Would you find this weird/sad?

[TheGreatGadiBecker]

I live in Canterbury - none of my closest friends, family, or workmates live anywhere nearby. I have two children who are late teens.

Not one person has mentioned the meningitis thing to me at all - nothing jokey, no concern, no interest at all.

Is that weird?! I can't help but find it a bit strange and - strangely - it makes me think people just don't think about me at all. Or don't feel close enough to me to ask or comment. Workmates are constantly in touch but none have said anything about it.

The only person who sends me messages like these is my mother. Last year she text me on holiday to see if everyone was ok because there’d been a relatively small earthquake in the neighbouring country. It does my head in to be fair: if anything happens, I’ll tell her. Checking on the off chance is so perfunctory.

So your kids aren’t ill with it? Perhaps people are assuming that if there is an issue, you would say. Most people wouldn’t think unless they were likely to be affected.

The problem is, if you mention the fact you are upset about it, you will look a little like main character syndrome.

Most of us live busy lives and don't go looking for people to talk to about things they hear in the news, unless it's something that interests or affects them personally.

Your children are not ill or affected by this news and if they were, the onus would be on you to talk about it, if that's what you want.

Also if you’re in contact with them so regularly they’d assume that if something bad affected you, your kids or their friends, you’d have mentioned it first.

I definitely think it's weird for close friends to not send a quick "Isn't it terrible what's happened in Kent etc" message. Close friends and family that you message regularly and easily.

I'm saying that because you've made me realise I have an older friend who I have very infrequent contact with who is based in Canterbury and is a tutor with late teens/early 20s age kids and I've not thought to send a message since reading this. But we are really into the "have lost contact but still know where we are" stage now. This thread is making me think.

Are you one of the people OP that "tags themselves as safe" on Facebook when some random thing happens vaguely near where you live which you are patently not affected by?

Oh and people have actually lost family members and you are looking to insert yourself into this tragic situation
what's the phrase ? Grief thief?
it's not about you hun

Know point in going over it, talking about the same subject.
Life goes on.

Yeah my in laws do this. They live in a different country and they’ll see an article about, say, a stabbing in Birmingham (DH’s office is there) asking if we’re all ok.
We’d probably have mentioned if any of us had been stabbed.

No I find it weird that you find it weird

That's not what pandering means, and "pandering over" isn't a thing....

Again. I'm not wanting people to ask if we're safe - of course we are and would have said if not.

Perhaps its just contirbuting to my feeling a bit invisible.

No . There’s a lot of unnecessary hysteria building around this , bordering on the distasteful

That's just the way we talk.

That's pondering, not pandering. Two different things.

Oh god absolutely this 😭

We were in Athens when there were horrendous wildfires 2 years ago. Friends of ours were on a Greek island (literally closer to Turkey than Greece) and kept updating their social media everyday saying "for everyone asking, we're still safe here. Please don't worry about us! Sending love to everyone affected ❤"

Seen it with the influencers in Dubai recently too. Talk about making yourself the main characters.

There was a thread on here recently where loads and loads of people were insisting that it was completely appropriate to demand that family members text them every time they get a flight to let them know they've landed safely. People didn't seem able to grasp that if a passenger plane had crashed and caused fatalities, they would definitely have heard about that.

I don't think it's something I would do, no. I'd expect to hear about it from friends/their relatives, if they were affected in any way, and then I'd send a text wishing well or whatever.

Not sure why but, to me, it's a bit different to say a fire in a concert hall where you know your friends are visiting, where I would definitely send a text to check they were okay. Maybe because that's a more immediate threat with a more precise location, I don't know.

You are not beinf unreasonable OP. If I saw an arwa in Manchester had been affected, knowing my friends and DCs are there, I'd msg saying 'just seen the news and checking in, hope everyone is ok'

Again. I'm not wanting people to ask if we're safe

Well what are you wanting them to do then?

It's all very sad but only a very few people are infected.

Is it more that you don’t feel close friends and family check in with you and this is just contributing to feel lonely/unseen?

Keep in mind lots of people are avoiding the news due to the conflict in the Middle East causing anxiety and the story probably has less airtime than usual.

In all honesty I’d be unlikely to check in with you with regards to these circumstances. I’m a no news is good news type of person.

I feel I would be cautious about saying anything to a friend living in the area. It could sound intrusive and like I was asking you for local gossip.

The amount of people I know who don’t engage with the news at all. I would bet you lots and lots of people just haven’t read the news to even know this is happening.

There was a recent thread about people who didn’t ask questions. It was eye opening as there’s clearly two different types of people, some who are interested and enquire about peoples lives and others who wouldn’t dream of it and find it intrusive. This reminded me of it. Maybe you only know people in the second group! I’m in the first and would definitely have mentioned it to you.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5478456-people-who-dont-ask-questions