To think people complain about the lack of real connection but don’t want the responsibility of being a villager?

[FluentOpalFox]

Everyone’s talking about how lonely and disconnected the world feels but when it comes to showing up for others, offering support or doing the unglamorous emotional labour of real community, they disappear. People want to receive connection but few want to offer it. AIBU to think that’s the real reason so many of us feel isolated?

This is a good point, I was just talking about all the stuff I do to be a villager, but I'm a SAHM. I didn't do half as much for other people when we were both working.

I used to volunteer but don’t any more. I just found people take, take, take. I felt really taken advantage of at times. We tend to avoid it now. Maybe when we retire we’ll look into doing more.

I agree that part of the problem is that people these days treat volunteers like they are paid professionals providing them with a service. I used to help out with my local Beavers group but stopped because some of the parents were ridiculous with their expectations and downright rude.

Particularly from COVID until now, we have seen quite plainly how selfish people are. They don't care about anything unless it affects them directly, and then they will scream a whole village down asking for help.

I litterpick around my village, it's not huge but it's what I can do to be useful.

There's so many scammers now too. I used to use an app called NextDoor, but soon deleted it when I realised it was a hub for scammers and people who want everything for nothing.

Agreed. I am an only child, as it my partner. We don't have siblings or any extended family and it's honestly quite lonely and rather worrying (especially for the future) how isolated we are. I do my best to be a very good friend.

DH and I were saying this the other day! So many people needed a 'village', and yet so many posters on here (small sample of course) saying 'I'm not taking in a parcel for my neighhour' or 'I'm not going to speak to my neighbour about using my drive, I'm just going to sabotage it with rocks' or 'cheeky fucker school mum said she was too overwhelmed with work and forgot to come to my DC birthday party'. But as soon as they are called out on behaviour there is every excuse under the sun! Complete lack of empathy for others. People seem terrified that others will become dependent on them, without realising the ideal village requires inter-dependence.

I’m not sure ‘community’ exists for lots of people any more. It doesn’t for me. I can’t imagine what help I’d possibly need from randoms - if I need something doing that can’t be done within my own family, then I’ll pay a reputable business to do it. Likewise, it just wouldn’t occur to me to go around trying to do stuff for other randoms I don’t know or try and befriend other people’s elderly relatives or children, I work full time and just wouldn’t have any spare time.

Well i tend to disagree. I think many women are in the same position as I, effort is always extended to other people, but never comes back to me.
As a female in my 30s, I fear that it is seen as my "job" to take care of the kids and the older generation, and support other women in the same position as me- a mother to young kids. Which is all well and good.

But I do recognise when I am unable to keep giving, I am Spoken about quite poorly. Being a person doesn't come into it. It's just that I am no longer sorting, fixing or arranging what someone else deems I should be for them.

I find it interesting that only women are mentioned here. Men need to step up more and be involved.

Most of the retired women I know have busy lives. Volunteering, visiting friends/family, weekly clubs, shopping, bingo and such. Their husbands do nothing. No hobbies or friends, barely leaving the house unless their wives organise dinners/visits with others. They're all grumpy miserable bastards.

Village duties can't fall entirely on women's shoulders.

I'm busy, I work long hours and look after 2dc. I still built a village. I help others (mainly) when it's no skin off my nose and they help me when I need it.

If I had nearby family and if dh didn't work away I think I'd still help others as often it's not hard to trade favours or be generous.

you see people posting a lot on here about how they don't have any friends/their friends/family/colleagues leave them out of stuff/ they tried to organise an event and nobody came/people dropped out last minute and how bad that made them feel.....But equally there are always threads where someone posts that they don't want to go to something, often something they've committed to, whether because they're tired, anxious or just cba, and posters fall over themselves to assure them they shouldn't bother, tell them that prioritising themselves is self-care, wax lyrical about 'hibernating' at home in the warm in their PJs or 'our little family' are my sole priority/my DP/DH is the only friend I need," etc.

There doesn't seem to be an understanding that in order to make/keep relationships you have to put a bit of effort in, even if that sometimes means doing things you aren't that bothered about. By all means if there's something you really don't want to do/can't afford, that's fine, if you make the effort 99% of the time then good friends will understand on the rare occasions that you do fall ill or have an emergency and can't make something - but if you say no/cancel every time you're asked, don't be surprised when they stop asking!

I find it interesting on MN there is a lot of people who actively dont want to talk to, or be social with neighbours, work colleagues, the dreaded "school mums" , hate school whatsapp groups etc which is of course a choice they are quite entitled to make.

...But also lots of posts about things that, in my own experience, seem like non issues. Eg angst about taking parcels in for neighbours, need to get somewhere but cant think of a single person they've ever met that might give them a lift, ditto no one to sign a passport photo...
The school mum thing is quite baffling to me, if nothing else, being quite mercenary about it these are useful people to have in your life, even if for a few years.

