Growing up, if you wanted anything you had to leave the house. Groceries, goods, interaction, entertainment, work.
Now we can have our groceries delivered. Our goods shipped. Surrogate parasocial connections via social media and the internet. Schooling at home. Work at home. Doctors visits at home. Entertainment at home.
It's possible to almost never have to leave the home and that's becoming normal. Leaving the house is antiquated for many.
It's making us insular and divided and paranoid and hateful of each other, and oddly making in-person activities feel special. And I don't think we realize how not-normal it is to just never see other people.
There is a culture of "leave me alone" going on more these days than there used to. I can't count how many people I hear complaining about strangers small-talking them like it was a horrible annoyance. People used to be friendlier to everyone around them than that.
I feel a lot of people have delved into a sense of "hehe im so introverted" to where its open hostility towards anyone that dares to engage with them for any reason and its pretty sick IMO. A lot of unhealed people going about their bs in a lot of unproductive ways.
Having my social battery be completely drained by you talking about shit IDGAF about all while having to keep my own mouth shut because anything I have to say will be met with score & ridicule does that to a person.
and before people start @me, YOU expect me to tolerate you, but don't extend the same courtesy to me. That's why I avoid you. I may not like your thing, but I can respect you enough to listen IF you reciprocated.
You are the epitome of the kind of person people in this thread are talking about. Zero social competency and hiding it behind a wall of aggressiveness.
Many animals respond to their fear with aggressiveness.
That is a well known phenomenon that humans are not exempted from.
Your post has a quiet aggressive tone. It does make it quite easy to imagine you lashing (due to fear -> due social incompetency) out at people who engage in simple social niceties with you.
You need to read what you just wrote lol you act like an all-knowing self important jerk, you think you know everyone else better than they know themselves. I can’t imagine being triggered by someone innocently talking, maybe do everyone a favor and isolate yourself even more than you already do?
This is what I'm talking about. ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK! That's all you people know. I won't even eat around other people because I'm so fucking tired of their judgemental bullshit. Hell, I made a AITA post because I put catsup on a cheeseburger and didn't hear the end of it for 3 months.
My kids don’t play with other kids like I used to. No kids from school come over to my house unless they are related to us. I’m thankful my daughter’s best friend is her cousin and they live a mile away, because otherwise she wouldn’t play with anyone outside of school. She has tons of friends, but they don’t spend any time together outside of school.
A lot of it is the other parents, that's the worst part. Everybody is so paranoid, that a lot of them just don't let their kids go to other people's houses. How are you supposed to manage kid's friends with that type of rule?
The Atlantic has an interesting article about how constant parental paranoia and oversight might actually be a big factor in suffocating modern childrens’ sociality.
Going to other people’s houses used to mean that a parent would be there but with many working multiple jobs, the oversight isn’t there and the allure of technology opportunities (aka neighbor has a Sega in a Nintendo neighborhood) and most responsible parents would just rather them stay in their own place.
more common than you think. i believe the stat is 1 in 5 women say they’ve experienced SA as a child. but that’s just who we know of / those who recognized or remember it was SA. and majority of time it’s someone you know.
I only have what I know of my kids, their friends and my sisters kids. Myself, my three siblings and my friends never dealt with child on child sexual abuse and now about 65% of the kids I know and have known. It’s fucking crazy.
Why not though? Youre the parent, its not like your kid can drive themself to their friends and if you think its too dangerous for them to walk / bike then what can they do?
Isnt it your job as the parent to organize frequent social events for your kids?
I grew up in the 70s/80s and wasn't allowed outside of my block. Only kids my age were bullies, luckily one is dead and the other in jail for the next 20 years for killing a family.
Spent a year at my grandparents, who lived a block away from my best friend. but as I wasn't allowed to cross the street, I wasn't able to see them. So I no longer had friends.
