To feel inconvenienced by a tragic accident?

[OnemargarIta]

I'm currently in Italy (staying in Rome) for three nights. It's my first foreign break in a warm country and I've been so excited and saved up especially.

We booked an excursion for today consisting of a trip to Sorrento where we'd spend time exploring, visiting shops and enjoying local food - and then on to Pompeii on the route back.

We've spent the whole morning/day so far stuck in traffic on the motor way. We are so behind schedule we can now no longer go to Sorrento first because Pompeii closes at 5.30 and there won't be time. A sit down restaurant meal will now be replaced by a takeaway which will be eaten on the coach.

We've just been told the cause of the traffic jam and it's because somebody has died in a collision on the motorway.

Instead of feeling saddened about the loss of life I just feel inconvenienced and pissed off that the highlight of my trip has been ruined.

Does this make me a shitty person? It just occurred that it might 😳

It's not great but anyone who has been at a London Station when they announced that all trains are cancelled will know the collective groan of "the selfish bastard".

Feelings aren't reasonable or unreasonable really. You feel how you feel. People vary.
How I feel when I've been delayed by a tragedy depends on how much stress I'm under, what mood I'm in, and how much being late is going to affect me.

It is ok to find humour in things around death. My cousin said something like ‘dad will be up there pissed off at himself for causing a road closure’, because he was the first to moan LOUDLY about being delayed in traffic for any reason.

Everyone realises that when people die, there will usually be loved ones who are upset, that doesn’t need spelling out in an attempt to make people feel bad. I find that really odd. My uncle was loved, but to others, the RTA would have just been an inconvenience. People probably missed all sorts of things due to it and were probably disappointed which is ok.

They do feel like this in real life.

I also think a lot of these posters are full or shit. I don’t believe for a second they spend every waking moment saddened by strangers’ deaths.
We’re all capable of being selfish - it’s perfectly normal and human - and have times where our own wants overshadow that of anything else. (And I say that as someone who can be moved to tears hearing about the tragedies of strangers. And I always hope dearly no one is seriously hurt whenever I pass an accident. But that’s me; I don’t think anyone who doesn’t is awful or wrong).
I lost a close loved one in a RTA - I didn’t, and don’t, expect everyone in the world to feel saddened by it. That’s a sadness for his loved ones/us to carry - not perfect strangers

I actually find the sympathy of people who don’t know the deceased incredibly condescending.

When my FIL died a colleague asked if she could come to the funeral as moral support. No, you can’t.

I got bored of the “my thoughts are with you xx” messages and sick of the sad-face-head-tilts that didn’t make my family any less bereaved.

Deep down, I know none of these people are actually bothered. It’s not their loss, or their grief, and that’s alright. But I find the pretence irritating.

I agree. It’s the disingenuousness of it that I find jarring.

I may have misunderstood you, my apologies.

Some of you are irrated by people sending condolences? Weird.

I felt more irrated by the young woman pissing herself about something behind me in a shop queue after my Brother died after giving her a lift from the airport the day before.

I'm leaving this thread.

I'm sick of the over use of internal misogyny and now virtue signalling which some posters love to over use over and over again.

That’s your opinion, that’s it’s ok to find humour around death, not everyone feels the same way about it and that’s ok, it’s not odd.Context is everything.
It’s not a case of making others feel bad, it’s about being respectful that someone has died in tragic circumstances.Which is not about feigning sadness either, your day may have been disrupted, you might feel annoyed, that’s understandable, is it really necessary to be so vocal about it though, how inconvenienced you’ve been.
The thread started, about someone dying in an RTA, then moved onto some posters finding humour in people who died from suicide, some of these comments were disgusting and MN took them down Maybe you didn’t see them, but it caused upset to people who have lost friends, family members through suicide, many people commented about this.And that’s where the thread changed.
Yes people die in tragic circumstances all the time, no one’s expecting anyone to be sad, just that it’s not the worst thing to happen that your day has been disrupted.

I don't think the OP is unusual. Some of the "Find Madeleine" billboards in Portugal were vandalised by locals who were furious at the impact Madeleine's disappearance had on their businesses. It's how the human race is.

