Disillusioned with people.

LegacyUser

Hi, I don't know exactly how to put this but lately I am starting to sort of lose faith in the goodness in people. I am a very friendly and out going person and I always treat everybody I meet with respect and am very friendly to them. I have always been this way and as a result I am quite popular amongst people I know and I have never had any enemies that I know of. I have a really nice personality and I have often been told this by people through out the years. The only downside to being a very nice person as I think most people will agree is when you are nice to somebody and they are not nice to you back. I often feel like I shouldn't have been so nice in the first place but this is just my personality and unless I know somebody is an ass hole or what ever I will be very friendly to them like anybody else I meet.

I work late nights in a bar in Dublin and from being around people when they are out drinking I just see so many nasty people out there that are just plain horrible. When I walk home after work I am amongst the crowds of drunken young people many of whom are around my age and I just see so many reasons to think that a lot of people are horrible. Dont get me wrong I am in no way cursing everybody and I truly believe that there are way more good people out there than bad but it just seems to be all around me and I cant help but notice how many bad people there are out there. For example tonight I was working and I had to deal with loads of customers who were unbelievably rude and obnoxious. Now I have been working in bars for years and I am well used to dealing with rude customers etc and I know that drink brings this out in certain people but this is not just being rude, this is being a total ass hole for no reason at all. It is the way people treat you and how they slag you off when you turn your back to cash their change in the till. I just cant understand why people would behave like this to somebody they never met who just greeted them with a smile and politely asked what they would like to drink. And then on my break tonight I took a walk around the city centre and sat on a bench to smoke a cigarette. During this time I was asked for a cigarette about 8 times in 10mins by young people passing by (which is quite normal in Dublin I think most people will agree). I always apologise and genuinely explain that I have only one left or what ever rather than just say no which I probably should do. It is just my nature to be as nice as I can and while I am certainly not going to give all my smokes away which cost the guts of €10 a box, I am still as nice as I can be in saying no. Anyway in this 10 minutes I was insulted by about 3 people. It was just your typical comments you would expect to hear from ass holes who have no manners. I even gave one girl a cigarette and she asked for another straight away. She wasn't a junkie or anything but when I said 'hey sorry really cant afford to be buying more (which is totally true as I am a student) ' she said something really smart and walked off. Once again I was raging with myself that I was so nice as to give her one in the first place. Then on my way home from work tonight I walked by a couple near O'Connell street and the guy put out his foot to trip me up as I walked past for absolutely no reason as I hadn't even made eye contact with him. About a minute later some girl further up the road walked right in to me making a stupid face at me and a guy she was with yelled 'go on ya fcuking fagot ya'. Again this wasn't some scum bag in a tracksuit which I might expect but a normal guy around my age on a night out with friends. I can't even imagine ever acting in this way to a total stranger whether I was drunk or not. I know many people might think that this is all normal behaviour in Dublin city on a busy night and that people are just drunk but this is people expressing their personalities and many of them are just plain horrible imo!

I feel like it is just personality directed at me for some reason. I know this is paranoid but I feel like as if I give off some energy and people like this know they can treat me like **** and get away with it. I am one of those people who hates conflict and I avoid it at all costs most of the time. I have never gotten in to a fight in my life and never once hit anybody. I let these people walk all over me to be honest as I am just not confident enough and I have pretty low self esteem most of the time. I think working late nights in the city is definitely not helping my perception of people in this city and any of you that have ever seen Taxi driver will probably agree that I am starting to sound a bit like Travid Bickle. I think this would be quite accurate as tonight for example I was just cursing this whole city and the people in it in my head. So I dunno maybe I am just a soft touch and not tough enough for this world but it really gets me down when things like this happen.

spurious

Unfortunately you're working and out and about at a time of night when people are under the influence of alcohol. Many Irish people nowadays don't seem to be able to have a drink and enjoy themselves, they have to go for the hammered and incoherent target. Alcohol in large quantities generally turns people into unpleasant versions of themselves, though they experience it as making them charming and debonair.

There is also the 'pig-ignorant' factor which has to be taken into account with a large minority of people (drunk or not) today.

Not everyone is like that though.

Latchy

Your expierence OP is quite common in a lot of citys not just Dublin and although being from that city myself but no longer living there, I think many people will agree with your assessment .There is something in the national psyche were some people ,with or without drink ,feel they can only function properly if they are slagging off or offending somebody either behind their backs or to their faces .Basically what your saying is that a % of the population are iggnorant ****heads with no respect for anybody . We've all met or bumped into these individuals and having common decent manners is alien to them .Do you wanna know why ? Because being nice courteous and saying thank you is a sign of weakness ,something only foreigners do and would take away from their macho egotistical feelings of superiority .They will have there own inbred way of feeling smug about giving somebody a hard time ie'' aren't I the clever cute hoor ' .Then what sometimes happens somebody will take them to task and the more violent type will take it upon themselfs to prove how tough they are by beating up on somebody which in the eyes of their 'associates ' makes them even more popular .Thankfully their are more good decent people out there than the above mentioned .

dazberry

Latchy wrote: »

Because being nice courteous and saying thank you is a sign of weakness ,something only foreigners do and would take away from their macho egotistical feelings of [strike]superiority[/strike] inferiority.

