[Closed] How do people cope?

total hardcore poppy nuts

Have I met one of these?

How to people cope?

They vent on an internet forum?

Keep riding.

OP, just do what you think is right for you and **** everyone else. At least you'll know you're doing it right. You can't make people do the right thing, what ever that is. Most people are just trying to get through this shitty time and get back to a better time. Some people make mistakes and some don't care. Just look after you and yours.

Earphones and less social media

general public ? I don't see or deal with them very much. Are these found in populated areas ? I stay away from them 🙂

OK, not sure I can help, but...

You're not alone pal, pretty much all of your post resonates with me, I often find myself singing a re-worked lyric to the Robert Palmer song 'Addicted to Love', changed to 'surrounded by (rhymes with punts)'.

So I suppose yes, you just have to not let it grind you down, but it's hard being surrounded by such selfishness.

Best of luck,

APF

oh, and finding music that makes me smile (NSFW, naughty words):

Move country.

There's less pricks around here in Limburg, even Geert Wilders seems left of the Tories.

But TBH I've just started calling people who say things like mentally ill people should be shot, horrible little people to their faces.They usually seem taken aback by it.

Find some better friends, hang out with them instead? Not even meant flippantly, I know it's hard to do sometimes.

I also struggle with not judging people - where is the boundary between having principles that are important to you and being a judgemental arse? I'm not sure anyone on STW knows!

It is worrying how what used to be considered far-right is increasingly mainstream, but what can we do about it really?

Keep to certain topics, you might not align with someone's political views but you might have very similar interests (sport, hobbies, cooking etc). You'll never find someone in life who has exactly the same views and opinions as you, how have you managed up to this point in life with people who are different to you?

I despise smoking and drug taking but I have friends who don't feel that way, it's just something I choose to ignore as no-one is perfect.

How do people cope?

Its easier for me without the children and school run stuff but I do a few things

Social media - anyone behaving unpleasantly or who does not add to my life - blocked. Lifes too short to spend any time and effort with people who make me unhappy

Same IRL.

General public ( which would include the folk at the school gates) behave like jerks - ignore them unless it becomes impossible to continue to ignore them then they get told they are being jerks and blanked

Family get a little more leeway but not much.

Be ruthless. Life is too short to expend time and energy on people who do not enrich your life

Some of this could be useful also

https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself

I have psychotic thoughts about running round the office with a axe killing everyone (a nice Helko Werk btw). I've never acted on this impulse and now I'm homeworking my colleagues are a lot safer.

But I guess at the end of the day I think most people are ok, just misinformed. The genuine nasty people are few. There are a lot of people who struggle with life and I try not to judge them. Doesn't always work. My family keep me grounded on what's important as they are all front line NHS. I have a bad day when Excel crashes, they have a bad day when a child dies of cancer, so I try not to complain when a colleague is being a ****.

In terms on coping, walking the dog helps, as does canoeing. I'm introverted and recharge being alone in my own thoughts. I get a bit philosophical about how we are only a very brief spark in this universe and ultimately will be judged by the people whose lives we have touched so I try to be kind and try to be happy. Its mostly working.

Stay safe OP

OP, just do what you think is right for you and **** everyone else. At least you’ll know you’re doing it right. You can’t make people do the right thing, what ever that is. Most people are just trying to get through this shitty time and get back to a better time. Some people make mistakes and some don’t care. Just look after you and yours.

I'd like to think this is my approach, and I try and make allowances. But I've started calling out bollocks behaviour if I can't avoid it. If I don't, who will? If it upsets them, not my problem.

I now have APFs earworm in my head 🤣

There’s less pricks around here in Limburg

Say 'Hello' to Pantucci, if you see him. 🙃

Situation check. Your peers:

- ranting about how mentally ill people cant be cured so should just be shot
- spend their time just being utterly obnoxious to everyone
- believe that other people are ‘better off’ than they, via claiming welfare benefits
- are bitter and angry about sharing the country with non-white people

I come across as the miserable one.

No, you’re just surrounded by miserable ****ers. Wholly understandable that engagement with said ****ers is best kept to bare minimum. My social circle is miniscule, the older I get. I tend to concentrate more on the few friends who are what I call real friends. They don’t all share my political/life views (not sure even I do, I prefer making stuff, cooking stuff, doing things) and some are obnoxious (well, one) but we can laugh/at with each other and rip the piss something terrible. That makes all the difference, I find.