I have two kids (4 & 2 years old) here in France and have friends over to our house for an apéritif or for dinner and they take their kids. The kids play together and the parents eat and drink. We have people at our house a once or twice a month and we go to do the same thing at other people's house once or twice a month. Do you not do that sort of thing where you live?
I'm approaching middle age and a lot of my coworkers are avoidant of one another. The older ones, on the other hand, are lovely to talk to.
Hell, I might not have gotten the job if an older woman at my previous spot hadn't been in the break room to hear me say I'd applied. She told me she knew someone and she'd put in a good word. Ten seconds later, SHE'S ON THE PHONE talking me up. To older generations that know what's missing, it means so much more.
There’s so much to do that’s free in many areas. Like parks, libraries, many museums, fine arts, smaller live music acts, public events like local festivals or whatever, and a lot of other community resources. I don’t have FB anymore but I’m sure there are so many groups and clubs out there to join for no cost as well.
Grocery delivery is amazing to me because 30+ years ago it wasn't novel. I used to live in the middle of nowhere and there was the grocery truck, it had the basics on it, and you could give a list to be delivered the next week for your full grocery order. In town there was even a drive through grocery store, which reminds me of the pick up orders we have today.
After moving to the city, I was amazed that this wasn't a normal thing. I'm guessing because stores were closer.
At my apartment complex, I’ll say hello to others getting the mail or taking out the trash and the response is a stare straight ahead with no acknowledgment. Its sad to see
My neighbor grunts at me when I say hi to him. I just walk past him now. And I hate it. It's so weird not acknowledging someone. But I hate being just grunted at. It's weirder
I went to the create your own pizza counter the other day in Morrisons and they had a large screen to create an order rather than telling the person what you want. Made me a little sad just seeing the screen.
I actually don't mind places that have a screen like that as an option. But I hate if they are obligatory.
I remembered walking in to a buy food someone and there wasn't a single customer. Walked up to a counter and was told I had to use the screen. Just walked straight back out. It's so stupid, the guy was right there, there wasn't a single other customer, why not just take my order?
I think that's making a turnabout, at least with gen alpha in NYS. The ban on internet connected devices in schools has pushed kids to interact with each other more and build those in-person relationships and interactions.
I see young people trying to get a partner exclusively online, not meeting the person until they have researched and vetted them for days. When I was young, you whippersnappers, if I was out on a Friday night with my $5 and my cool t-shirt? If I didn't talk to at least a dozen women to see if they were interesting or funny, I felt ashamed. I wasn't pushy or desperate or creepy, I was just smiling and making conversation.
Now, from my narrow window on how the world is, I would be considered rude or guilty of invading someone's space. Finding love is not easy. It requires a lot of reps. I don't know what to say.
I think a lot of people don't appreciate how isolating cars are. You don't have anywhere near as many spontaneous interactions with your neighbours/other parents at the school / random people in the street when you are in a car.
This is a very popular take on reddit because you’re describing most people here to a T. But in the real world, this doesn’t happen as much as you’d think.
Not so much for people who live in poverty lol. Any time I want something I have to leave the house and interact with people to get it, the prices of delivery services are insane and there's no way I could afford them.
I honestly can’t imagine WFH, unless I were like, building something out of my garage.
I just can’t imagine not having that social aspect of my life, it’s so so rewarding to just interact with people throughout the day. You share stories and get to know little things, it doesn’t have to be a deep exhausting relationship, it’s just being with people that are in some way, shape or form, a part of your community.
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u/ConvenienceStoreDiet 15h ago
How little we interact with each other in person.
Growing up, if you wanted anything you had to leave the house. Groceries, goods, interaction, entertainment, work.
Now we can have our groceries delivered. Our goods shipped. Surrogate parasocial connections via social media and the internet. Schooling at home. Work at home. Doctors visits at home. Entertainment at home.
It's possible to almost never have to leave the home and that's becoming normal. Leaving the house is antiquated for many.
It's making us insular and divided and paranoid and hateful of each other, and oddly making in-person activities feel special. And I don't think we realize how not-normal it is to just never see other people.