I actually think its an inferiority complex, and often passed from parents to kids - IMHO.

D.

Latchy

dazberry wrote: »

I actually think its an inferiority complex, and often passed from parents to kids - IMHO.

D.

I agree it's often inherited from the parents . It's just some hide it well .others not so much .Bullying a person is the only way some people feel they have any sort of power .

Eve_Dublin

Hey OP. Sorry about your awful night but fair play to you for continuing to be your lovely self. Don´t change that one bit.

Listen, I agree with a lot of what the two posters have put up here so I won´t repeat it....why the Irish STILL have to get to obnoxiously drunk is up for debate. Like yourself, I used to work in a bar in Dublin, come home late and encounter the exact same kind of crap you did last night and because I was stone-cold sober, you really saw Saturday night out in Dublin for what it was. It certainly made me look at my own actions when I got drunk in my younger days.

Drinking to excess turns everyone into a nob and that´s just the way it is. I´ve never met someone who personality improved after spending 8 hours getting hammered. I suppose the only way I could reason this behaviour in my head was putting it down to the fact that as a nation, we´ve got a PROBLEM with alcohol and our need to get absolutely baloobas that no other nation (bar the British) can compare and that these people should be pitied ´till we find a solution to this.

I´ve acted the eejit when I was drunk, I thought I was being funny but I was just being an idiot. A couple of things happened to me over the years that made me realise this and shame me to not get excessively merry anymore.
People have no idea how they´re acting when they get this drunk and you know something? I think the government should fund some sort of scheme to tape a hidden camera on to these people to record what they got up to on a night out and play it back to them repeatedly the following day. Tenner bets that would turn them off for life.

You don´t attract this attention OP, you´re automatically a target because you work somewhere where this is going on (I think all bar staff have this problem) and you walk home soberly alone at the end of the night. It´s THEIR problem, not yours.

We do need a solution to this problem in Ireland though. It´s embarassing and I for one am sick of going away and been labelled an alcoholic just because I´m Irish. It´s getting old.

LegacyUser

Thank you for the kind replies. I may have come off very soft in the OP but I am actually quite a thick skinned person and I can brush a lot of things of my back but just seeing this every few night over and over again does start to take its toll. I too regularly go out with friends and we get well jarred and have a laugh etc. I too can certainly be accused of acting a bit stupid when I am drunk but this is always just playful and I would never insult anybody in the street in any way. If people were annoyed by me it would be because I was being too friendly or in their face. From working in Dublin at nights I honestly think the girls are worse than the guys. I am not trying to stereotype anybody and I have plenty of good friends from the north side of dublin but I find that drunken north side girls are the worst for abusing people. A lot of them just love to shout smart remarks at you when you walk past them. Its weird because in a sober view these girls many of whom are good looking and dolled up to the last just seem ugly becasue of the way they act. Like a good looking girl staggering around in her heels and shouting insulting comments at you in a deep north side accent can really make you question the so called beauty in that person. They just makes them ugly.

I think we definitely have a problem in Ireland with drink but I'm not sure it is just with our consumption. I love being Irish and would not change it for the world but I think we are far from the nicest people in the world. Dont get me wrong most Irish people are lovely and this is why we are so poplar all over the world but I think this is changing more and more as the years go by. The way some Irish people act when they go away to different countries is often embarrassing and many Irish people seem to think that we are the most superior nation in the world or something despite the fact that we are a tiny country. It is like this arrogance that they think that everybody is different than the Irish and this whole 'craic' philosophy is used so wrong. Irish males are very insecure I think and they love to big themselves up by pointing out weaknesses in other men. It is all about who's bigger and better at pulling women for a lot of guys my age. And most of the girls love this. Jesus the amount of good looking women you see at night in Dublin hanging out of some absolute **** head who is shouting his head off in the street. I often think what is it that Irish women look for in men and I think many of them just want the bravado type that is oozing with over confidence.
lol sorry this is turning in to quite a rant. Believe me I am not usually this bitter, just felt like getting some things off my chest. Anyway just to say again I adore most Irish people and think that we are a great nation but I guess like everywhere there are plenty of bad ones out there and I just feel we are getting a bit worse as time go's by.

Latchy

I would be the first to admit I have on ocassions like a lot of people , gone out and got plastered / drunk and had the craic and if I did make an ejit or fool of myself then I learned from it .

