An unfortunate social trend (husband, meeting, girlfriend, male)

[UnexpectedError]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

And I thought it was just children being shy?

The whole stranger danger thing is definitely not totally for the child's good. We should teach our kids not to trust anybody, of course, and be suspicious if they say something like, 'come with me and I'll give you some candy', but teaching them to view all strangers as potential baddies does things to a child's mind. It trains them to see the world as a scary, hostile place, which then develops an unhealthy reliance on the parent figure.

Have you spent much time around kids? Whether a child will chat with an unthreatening stranger or hide behind their mother has more to do with the kid's personality than whatever their parents tell them. Sure, you can traumatize a kid by telling them from birth that everyone is out to get them, but stranger danger starts around 4 months and is instinctual.

I know two 4 year old little girls, both with stable happy homes in nice, safe neighborhoods. One will scowl at you from behind her mother's legs if you speak to her and she isn't familiar with you, the other will run up and give you a hug and tell you all about her favorite stuffed animal if you ask her. It's just the way they were born, not the result of vastly different parenting techniques.

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by UnexpectedError

Have you spent much time around kids? Whether a child will chat with an unthreatening stranger or hide behind their mother has more to do with the kid's personality than whatever their parents tell them. Sure, you can traumatize a kid by telling them from birth that everyone is out to get them, but stranger danger starts around 4 months and is instinctual.

I know two 4 year old little girls, both with stable happy homes in nice, safe neighborhoods. One will scowl at you from behind her mother's legs if you speak to her and she isn't familiar with you, the other will run up and give you a hug and tell you all about her favorite stuffed animal if you ask her. It's just the way they were born, not the result of vastly different parenting techniques.

Yes, that's what more I assumed...some parents are paranoid, you can feel it, but I think kids themselves vary in this area. Some can treat you like they know you, and others are just shy in general. I was more the shy kind as a kid.

[BlueNight]

I just found this thread. A lot of folks I know, all over the U.S., have found there has been a significant change with people.

When I grew up, we moved to a new state once or twice a year. As an adult, I did not move as frequently, but still had more major moves than most. Regardless, I made long-term friends each place I lived, often against the odds, such as I worked long hours ect.

Until I relocated a few years ago, I had never lived anywhere that I did not make a friend of significance during the first six weeks. My spouse and I have made one friend and he literally works 7 days a week, so we rarely see him off the job. My city is not esp. small or ridden with crime, so that does not explain it.

I'm outgoing and I have tried numerous venues (volunteer work, organizations, church, classes at different places) and even reaching out in some creative ways locally. I'm not too shy/pushy, opinionated, demanding & I'm a good listener. I have found that people just are not interested. I only have my long-time friends who lived out of state.

On a general note, I have found people are more self-serving and self-absorbed than years ago. Too often, relationships are formed not because they enjoy the person, but because the relationship serves a self-interest. They are friends because the person is: the bosses' favorite; they want cooperation on something; they want a favor ect.

When I look back on my relationships I had years ago (regardless of where I lived), there is a sharp contrast between then and now. People were willing to put effort, sometimes a great deal of it, in to relationships Regardless, I have not given up hope of finding people who can have a relationship that is give and take.

[exscapegoat]

I don't think it's fair to judge people out in public for wanting some time with their friends or some alone time. Sometimes people want to catch up with friends or relax on their own and want to get out their homes for a changes of scenery.

As for predators, while they're out there, I don't know that there's been an increase.

I sometimes go to a restaurant near my home on my own. I've had pleasant chats with others there, but no problems with predators. Moving slowly with exchanging information, etc. won't completely weed out predators, but it can help.

[Dayton Sux]

Where I live people don't meet in coffeehouses. Here coffeehouses are not really social venues unless you are going there with a freind, siginfigant other, or a group, or on a business meeting. If you started to chat someone up in a coffeehouse while they were reading the paper or drinking their latte looking out the window people would think you were odd or nuts or suspicious in some way.

The phenom sounds more bar-scene to me, actually something thats been going on for years (since I started doing bars).

[MsAnnThrope]

This thread cracks me up.

I've never trusted anyone (born like it) and I don't think my kids do either (born like it) yet the VERY SAME PEOPLE posting about stranger danger call me cynical and bitter.

All I can say is, most people are out for no.1 and will lie and cheat if they think they can get away with it.