I get what you mean

as lonely as it gets, I think I’d struggle in a village having to socialise all the time

I was going to say something like this. Part of it is that the people who need support don’t then get back on their feet and offer it back. They have another crisis and need even more. Then they are surprised that they have burnt through all their help. There are people I no longer see because I realised that, no matter what, we have to talk about them and their problems. They would probably say that I abandoned them at a time of need - I would say that they have been at a time of need nearly the entire time I’ve known them.

When people say “It takes a village, you know”, often women in their forties and fifties (like me) don’t think “Ooooh lovely! A village to support me!”. They hear “WHY AREN’T YOU BEING THE VILLAGE?!? WHY AREN’T YOU HELPING EVERYONE MORE?!?”

They wouldn't be randoms though. If you had a community/village, they would be people you knew. That's the whole point.

Basic example:
I move into a village. People see that I'm new to the village and say hello. I introduce myself and soon I know the people who live nearby. We have a little chat when we bump into each other in the lane/shop etc.

My neighbour has a tree that falls down in her field. Because I've chatted to her, I know she lives alone and is not handy with a chainsaw. I offer to go with my chainsaw and cut it up. In return I get some of the wood for my fire. Now I know her pretty well and can ask her to feed my cat when I go on holiday. This sort of thing continues for ten years or so. Eventually she is infirm and needs help with lifts to town sometimes. We are now a 'community' with many years of give and take banked, so I and others help her. None of this stuff takes much time. It's not even formal volunteering which would get you an even bigger and stronger network.

We briefly lived in a place like that when we first left London a few years ago. They all wanted something for nothing and it was always under the guise of "community spirit".

This included wanting us to give use of our front garden and driveway (when the car was in use) so all the neighbourhood kids could play on them. And these kids were feral. We don't have kids so we didn't even get to benefit from a reciprocal arrangement.

We also took parcels in for everyone that Christmas to be friendly, but no one would collect them. Our front corridor looked like a sorting office. Postie would joke "another one for you!" (=for a neighbour)

Final straw was when a woman a few doors down banged on our door screaming because she "thought" I'd threatened her kids (???) and then her husband came round and did the same later! It was absolutely bizarre.

We ended up moving. No good deed goes unpunished.

We don’t have spare time to help others, like we used to. Plus the workplace is very different now, much more pressured and hectic.

That's sad. Old age loneliness is a huge epidemic. Start volunteering now. Make yourself friends and a community. You'll live longer for sure!

Or die lonely. Your choice I suppose.

I don't partic want a village.
I lived in small town for 19 yrs & that was pretty suffocating, everyone was connected to everyone else. Amy's mum suddenly wouldn't let Amy play with DD because DS had upset Becky. Amy & Becky's mums were sisters... of course they were.

Even away from my kids upsetting people with unknown connections... I assume my main reason for lack of connection is mostly down to me actually being different, I don't have enough in common with most people for us to get close. I don't need to repeat stress of people thinking they have earnt the right to bluntly tell me everything that they think is wrong with me.
That's what village means to me. Being hassled. No thanks.

I don't think it means just any Joe Bloggs off the street, but more having a bit of a network you can rely on in an emergency, eg a school mum friend that could pick up your child and mind them for an hour if you got stuck in traffic.

I always find people only talk about a village when they need or want help they aren’t getting. Like everyone else, they weren’t bothered before either.

I have my immediate family, some good friends and some mum/work friends. I don’t want anything else; I’d rather sort myself out. I don’t want to make more friends to organise reciprocal childcare play dates in the holidays, as MN always suggests. I have my childcare in place.

I also agree with the PP who said it’s always the same people looking for village help, over and over, and who never provide any back.

My child is 17 now so I think we’re all good. Although I can see the appeal of that sort of thing, we just managed by ourselves.

I grew up in villages. Nobody is your village, your family is. Forget about neughbours doing favours for you.

I feel a bit sad reading many of the response on this thread. I retired 18 months ago, previously commuting to full time work with a husband farming, on constant call, doing best we could to parent two children, which can’t have been that bad as both grown and happy. We live up the back of beyond too.
But since retiring I volunteer steward two sessions a week at a local museum p, am social secretary at a sports club, a parish councillor and chair of planning, and do a couple of smaller bits now and then. My life has change immeasurably. I know people, people know me. I make effort (I’ve just fed 27 home made chicken biryani) and people do what they can all around me. I’m organising a community Christmas for next December and have found people like to be asked to contribute, some being previously too scared to join in as they felt they didn’t belong.
It takes time, it takes effort, but the rewards are great.