OP you sound like a really decent kinda guy .I think you're two posts are well put across and explained .I did try thank you but the thanks button doesn't seem to be working my end now .

LegacyUser

Life is a fickle mistress my friend, and if its taught me anything, its that not all people are going to treat you as well as you treat them. It seems people lacking Quality are quite abundant; egocentricity and unculture are in vogue - if you throw drink into the mix things usually seem to get even worse. Experience has taught me to reserve my respect and friendship for people that deserve it, as evidenced through their actions and intentions. The rest... can f*ck off!

You sound like a cool person though, so don't get too disheartened or bogged down by the actions of some drunken dyspathic losers. Be more confident in yourself, and don't be afraid to assert yourself. Trade respect with people who deserve it, and brush away the people who don't.

BOOKWORM.1

Hi OP, I'll second what everyone has said. The problem is not with you; only the minority of **** heads we have in this country.
Only yesterday I was minding my own business when I happened to notice this couple staring at me in disgust. I actually thought they were going to hit me. I didn't know these people from Adam and neither were they junkies or hoodies but whats perceived to be a respectable husband and wife.

LegacyUser

Good to hear I am not the only one to think this. I have gotten over my rough sat nite so not as disheartened now but I think I am a bit stronger now and to be honest I need to stop giving so much of a **** about this and get on with enjoying my own life. It will always annoy me to some extent when I get treated bad by people for no reason but I just have to shrug it off and accept that thats the way some people just are. Dick heads will always befriend other dick heads and they will feed off each other egos and stupidity. But their personalities will always block them from experiencing things that nice will experience through out their lives. Many Irish people are living in a bubble and when they go abroad or meet people from different cultures and races they simply cannot relate in any way to them. Look at the amount of people who go away on holidays to Irish resorts and only drink in Irish bars in the states, its quite sad really! Anyway there will always be more good than bad so thats the important thing at the end of the day. Thanks again for the kind replies!

LegacyUser

I know the feeling of being sober around a town full of drunk people. Unfortunately alcohol is the drug of choice for most, as it's good for blowing off steam, and give you an excuse to let out whatever you're bottling in.

I hate to say it (well... ), but it's partly because you live in Dublin - every time I go up there at night I find that people are extremely rude and I never get out of there without running into a bit of trouble.

All I can say really is - if you're not happy with your job, for whatever reason, find a new one

xzanti

I sometimes feel like that too.. like the nicer you are to some people the more they just don't want to bother with you.. It's as though they take your kindness as weakness or something and just think you're a bit of an eejit for trying to be nice.. I've seen it happen a few times to other people as well.. That's just life I suppose.. I don't bother trying to please other people any more if you like me great, if you don't, meh...

Bottle_of_Smoke

Read the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins or Human Instinct by Robert Winston. Find both are very good for helping one to understand people better.

LegacyUser

I don't understand it myself but have witnessed it over the last 25 years or so.

I was watching Elbow on the South Bank Show last night and the lead singer had an interesting point to make......

The jist of it was, these people will never earn your respect because they have nothing to be proud of - but they can inflict fear so they do.

I haven't been out on a Saturday night in a while - I tend to go out midweek now and it's a lot more pleasant.

There is a deep seated lack of confidence in us Irish (I think anyway) - that's why we drink so much - so we can go talk to girls, so we can be gregarious, so we can open up. And when one doesn't conform to that, one gets picked on (to an extent).

I am open and chatty and it never ceases to amaze me how people who I half know, don't seem to be able to just be polite and say hello, have a brief chat and move on. I don't waste time on them now.

What I have learned though is that if you give an inch, people will take a mile. That's not to say I don't help out, be nice and accomodating - I'm just more choosy now.

BumbleB

That is a very interesting rant and people who work in bars get the worst of it really .I have a few friends who used to work in bars and one of them was spat on by a customer one night.

Anyhow you seem to have repressed feelings whether you realise it or not .I was in the same boat I was nice and people made a cnut of me and one day I really got fedup .

Rude people are everywhere log on to you tube and some comments people are rude when it's safe for them to be rude .

I am very nice person but if people are rude to me ,I can absolutely knock them over with my response and its not always vulgar.

and btw never lose faith in people . A taxi driver saved me from a vicious unprovoked assault 2 years ago. People are inherently good,never forget that .
For instance if a girl who is attractive is rude to you insults you , just tell she may be beautiful but you have an ugly personality .You see she may be able to be obnoxious but she definitely won't be able to take insults back . Women have no respect for guys who dont stand up for themselves youre better off as being thought of as a bollix in a womans mind than a soft touch .

Make a commitment to blow up every now and again , its not healthy to bottle stuff inside thats where things start to complicate themselves .

SprostonGreen

OP don't change, you are right, they are wrong. Society is f**Ked up right now, the scum have risen to the top and they make themselves known.