To think people are becoming ruder...?

[BlackBean2023]

I took the kids out for an afternoon tea at a garden centre yesterday and there was a group of women - one with two children- at the next table. The oldest child was about three and spent most of the time sitting on the floor leaning against my chair (and coat) on her iPad. The youngest looked about 18 months and threw most of their food on the floor which the mum just left there.

I went to do the food shopping and it was carnage. People with multiple trolleys pushing into the smallest of spaces rather than parking their trolley up to the side and taking a couple of steps to the shelves.

Popped into the Co-op on way home to pick up forgotten items and there's a bloke in the queue moaning loudly about having to wait 5 minutes to be served.

I am due to meet a friend for a coffee this morning and I genuinely don't want to have to mix with people after yesterday's interactions!

Yep so many people are rude bastards I think it’s got worse since Covid. It’s places like the theatre I notice it. Talking through performances and getting up to go to the bar and disturbing people to do so are my bugbears. Rude bastards

Something has definitely changed over the last few years and the worse thing is that it’s making me change too - I’m becoming much less tolerant and patient when I’m out and about, thanks to being around all the rude and entitled idiots that have no manners. It’s a real rarity that someone smiles or doesn’t barge in front of you these days.

I was in a pub the other day with a friend. A young man came in with a dog and sat on the table directly behind us where some guys were. His dog sat next to my friend, nosing his pocket and panting heavily. Then the young man took the dog to the water bowl on the other side of our table and proceeded to converse over the top of our heads with the guys behind us. As I said to my friend, it was so rude you couldn’t make it up.

Try working in retail 😢
Rude, obnoxious, impatient, selfish imbeciles are a few words to describe them. Some people really do believe they are more important than anyone else.

One of the rudest is when they stand at my till talking on their phone and don't even acknowledge me, which in the shop I work in you do have to engage with me and it's almost like I'M the problem!!
Sorry for interrupting your important phone call love!!!
The other day someone stood in the queue waiting, whilst on the phone and then just stood there so I walked off to serve other customers and then nearly 10 mins later seemed a bit annoyed no one was serving her... Erm I asked numerous times and she was too engaged in her call to even notice me standing shouting at her!

I refuse to engage in all this "the customer is Always right" malarkey when they are just being downright rude!!!

The thing I’ve noticed the most is the huge increase in people who think it’s ok to watch videos or listen to music quite loudly without headphones on public transport. A few years ago this was pretty rare, now it’s the norm

I feel more and more uncomfortable around crowds of people. Only like going anywhere quiet (and I live in a big city). For example if I go to the cinema I'll go when I know it'll be quiet.

My poor colleague was on a packed train last week and some obnoxious young man decided it was ok to watch porn on his phone right next to her. She found it difficult not to see his screen and didn’t feel safe to complain. I think it’s beyond rude, but it’s an example of disgusting, selfish behaviour.

I notice more the entitlement of some parents with children at places like restaurants and cafes. I understand there might inevitably be some noise, which is fine, but parents letting children run around the restaurant, which is potentially so dangerous, but also annoying for other customers. Allowing children loud electronics. Allowing shouting and tantrums that go unchecked. Finally completely leaving tables trashed, not even bothering to clean up a bit. Such pleb entitlement. And kids learn from their parents. If you are taking your kid out, engage with it and teach it some basic manners.

Back in the day communities were made up of friends, family and neighbours. We were all a network of extended kin and there were common standards we all understood and adhered to. Now all we see are strangers when we go out, a soup of atomised and isolated individuals. There are no longer common standards we share and could expect from others, people just do whatever they want because who cares? We can now, we're no longer bonded by these fussy old strictures that limit our choices. We're all free individuals to do as we please and so we do.

Went to the park on Sunday- some rude cow brought her dog into the playground and then was so rude when I told her we wasn’t allowed in- her husband left his old coffee cup on the floor and walked off, my children stood to the side to let an elderly couple pass who couldn’t mutter one word of thanks. I’m sick of trying to
raise polite children when they’re surrounded by such rude assholes, why bother!

