“God, why is everything just so awful?”, I sighed, half joking but really not at all.
My friend put his arm around me and proclaimed to the room, “There is our little optimist!”
We were at a dinner party and someone had just regaled us with a tale of someone behaving badly. As the wine was flowing liberally, I can’t even recall the story, just that I was having a booze soaked crises of confidence in humanity.
And it has been happening a lot in recent months. I mean, let’s be real, I have never been a Pollyanna, but lately it seems everywhere I look people are acting like unrepentant fucks. Lying, cheating, deceiving people and acting like selfish pits of needs with no regard to other human beings.
Perhaps it is my age? The real life issues and careers and demands on people in their 30s is just too much to handle? Being married takes its toll? The drudgery of dating is too much? Dealing with the emotions and hearts of others gets to be too much so folks just say “Screw it!”
Yes, of course, I know the world is not entirely awful. I do. I experience kindness and caring in my relationships daily and for that I am lucky. But oy. Lately. I am just wishing people would be a bit more kind, thoughtful, caring.
It cannot be that hard, can it?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
“Lying, cheating, deceiving people and acting like selfish pits of needs with no regard to other human beings.”
It’s been a lil’ like that for me as of late too. Not at all fond of it.
I like to think it can’t be that hard but man….there are just so many flavors of people and attitudes and dysfunction it’s unreal.
Maybe I’m becoming jaded in my “old age”?
It is a function of people thinking it is all about them. They are the only ones who matter. Other symptoms include people walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk because it is more convenient to them. People with baby strollers or rolling brief/suitcases running over feet and whacking ankles. Talking loudly on cell phones in public. A couple of months ago on Metro I watched as 3 women probably in their 30s with the rolling briefcases get on an elevator which left no room for the elderly woman behind them in a wheelchair. They saw her, clearly, but went on their merry way rather than clearing to let the woman with a real need on.
Hello love! I am HORRIFIED that I haven’t read your blog yet. I love it. And I love this post. People ARE unrepentant fucks. It explains my rage. Also, it took me a long time to realize you can cut these people out of your life and move on without them. I love this option.
Can’t wait to read more xoxoxo
The longer I live, the more I realize humans are not kind. I’ve been writing about it a lot lately as well. You can’t turn on the news without hearing horrific stories about how we treat one another.
It could be old age but I’m only in my mid-30s…it worries me to think about what humanity will be like in 50 years.
You aren’t alone in feeling this way. At least the internet makes it easier to commiserate…
Ugh, I so hear you. I feel like I keep writing the same stupid comment on your blog: What is it about being 30?!?! Honestly, this is the hardest fucking year of my life. Suddenly the world feels so much bigger and tougher, and I feel so much smaller and vulnerable.
But, we’re good, strong women. We’ll fight back. Even if we bloody our knuckles and knees.
Last week I had had enough of this bullshit and assaulted a complete stranger. She was a ballerina who didn’t give a shit about anyone but herself and I would do it again.
So yeah, I feel you.
If anyone in your immediate world is making you say this (friends, family, lovers) then I’d say you need to get some of those people out of your life.
If it’s strangers who are making you feel this way about humanity, then maybe you’re just encountering them on a bad day, in a bad moment? I try to remind myself that I don’t know what someone else is going through or where they’ve been.
There’s a really cantankerous old man who yells and snips at everyone at my gym. I keep trying to remind myself that perhaps he’s got Alzheimer’s or some other disability or illness that makes him act this way.
It’s not easy, but every time I have an angry thought towards him, I try to change it to sympathy. It’s really about self-preservation. If I want to be happy I have to keep my thoughts in a good place.
Great thought-provoking post! People choose to be so self-absorbed and deceitful. I might need to be more realism in my life at times, but I prefer to believe that most people are better than that. xoxo