I’m sure you did, but that’s literally not the same.

I’m irritated by fake condolences yes. For example when my cousin text me “he was a lovely man.” He was. But she’d never met him, so she didn’t know that, might have been a dick for all she knew.

I think grief is reserved for the bereaved and those closest to them, and everyone outside of that is just saying the right thing. I’d rather they didn’t. I didn’t want Sandra from round the corner to tilt her head. I wanted the support of my immediate circle, my (now ex) husband wanted his father back, and I wasn’t really interested in much else.

We had people we saw twice a year saying “if you need anything….” What, going to bake a cake for someone you don’t see when there isn’t a death? Come round and cut my grass? It’s insincere nonsense.

What on earth misogyny has to do with anything, I’ve got no idea.

Tbh I think stranger sympathy can be bit odd and excessive sometimes. It can be seen as attention seeking or virtue signalling. I'm not saying this is always the case, but sometimes it is.

I understand why people get annoyed stuck in traffic or on a train for hours. I also understand accidents happen, sometimes they're unavoidable. Suicidal people are inherently inward thinking and thus selfish in that they have no ability to consider other people. A person throwing themselves off a bridge or a building may kill others by accident - but their brains don't consider this like a normal person's brain does. They would never consider your delay or inconvenience. It is what it is, unfortunately. I am annoyed when there are delays and I'm particularly annoyed at people driving like idiots and causing accidents, as well as the fact MH support in this country is so shit and many people have nothing to cling on to.

If my day is disrupted, it may be the worse thing that has happened to me that day. I can’t be sad for everyone. OP wasn’t telling the man’s family that it was an inconvenience, she was writing about it on a public forum, which isn’t disrespectful. As you said, context is everything.

I feel the same.

Because it's another saying that is over used. I'm not sure why people can't grasp things.

I find it sad that people are irritated by people being kind. Just say I need my space.

This thread is bonkers. People arguing over a death of someone in Italy.

At the end of the day I feel more sorry for the person that lost their life than some random whose been stuck on a coach.

I get that OP is more upset for herself than someone she's never met but why start a thread to make herself feel better. Its a bit tough shit OP but crack on.

She originally didn’t, I don’t think. She started the thread to ask if she lacked compassion that other people have. Think she was seeing if she was weird levels of unempathetic.

Then loads of people said she should think herself lucky she’s not dead, and stop being so selfish being bothered that she’s missed a day of a 3 day holiday… and now here we are!

To be honest she didn't really need to ask anyone or start a thread about it.
It was obvious a thread like this would hit a nerve with some people.
And throughout the thread she has shown that she quite clearly lacks empathy along with a handful of others.
There's nothing more to say really.

Yup. Distasteful or not, this is the general reaction.

As l’ve said nobody is asking, expecting for you to be sad for everyone, so not sure why that needs to be said again.
Posting on a public forum is disrespectful, as is op seeing how the thread was going and encouraging it.You’re choosing to ignore, what l said about the thread turning nasty, posters laughing about suicide
That’s why other posters have got upset.
But l guess it’s best to agree to disagree.

It’s not lacking empathy, it’s about being busy with your own life. I’m taking my autistic nephew for a day out tomorrow and if we’re delayed for any reason, including someone dying, my ONLY concern will be our day out. My empathy will be with my nephew who struggles with any change, and me, who will have wasted a lot of money if we don’t get there.

No, I don't need to 'scroll on'. You need to be less offensive. You knew it would cause offence/upset & still posted it.

pointing to the OP & saying 'it was her fault miss, she made me do it' is childish.

I almost missed my best friends funeral because someone had jumped and all the trains were cancelled. I had to jump in the car and do a four hour drive with the satnav telling me I'd arrive at the exact minute it was due to start. I was bloody lucky with traffic and literally pulled in at the same time as the hearse. I didn't have much sympathy that day I'm afraid.

Would you have had sympathy if the reason for your friend's funeral was that they had done the same... jumped in front of a train?

There's a massive difference between grief vultures & people having a quiet thought about the loss of someone's life being vastly more important to their loved ones (& having empathy) than a delay in their own timetable.