To not like being around other people the older I get...

[Totallybannanas]

I’m approaching 45 and have noticed that my people-pleasing tendencies have faded. Lately, I find myself feeling more irritated by others and have little desire to be around people I don’t know. Today at the supermarket, my frustration kept building—I caught myself tutting and muttering under my breath. Between people blocking aisles with their trolleys, chatting in large groups so I couldn’t get to the shelves, and kids getting in the way, it was all just too much. The rising cost of food and frequent empty shelves only added to my annoyance.
I’ve even started avoiding my neighbors because I don’t have the patience for small talk and need a lot of alone time. Meeting up with friends and family feels more like an obligation than something I enjoy. I’ve always been introverted and made the effort, but now I just want to stay home, even spending time away from my husband. I genuinely enjoy my own space and just relaxing.
Can anyone else relate? I know I’m not perfect and probably irritate others too, but the irony is that I find most people inconsiderate, rude, and unpredictable! 😳

Sounds peri. I am very much a people person, need people interaction to survive kind of person.
I have been so irritated of late I have on a few occasions wished death upon some folk who I just cannot tolerate. This is truly truly awful I know!

You're giving off grumpy vibes op...I find that if I'm in a bad mood and faking smiles and friendliness, people pick up on it and don't react the same as they do to my genuine smiles. Also if you're in a good mood, you don't take much notice of the odd rude person.

That said, I live in a townhouse in a block of about eight and at the weekends it's difficult to leave the house without seeing a neighbour. I'll be glad when they bugger off back to work tomorrow :)

OK. I was exactly like this going through peri.

However, for me, I now (60 very soon) just don’t give a fuck. So I absolutely adore my adult DC, my pets, and some of my family. Most of my friends.

Everyone else is pretty irrelevant to me. I no longer call people a cunt under my breath when they ram their trolley into me at Tesco, or cut me up at a roundabout in the car. Somehow I have moved on from that stage and feel incredibly peaceful with my life. No more people pleasing, but no more grumpy old woman. No HRT.

I need plenty of time alone and often find other people irritating. I get exhausted by too much company and am happy on my own. I do have friends and make an effort to meet people but I need time by myself to recharge my batteries. We're all different.

@gannett At 53 I'm still managing to say a polite excuse me with a smile when an entire family are blocking the narrow aisle/pavement/top or bottom of an escalator, but my thoughts about them are murderous. I know it's a me problem.

Have I always been like this? No. Is it a thing that's happened fairly recently? Yes. Is it a common theme amongst friends of a similar age? Again,Yes.

Please don't dismiss our feelings, as it makes you look like a 'pick me' and it's not helpful.

Why does everything have to be about the menopause? Some people just like to be alone, or become more self-sufficient as they get older, or find that the world is noisier and busier than it used to be.

Exactly this! I feel myself changing and am very self aware that I am less tolerant of things and people in general and that I am being a grumpy cow! But I wasn't always like this 😭

Thank you for making me feel more normal! I feel exactly the same way. I'm not a grumpy cow to people because that's not nice and they may be having a hard day already for all I know, I just can't be bothered. I'm happy with my small circle of relatives, husband and few contacts. Early 50s and perimenopausal. Does it pass? No idea.

Reminds me of a Bill Hicks skit:

"I'm forming a new party, the People Who Hate People Party:
'People who hate people! Come together!'
'....no!'"

I think it definitely does - the people pleasing tendencies are over but the rage subsides and is replaced with peace and zen, or so I'm lead to believe 🤞.

I hope so. I'd like to feel more social again (though I have always been an introvert that prefers a small circle). I find peace and zen just being left alone (other than my family and closer friends). People pleasing tendencies are definitely gone forever though.

I’m only 40 and already feel like that. I’ve always been an introvert but I feel I’ve got more anti social since lockdown tbh. Some friends fell off the radar, I lost my job and now crave my own company more than ever. I can never get enough ‘me time’. I tolerate my family in small doses but if I’m honest, feel cagey if I’m with them for long periods. I do have 1 ND DH and 2 ND kids though so that may be why! 🤪
General public can really annoy me - painfully slow drivers really irk me, people who get in my way at the supermarket and loud parents on the school run get under my skin.
I often dream about being alone on a desert island. I’d take the cat.

Yep. I think I'm also ND but masked for most of my life . But now I live alone - bliss✨ - so I have to force myself to see friends and the joy I feel if they cancel even at the last minute is unmatched 🤭.

I'm finding the same.

It started slow - early 40s i was surprised to find myself not jumping at the chance to, for example, go out for the celebratory meal. Or the long overdue catch up with a friend. But i would go and i would enjoy it.

Then it sort of morphed into not wanting to go particularly AND not really enjoying it enough to have made the effort. But would never not go and would never voice how i felt.

Now - 50s - i actively avoid doing stuff. Awful really. I have a busy family life with lots of daughters ranging in age from 30 down to being in primary school. I have to really make the mental effort to invite youngest DCs mates over for a playdate or take them out. When i had my eldest 3 i always had a houseful of kids and people - open house, friends of mine, friends of the DCs. Can't think of anything bloody worse now 😂

I have a nice friend who feels the same. Her DD is friends with mine. We see each other once a week for half an hour and a coffee usually at mine and to moan about the world. VERY occasionally we take the girls out somewhere. Our DCs play quietly together. That much suits me fine.

Large numbers of posters have strongly implied this by ascribing their irritability to menopause or peri-menopause depleting their ‘people-pleasing’ oestrogen — therefore their oestrogen-depleted state is the ‘enlightened’ one in which they truly see the profound awfulness, rudeness and inconsiderateness of the rest of humanity without the warm-and-fuzzy ‘oestrogen goggles’.

I do struggle to reconcile my feelings of wanting to be alone with an academic knowledge of how important connections are. How do other people deal with this? I'd happily isolate myself but I know, when a very hard time hit, the village that came forward was amazing and so healing. I'd hate to lose it but it's such a struggle to want to maintain it.

Op you have just described me, I'm the same age and feel exactly like you. I'm peri menopausal and recently started HRT which I'm hoping will help. Do you think this could be the case for you? I would genuinely be happy to stay at home doing my own thing for the foreseeable and honestly don't think I'd miss people. Unfortunately that's just not an option.

This is a self-observed change in OPs character.

It’s like semi - permanent state of PMT. I don’t think many people will argue that’s enlightenment 😂

@Moonlightdust I often dream about being alone on a desert island. I’d take the cat.

You can't take the cat, the cat would hate a desert island, let alone the travel to it.

YANBU

I think that’s what they are saying, though. That the warm-and-fuzzies of oestrogen were distorting their vision, and now they see clearly? And they don’t like what they see.

I know exactly how you feel OP

Agree it doesn't have to be about the menopause

As a normal functioning 60 year old .I just am surprised that people blame menopause on every change in thoughts and feelings.
Peri menopause was never in my vocabulary 15 years ago,just thought that heavy periods,hot flushes etc was a normal expectation for every female.🤷‍♀️