I also find that since Covid I can get on with stuff and not worry so much about socialising but more about productivity. Productivity/focus/sourcing/collaborating inevitably leads to meeting people (online or otherwise) with similar interests. For me that is in the art/creative/engineering/sustainability field/s and have met some truly epic people in recent years. They don’t seem to be too interested in politics dither, which is a relief.

Sounds like your ‘peer group’ are just bored and bitter people with no real interests other than complaining.

OP, where are you based - there are surely a few of us ‘wheely’ affable, idiot-class fellowgrumps nearby to maybe ride/hang out with if you ever get the desire for some company. (Obv when CV19 protocol allows)

Just make it clear to everyone that
you don’t care for, or ever want to discuss:

Your list of blocked words you can also apply to Twitter. I’ll help you get started:

* Politics including geopolitics and anything to do with any MP / Leader in any country globally.
* Religion
* Immigration
* Elections
* Tax
* Brexit
* Royal Family
* Celebrity blah
* Anything to do with Covid

If people talk to you about any of the above just look through them as if they are not there. They will soon get the point.

Hopefully you will end up with a nice group of well adjusted people that just chat about bike riding, the outrageous cost of ebikes, pizza stoves and bbq all day.

But I guess at the end of the day I think most people are ok, just misinformed and too lazy/stubborn to look further into what they're told

FTFY. My mam (retired, leave & tory voting working class, turkey/christmas etc but starting to see what I mean now that Saint Boris has ****ed up so much) tells me that life is too short to look further into things. This is why the country's borked. People are just too lazy to look past the headlines and too stubborn/proud to admit they're wrong. I tend to cut people like that out of my life where I can.

Meh.

As usual, the thick of it covered it off;

My general view is to just to cut off people who are odious shits. Life is too short to be surrounded by them.

I would honestly just try and let stuff go. Call out the really bad stuff like someone saying those with mental health issues should be shot and just not let the little stuff get to you. It can't be good feeling miserable and mad at people all the time. Maybe your wife's right try and see the good in people. However this is easy for me to say being in a little left wing bubble with all my friends and colleagues.

Well Cash / Dash is singing my new lyrics, that's put a smile on my face.

Have a good day all, chins up,

APF

I posted thi in the dog thread the other day but very true here. I just resign myself to these people being part of the 4%

The 4% rule applies.

4% of the population are arseholes. They are in your work, your family, your street, they are cycling, they are walking dogs, they are driving cars. They are arseholes. They are everywhere. No point stressing about it, it is just statistics and fact.

In some sectors the number is higher than 4%, sometimes significantly so. But that baseline figure remains the same. Sometimes best to accept it and move on.

Heres a question how do you know you're not in THE 4% or someone else's 4%. My take everyone has the capacity to be in the 4% so let's just be nice and little less judgemental of others... unless of cause they say lets shoot people with mental health issues. Thats clearly stupid.

"How to people cope?"

I tell them exactly what I think of them, life is too short to appease dicks.

a total hardcore poppy nut

What on earth is that? Opium addict? Really into the British Legion? Or literally just has pictures of poppies on everything?

I know this feeling : ) I try and save my ire for the important battles, so the maskless are just eejits who I don't worry too much about. Posting britainfirst links or intolerant stuff about the death penalty, that I would challenge.

Rant on here too !

as above

Life is too short to expend time and energy on people who do not enrich your life

one can choose to

spend time and effort on people who make your life worse

or

spend time and effort on people who make your life better

sometimes the choice is not as easy as "just choose" - maybe you're forced to be around someone - but sometimes it is that simple

I tell them exactly what I think of them, life is too short to appease dicks.

This and if it’s at all contrary to your work place equality and diversity policy I would either report it or tell them if ever hear it again will report it - depending how generous I was feeling. I’m sure you know, most mental illness is curable, even severe illnesses such as schizophrenia and it can affect any adult at any age including them and their family. There by the grace etc.

The past 5 years with brexit, trump and johnson, deliberately targeting division to empower themselves, and then the pandemic to really escalate tensions further. It has become very easy to focus on everyone else's faults, just try to chill and think what is positive in your life rather than focus on others perceived idiocy.

