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 😳

I agree, its not like OP was standing over his corpse screaming "get up you fucker I want to see Pompei"
Of course she is disappointed, most people would be

You must mean, most empathetic?

I don’t think it’s abnormal for your primary reaction to be about how it impacts you.
I remember we had someone step out in front of our train a while back & while I absolutely felt sorry for that person and their family (& the poor driver) I was also very stressed to spend 2 hours on an overcrowded train with a 5 & 7 year old, only 1 seat to share & limited food/water on a hot day. Of course it’s worse to be dead but that doesn’t stop the experience being a bit shit for everyone. It helps to put it in perspective and remember it’s a temporary discomfort and then just make the most of the time you have doing something nice later. It’s not the end of your world missing Sorrento even if it is disappointing and it’s good you can reflect on your reaction and see it was a bit self centred. We all have those moments. We are human and flawed

I think I'm like you OP. I don't really feel emotion towards anyone I don't know.

So if a friends family member was in a car accident and died, then I'd be really upset about it, and I'd actually feel that upset as an emotion.

But someone I don't know dying in a car accident. I know intellectually that it's a sad event, but it's not going to evoke an emotional reaction in me, because I don't know these people.

It's not that I'm incapable of empathy. As I said, I can empathise with people I know, and even a TV show with fictional people is capable of reducing me to a blubbering mess.

To give an example, the boxing day Tsunami didn't make me feel anything. I knew it was a sad event, I wished it hadn't happened, but it didn't make me feel bad, even when seeing pictures of the devastation etc. It didn't ruin my boxing day like it did for some family members. However, last year I watched the film about it with Ewan Macgregor and Tom Holland. And that made me tear up repeatedly, because I feel like I got to know some of the people involved, even if they are fictionalised versions of them.

DP reckons it's linked with my aphantasia, that because I can't picture things in my head, that I can't feel the emotions linked with an event. Maybe it's true, maybe that's why I have to feel like I know someone before I can empathise with them, because I can't picture the event itself or its aftermath.

Sometimes I think mumsnet is on a different planet!

It's natural to feel upset that you missed out. Im willing to bet that anyone claiming you're a terrible person and should only be thinking about the person who died aren't being honest with themselves.

I see it was annoying and being stuck in a traffic jam in the heat escalated your reaction but Sorrento will still be there.

Should have got the train. The service in Italy is excellent and far quicker/better than driving.

I just don't think that the op is obliged to chalk up her frustration out of some sense of duty to feel sad about the death of somebody that she doesn't know.

Nor do I think that those who are pretending that they would sit in traffic ruminating on the fragility of life rather than expressing some frustration that their short, first holiday was going to shit before them are achieving anything.

I think it’s normal that you’re disappointed that your day isn’t going to be what you planned. Things happen, someone has lost their life which will probably devastate a whole group of people. It’s not for you to be upset about, you didn’t know them, but a bit of perspective is needed, you missing your day doesn’t really matter. Once you are out of the traffic jam, you can continue to have a nice time.

I wouldn't feel any sadness towards a stranger either, so if that makes me a shitty person so be it.

OP, like you, I'd be mildly annoyed at the inconvenience - whatever the reason for it.

And unless/until it does happen to a member of one’s own family, it’s unreasonable to take on grieving for someone you don’t know. This has clearly happened to you, judging by your strong reaction, and I’m so sorry for that, but it’s irrelevant to the context of the comment.

Why start a post about it?

Sorry, but this made me laugh out loud. Does that make me a shitty person ?!!

You can’t help how you feel but sometimes it’s best to keep those feelings to yourself. The world would be a nicer place if people did this more often

Why start a post about anything?

I'm a little like the OP I get mighty fucked off by all the crashes that both hold me up and those I read about when often the cause is some twat driving like an inpatient or dangerous idiot to get where they want to faster, normally taking the life of some innocent driver, a family or their passengers.

I'm with you OP, why would you feel sad about someone you've never met, don't know the name of and have never seen even a picture of. Some people must spend all their lives feeling sad because there are over 1500 people dying in crashes a year in the UK. I hope they're all feeling sad for all them.

This was your first trip abroad somewhere warm, it was for a very short time that you'd saved up for and there was a very specific thing you really wanted to do. Of course this was more important to you than what was going on in someone you don't knows life - even if the thing that was going on was tragic.

There are a lot of grief thief types on mumsnet OP. Those will be the ones telling you that you are a terrible person.

Or, given that studies show Vesuvius to be overdue for another eruption, maybe not. Those calling the OP out on her lack of empathy will be doing a lot of grieving that day.

I think it is perfectly normal to feel something primarily or only in the way it affects you. Logically a number of people die everyday, so should we spend everyday mourning throughout our lives? The only thing that would be wrong is if you acted on the fact you don't really care this person is dead in a way that affected others who were affected by the death. Yelling at emergency services to move, or a funeral procession to hurry up for example.

Well, at least you’ve lived to potentially see Sorrento another day, unlike the poor person in the accident.

Am I the only one wondering where the Mumsnet empaths are today?