What's wrong with people?

Every time I leave the house and go to my local shops, the people out there, on the roads and in the shops, upset me. I hate this place; I hate the people with their small minded, me-first selfishness. Nobody cares about anybody else.

Just up the road from me is a junction with two lanes. Just beyond where you wait at the traffic lights the left hand lane is usually filled with cars, so there’s no real point in starting off in this lane. Of course people do. They do it all the time and force their way out like the selfish little shits they are. That happened today. Some cock in an Audi A3 (Audi drivers really are the new BMW owners) pulled up alongside me. I knew what he was going to try to do. He wanted to force his way through. He wanted to skip the queue. And I thought, Fuck you. I’m not letting you through. You’ll have to learn to be patient. Join the right lane and don’t be a prick. I put my foot full to the floor and didn’t change into third, but the fucker had a faster car than me, and he wasn’t backing off. I had to break and let him through. My desire to prevent an accident was greater than his desire to not cause one. What the fuck is wrong with these people? If I hadn’t braked sharply he’d have rammed into the back of the first parked car. Maybe I’m in the wrong too. Maybe I shouldn’t try to impose my belief system on somebody else.


But I fucking hate this town. It’s full of arseholes. Nobody gives a crap about anybody else. Shopkeepers are rude. They don’t say hello, they don’t say thank you. A good deal of them don’t even tell you what the total is when it’s time to pay up. They just sit their wordlessly, expecting to hand over your cash without any kind of prompt. I walk up to a till, smile and say hello, but I get nothing in return. Half the time they barely pay any attention to me; I feel like I’m just interrupting them, I’m just another thing that gets in the way of them talking to their colleagues in a language I don’t understand. No wonder I feel so isolated at times. I don’t understand most of the conversations that are going on around me. I firmly believe that one of the things that cause the most division between people of different cultures is an inability to communicate. How can we begin to understand each other’s cultures and ways if we can’t understand the words that they are saying? Sometimes I walk into a shop and just feel unwelcome, like I’m not a part of the community that should be there, so I’m treated like a 2nd class citizen. I’m friendly, I’m polite, I’m even nice, but still nothing.

In truth, there is no real community around here, just disparate sets of people, each with their own agendas’ and a mutual distrust, and even hatred, of anybody who doesn’t belong to their small minded, insular, clique.

I just can’t live here anymore. I try to treat everybody as an equal, regardless of whoever they are. I treat everybody with the same courtesy that I’d expect to receive in return, but I get nothing.

I use the self service tills at my local Tesco now. I feel like the level of customer service I receive from them is way higher than I’d get from any of the lazy, uncouth, till jockeys.

I live in a main road where I constantly hear the sounds of cars as they go by. So frequently I’m forced to endure the “Boom, Boom, Boom” bass sound coming from some inconsiderate little noise polluting shit’s car stereo. Why be such an obnoxious little prick? Why do something that’s only real purpose must be to infuriate others. Why be like that?

Like I said, every time I leave this house and don’t head straight for a tube into Central London, I encounter someone whose behaviour disgusts me. Actually, one night, whilst I was taking the five minute walk from my local tube station, some disgusting piece of excrement appalled me. Right in front of me, just as I was about to pass him, the foul bastard gobbed into my path. I can’t stand people who spit. It’s disgusting and there’s no need for it whatsoever.

I truly believe that if everybody was just a little bit nicer, a little bit kinder and a little bit more polite to each other, the world would be a far better place. All it takes is a few words; Say please, thank you. Smile at each other. Wave to show your appreciation when someone lets you through when you’re driving. A little bit of consideration. That’s all I want. I just need everybody to display the tiniest bit of empathy. I said earlier that language can create a barrier between people, but communication isn’t just about words. It’s about attitude, it’s about demeanour, it’s about all those little gestures, both conscious and subconscious that show you care.

It doesn’t take much, but still, they don’t even try. I may feel these things more deeply than most, but I’m willing to bet that this sort of thing has a cumulative effect. When people mistreat each other, no matter how slightly, it has an effect. It seeps into your soul, making it rot away until all that’s left is the fetid corpse of your own morality.

Do something nice for someone, treat someone with respect and they’ll remember it. Then, maybe they’ll do something good for someone else. The cycle can go on and on and on and on and maybe, given time, the world will end up being just that little bit more bearable.