Thinking you are right and everyone else is wrong, is being part of the problem.

And in answer to your question, as other people have alluded to, it's about quality control. I had an epiphany the day I realised that life is too short to spend it in the company of shits and my life has been immeasurably better for it.

People got the hint that I was serious pretty quickly. "Hey Cougar, coming out for a pint?" Depends, is your obnoxious shithead mate going to be there? "Uh, probably." No, then. Guess what, inside of a couple of weeks obnoxious shithead stopped getting invited out. I think my mate was looking for an excuse to sack him off anyway. There were a few bellends he "knew from the football" whereas I'd acquired some basically out of my own lack of self-esteem.

As an example: I had a friend, known him over 20 years, I was best man at his wedding. He was one of those types, he could be good company, and he could be an abject git, and you always end up excusing the latter because of the former and because he was a "friend". Typical behaviour would include climbing over my full-height back gate to peer through my window when I wouldn't answer the door to him and he 'knew I was in'; I was in alright, sure, I was in bed with severe flu and wanting the world to end.

I came to realise, the only time he ever contacted me was when he needed me for something, and when I did go and see him for his daughter's birthday or whatever he'd spend half the time telling me how I'd disappointed him the last time he'd wanted me.

On holiday one day, I'd been having a shit time of things with work and with family health scares and a bunch of other stuff. I was out in the sun on the patio with a glass of wine and I actually felt myself physically relax for the first time in weeks if not months, all the knots and tension draining out of my shoulders. Inside of a minute later my phone buzzed. A text from our hero, his opening gambit was "Your presence is required..." I went up the wall, across the ceiling and down the other side.

I replied back going "this isn't how friends treat each other," got back some half-apology excuse about he he'd not been well recently or something, and I suddenly thought, what exactly am I getting out of this relationship? How is this enriching my life? Every time we interact it's solely for his benefit and it leaves me variously stressed, upset or cross. I downed communication, haven't spoken with him since.

He's occasionally messaged me on Facebook since, once sent an 'olive branch' message offering me free shit from his work. But not once has he shown any sort of remorse or even acknowledgement of the way he's behaved, and until that happened I wasn't interested.

Recently I realised that I had a lot of people friended on Facebook that I had no interaction with. They were acquaintances at best; friends of friends; people I knew from school, haven't spoken with since and probably didn't get two words out of even back then; people that... I don't even know who they are TBH. So I put up a post going "I'm having a cull, if we don't talk then please come and say hi otherwise I'm removing you. Nothing personal." He went in that cull. Then I got a message from him, "guess I didn't make the cut, huh?" No mate, no you didn't. You had your chance in the message you've demonstrably read, yet you didn't see fit to message me until it actually affected you. A decade on and nothing's changed.

I'm feeling at the end of my tether with it all at the moment between current affairs and work, if someone said the world was going to end tomorrow I think I'd have a sense of relief. I've had to cut off a long term friend recently that's gone full on internet conspiracy, someone working in digital forensics in the police force no less.

I almost started a thread here asking if anyone has decided to just switch off from politics and current affairs to live a blessed life of ignorance.

I almost started a thread here asking if anyone has decided to just switch off from politics and current affairs to live a blessed life of ignorance.

I'm trying, though I work one step removed from national politics so it's a bit hard. Just this last week or two I've sacked off listening to Radio 4 in the morning.

Been thinking about this REM lyric (/quote from Slackers) recently; "Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy".

It is worrying how what used to be considered far-right is increasingly mainstream, but what can we do about it really?

Completely agree with this. I'm genuinely astonished how quickly we seem to have become numb to govt policies that only a few years ago would have seemed beyond the Pail. Only today Patel has announced Traveller passports...In other words; documents to be produced and presumably carried at all times  if you're from a particular group...words fail me really

Most folk are OK, regardless of their politics, some folk are ignorant (not in the pejorative sense) some folk are down right unpleasant. try to get the ratio of these three groups as much aligned to the first rather than the last.

I really struggle to cope with the general public that I come into contact with.

My solution is to only come into contact with them on my terms. Avoiding places when it's busy is my favourite tactic, even in normal times. I have done a lot of filtering of friends, family and social media contacts the last few years so my exposure to the idiots is much less than it was. If I hadn't done this before the pandemic I'd be frantically doing it now!