I posted a while ago in a similar thread about there being a social contract because of connections we used to have to our communities. Many people responded to say this was nonsense and people have always done as they pleased and dismissed the idea of shared values and implicit agreements about behavioural norms. I have no research to back it up though.

I was sitting near a family (mum, two daughters) in the cinema recently.

The girls got up to the toilet several times in the first hour or so, disturbing me each time as I was at the end of the row so they had to keep climbing over my legs. They were also taking pictures with their flash on and watching TikTok on their phones. They were having conversations at normal volume and giggling loudly, mum said nothing and sat there vaping then left for about 30 mins.

They started videoing and the flash was directly shining in to my face so I turned towards them and said "Do you mind? That's really bright". Got a mouthfull off the mother for this who then proceeded to sarcastically tell them to be quiet/not move/ not breathe in case it upset the "big lady" then told me off because I was being noisy by shoving a sweet wrapper in my bag.

I ignored her because I didn't want to disturb other people trying to watch the film but I was really shocked at how rude and inconsiderate they were.

I definitely think people have more of a brass neck nowadays.

Narrow lanes with no footpaths round here. Fed up with standing to one side as as some tosser speeds past in their SUV without even a glance. The worst, I have to say, are younger women and older men. Younger men almost invariably thank me though that's probably because I remind them of their mothers.

Yesterday was carnage wherever I went but I had to pop into aldi this morning and it was dead....plus alot of 50% off everything! Today will probably be better.

I have not witnessed people being ruder.

I do think that we are a lot more indifferent to people we don't know since COVID and I admit that I'm very guilty of this. The only way round it for me has been to try and hold myself to standards for my behaviour but in times of stress obviously standards slip.

Oh god, I was out yesterday with my father who is visiting (we have a tricky relationship at the best of times!) and he was so rude in the little pharmacy in my village - the woman asked if he was paying by card or cash and he just waved his card at her without answering! I wanted the ground to open up and a willow me.

i would have called him out on it but couldn’t cope with the argument it would cause.

i really feel for those working in retail at this time of year, I’m so sorry you have to put up with the general public, you have my sympathy

YANBU. I see it most on the roads. So many utter aggressive idiots who think it’s their right to hog both lanes, swerve into you, cut you up and laugh. They seem to think they are invincible.

I have never experienced people behaving badly at the theatre or cinema.

I don't think people are too bad on the roads or on the trains, although the tube shocks me nowadays as many people don't wait for passenger to get off before bundling in.

What I find increasingly is poor service at the tills in shops. Mostly the little supermarkets attached to petrol stations and a couple if large chain stores (Boots particularly) where the staff no longer say please and thank you. They aren't rude as such, just lacking the basics.

Thats such rubbish behaviour but then, what do you expect from a pleb who’s raising her kids to be as entitled as her.

On the M6 on Saturday, the number of middle lane hoggers was insane. Totally oblivious to their surroundings ( ie other people needing/wanting to overtake).

My DD works in retail part time - she's been very grumpy this week, didn't think it might be because she's had rude customers at work!

I think in shops, it’s when the person at the till, or the person at the self check outs, almost completely ignores you. So there are these 2 ladies working at my local big supermarket, who are at the self check outs, when ever you you ask them for help, or they need to approve something etc, if they are chatting they will look at you like you have 3 heads, if you have interrupted them. Then one of the ladies came over to sort out the problem, but continuing to talk to her friend, not even looking at me. A moment later, the same issue occurred with the self scanner, and again I interrupted them talking , and then the same lady came over, quite huffy and puffy now, asking me what the problem is? But then carried on chatting to the other lady. Not nice at all

I wasn't even that pissed off at the girls, who were about 9 or 10, but their parent should have checked their behaviour.

Ferdinand Tonnies - Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft

Emile Durkheim - Mechanical and Organic solidarity (in fact, all of Durkheim if this interests you)

Georg Simmel - The Metropolis and Mental Life

Zygmunt Bauman - Liquid Modernity

Ernest Burgess - zones of transition

Robert Putnam - Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century

That's just a start, there's loads and loads and loads of research into social fragmentation.