I was told as a child in the 80s, but it is no longer the case.

It is no longer considered impolite to stare...but beyond that, it is now considered acceptable to pull out a phone and film others.

I agree....also the divide and conquer rhetoric pushed by the powers that be onto society hasn't helped. "Why should they have and not me" ..."why should i pay for them " etc etc. it saddens me. The whole lot

Does anyone know, what is this sniffing very loudly/rudely thing that older women do when you happen to be in close proximity to them in a shop?

No offence to older women, I am one, but just don't get this disgusting behaviour.

Completely agree. Customer service / shop staff seem to have been given a licence to get away with being rude to everyone since covid.
The staff in my corner shop are a prime example. Without fail, every time I go to the counter to pay, they carry on their conversation with each other and completely ignore me. They put the shopping through without so much looking me in the eye (they then leave it all on their side of the counter, so I have to reach across to pull it back towards me). When I leave, without saying bye to them (as they are still talking to each other!?) I get a sarcastic ‘byyyeee’. Before you say it, it’s not just me as I’ve observed them doing it to the majority of other customers as well. Seems to be standard in many places now.

Our newsagent is permanently on their phone every time I go in.
I am always polite , yet he looks at me as if I'm a total inconvenience because he has to give a bit of change for a 82 p magazine I buy weekly.
It's not always the customers that are the problem, although I appreciate some very much are.

The problem is no one takes any responsibility for themselves and also the culture of "don't judge/shame ANYTHING just in case they have something bad in their life etc. In all threads on here about bad behaviour you get at least one person ranting that they have done the behaviour and it's because of "reason" so no one should shame anyone doing the same.

People are rude in the street. Don't judge you don't know if they've had a bad day.

Child listening to iPad out loud in restaurant. Don't shame the parent the child might have special needs.

Supermarket worker is rude. Don't judge or shame them they might have anxiety or special needs.

Car driver is aggressive. Don't judge you don't know what else is going on in their life.

Someone queue jumps. Don't shame them they might have an invisible disability or maybe from another culture.

Child is being attacked at school. Don't judge the other child they probably have special needs or a bad home life. Definitely the fault of poverty and the government. Even if at a private school.

Parent screams at/smacks child in the street. Don't judge the parent you've only seen a brief moment they could be at their wits end and barely coping.

Nurse in hospital is rude and abrupt. Don't judge her they're overworked and underpaid.

Friend is constantly late. Don't shame them they likely have ADHD/ small children/ busy work so you need to make allowances for them. Even if it means standing in the rain for 2 hours. Don't dare mention to your friend you're pissed off.

Customer service person is rude. Don't judge or complain as they're badly paid and likely can't afford to live and if you complain they'll lose their job and it's your fault they can't feed their children.

The idea behind don't judge or shame was good. Unfortunately it's swung too far and now no one can even mention bad behaviour because of a just in case "reason". And then people wonder why no one behaves well. If a child grows up seeing people doing all the above behaviours and no one saying anything about them they won't grow up knowing they're wrong.

I think the school gate is really hit and miss. Some class / year groups will have a few friendly parents, others don't. That's pot luck, in my experience ( three late teen kids now so have been in the school system a while. I have picked up two of my good friends at the school gate but I have been lucky).
I find the 'cult of individualism' that has slowly been creeping across our society since the self-serving political attitudes of the 1980's has really come to a head. Suspicion and fear are used to divide the population and selfish people are thriving.
I find more people further north have a more ready friendliness than down south. It's only a rule of thumb but I have noticed it so much that I am moving away from the south , my home of 50 years, to start a new chapter in Yorkshire. I don't mind a bit of blunt straight-talking but I do mind how selfish society has become down here.

Wow! That is so sad. I would be appalled if any of my offspring behaved like that.

It's also very rare you get friendly attentive staff anywhere.

Is it because the generation that's about 20 to 30 years old have been coddled by their parents?... No discipline. Weren't taught manners etc

There are some really rude and entitled 20 to 30 year old where I work. They take zero interest in people around them, not even each other/people of the same age

I sometimes think the rise of social media and the recent lockdowns gave erased some social niceties somewhat but then again I may be looking at the past with rose tinted specs.

Thats horrible, what utter arseholes.

I do think it's sensory overload and a LOT of people are utter unaware of it. People used to enjoy contact with other people, because they also had space to be away from other people.

Now, we all have access to millions of peoples thoughts via tik tok, facebook, twitter/X so on and so forth. And I just don't think knowing everyone elses opinions is all that healthy, because ther are a lot of unhealthy outlooks around.

Plus we carry around devices that let other people access us at any time anywhere unless you make an effort to ignore it.

Constant access to a thing = lack of appreciation for that thing

At my work now, we wear those wireless headsets. They act like a walkie talkie - press the button on earpiece to talk. Then there could be up to 14 other colleagues and security on them. Problem is for many colleagues, including me when you trying to hear a customer, you miss things as a colleague talks on it at the same time you should be listening. Have to ask the customer to repeat what they said sounds like I wasn't paying full attention. So some customers think you are being rude. You may suggest that I remove the headset from my head, but its a work of art for me with specs to wear them to balance the specs and earpiece over one ear. All my specs wearing colleagues have the same issue. Don't have any of the over the head headset bands. Which will be easier for me to take off.

I have to say that’s not my experience. Where I am (Yorkshire) I find young staff in cafes and shops almost all delightful. Older ones- mostly fine but a few grumps.

I think that is a good example of the problem with management culture in the UK these days in that front line staff aren’t generally listened to. I bet the difficulty of hearing customers while wearing headsets has been raised by staff more than once and no notice taken; if management become aware there is a problem with staff being perceived as rude they will tackle it by introducing some kind of target or sanction rather than actually dealing with the problem. Half the time when staff seem unhelpful it’s because they are caught in the middle between customer needs and practices that they know are a bad idea that management introduced with the aim of reducing staff and increasing profit.

This genuinely scares me

@pelotonaddiction horrible people who stepped over you.