You can't control the idiots but you can control whether you interact with them.

I feel your pain op. I work for a builders merchants, and get the full spectrum of idiots unfortunately.
Two people spring to mind. #1. We went click and collect last April, one customer was upset by this and said " if you don't let me in ****ing shop now I'll kick your ****ing head in you ****ing ****" A couple of days later, while out delivering, a random person said "your family deserves to get cancer" because I was working.
Needless to say, customer service isn't my best point at the moment 😁

Difference of opinion = fine, no problem, live and let live.
Being a racist/bigot/religiously intolerant/sexist/etc, yeah that needs to be called out.
However it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do it, weigh up whether it’s worth the stress or not.
My dad used to say, ‘never argue with an idiot’ it’s good advice tbf.
OP, it sounds to me like you need a holiday, I’m sure you’re not alone.

100% this thread! I was beginning to think I was on my own here. And yes, I feel this has got a lot worse since Covid.

In the last year, I've stopped looking at the news for a number of weeks at a time as I feel I was unable to cope with it and my life was better for it. However, it's extremely difficult (and probably not a good idea) to avoid it completely.

I'm totally with you on political policies that a few years ago would have been suicide to even propose, but now are seemingly waved through as they realise that 1. they can and 2. People have given up trying to stop them because they can't.

It's so demoralising. Literally!

One of the parents likes to walk back with me, everything they have a view on, mine is the opposite but because I don’t chat to them I come across as the miserable one.

Delay leaving or tell them to **** off.

At work one guy was ranting about how mentally ill people cant be cured so should just be shot if they commit a crime.

Tell him to **** off

Another spends the first 20 minutes every day banging on and on about how such and such keeps slacking off work or how you can earn 50k on benefits and she doesn’t know why they all get Sky and a 5 bedroom house when she pays British taxes.

Tell him to **** off

A third spends their time just being utterly obnoxious to everyone.

Tell him to **** off

I’ve had friends whose wives have started sharing Britain first stuff and is a total hardcore poppy nut which makes me just want to not visit / interact with them at all.

Do not interact with them, tell them their wives are ****s (they probably know) and depending on their reaction, tell them to **** off.

My wife often says I don’t see the good in people like she does but I just find it really hard to see any good in these people or at least enough good to cancel out them being utter nobs.

She isn't interacting with these people day in, day out like you are. You know what to tell her...

I almost started a thread here asking if anyone has decided to just switch off from politics and current affairs to live a blessed life of ignorance.

I read the papers online - its less irritating than hearing the politicians speak and you can pick and choose rather than watching TV news

This is why the country’s borked. People are just too lazy to look past the headlines and too stubborn/proud to admit they’re wrong.

My Dad use to offer, "remember that nearly half the population is of below average intelligence", as an excuse for someone poor/bad behaviour.

TBH the lockdown has been brilliant for us. We're rurally based with a decent sized plot and both have outdoor hobbies. The only people we deal with, are those through choice. But my OH had to go down to the Home Counties last week to sort out her Mum's care, she couldn't wait to get back - just so busy and so few folk wearing masks or social distancing.

one can choose to

spend time and effort on people who make your life worse

or

spend time and effort on people who make your life better

sometimes the choice is not as easy as “just choose” – maybe you’re forced to be around someone – but sometimes it is that simple

There's a few ways of looking at it though.

If you ignore the people you disagree with then you end up on the wrong side of the "how do we solve the problem of Racism/Homophobia/violence agaisnt women" arguments. You can't both ignore the problem and stand up and challenge it.

Secondly. You just end up in a bubble of people saying "yes, right on" with everyone convinced they're right and ignoring the fact that their opinion is a minority even if it's objectively right (the Remain side of Brexit) rather than having their opinions challenged and trying to figure out why the other side can't see or engage with it.

I do think you need to be metered in your approach to it though. You can't spend 24/7 angry with people. If my Gran copy and paste posts some xenophobic bollocks on Facebook about immigrants with the title "I hope my real friends are brave enough to copy and paste this onto their pages". Then I'll post on her's with the same title something from 180deg the opposite direction then go off and get on with my day, I've done my bit and it's not worth expending my energy on her circle of Britain First friends.

Home
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
****s with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

-Warsan Shire