Even people with "high moral standards" have blind spots where they're just as self serving as anyone else...in fact, they can be the worst ones.

Check out any horror story of rape, child abuse, murder, and there is almost always a bible in their other hand.

[suissegrl702]

I don't think there has been an increase in predators or anything but I do think it has gotten harder to meet people. People seem to be a lot less willing to put effort into friendships. They come up with all sorts of excuses for why they can't hang out. I've asked people before if they have a lot of friends, and now that I'm older I'll find strangers and acquaintances will answer the question honestly, that no they do not have very many close friends, and they are sad about it, but that will be it.

I tried meetup.com; most of the people on there just seem to be wanting to find people to get drunk with, or watch TV with, or have a toga party with, or go to a restaurant with. Many I have met on that site are NOT willing to make friends, but on there most of them will tell you that they don't have any friends. I've also encountered organizers on that site who create groups for the sole purpose of making friends for themselves, and if they don't like you out you go. I know of one organizer on there who has no clue that her "friends" only want to hang with her because they think she is wealthy and cool, and if she were to become homeless tomorrow, they probably would vanish. After I left that group I was shocked at how many people still in that group were all "but I want to be her friend sooooo badly" and she is soooooo cool" like they are in high school or college or something - and almost all the people who said that were in their 30s and had advanced degrees.

I've also noticed that people won't let others come near their kids and also won't let others come near their pets. I've approached families in public before, and even though I am a woman, the parents give me this look like I am going to steal their kid away from them. When I go to parks parents shove their kids out of the way of everyone, and people with dogs will automatically assume you don't want to see their dog, and rein the animal in.

I used to be a Christian and would see the same thing in church. I'd go to church and see an endless sea of cliques. I've been to churches where I have gone for months and filled out cards and no one even said hello, they were in their own little bubbles. Same thing at bars and clubs. I can understand people not wanting to talk while shopping, or working out, but it seems that no one ever wants to talk. One of the reasons I'm no longer a Christian in fact has to do with the fact that I was a member of two different churches back to back years ago and went to one of them for nearly ten years and the other for five, and in all those years of attending those churches, I did not make a single friend. Many acquaintances, but not a single friend. And when I went from the first church to the second, no one noticed or cared, and when I left the second, no one noticed or cared. It was just like going to a bar alone, or to a bookstore, or anywhere else. Surrounded by strangers.

I don't think everyone magically has a ton of friends they can rely on. I think people just don't care to have friends anymore. I know of many who don't even talk to their families anymore. I'm convinced families like mine - I get along with my parents very well and talk to them and my brother all the time - are increasingly odd and rare.

I'd love to have friends here (I moved a year ago) but it takes a ton of work, and after a crapton of meetups, being banned from one group for the crime of being sentient and breathing, getting hit on by male cougars, and encountering tons of ghosts, flakes, and weirdos, I'm just going to go back to work, working out, and school and call it a day.

[Dayton Sux]

getting hit on by male cougars, and encountering tons of ghosts, flakes, and weirdos, I'm just going to go back to work, working out, and school and call it a day.

what's a ghost?

I do think it has gotten harder to meet people. People seem to be a lot less willing to put effort into friendships. They come up with all sorts of excuses for why they can't hang out. I've asked people before if they have a lot of friends, and now that I'm older I'll find strangers and acquaintances will answer the question honestly, that no they do not have very many close friends, and they are sad about it, but that will be it.

....good comment. I have about three somewhat (varying degrees of close) close friends, and I think that would be enough for me. I've never made friends easily, so this is actually a good number. 3 is enough.

I think the internet has subsituted for a lot of what people did socially, like this online bull-session we are having here at city-data, on this or other forums. In the past this kind of communication happened F to F, but now its online...actually sort of a good thing in that it broadens the pool of participants...we are from across the US and outside the US....in our local "real' worlds having some of these talks wouldnt be possible perhaps (depending on the topic, etc). The pitfall is that real-life interactions atrophy and become "harder" (or less trouble to do this online than in real-life).

[amylewis]

Originally Posted by BlueNight

I just found this thread. A lot of folks I know, all over the U.S., have found there has been a significant change with people.

On a general note, I have found people are more self-serving and self-absorbed than years ago. Too often, relationships are formed not because they enjoy the person, but because the relationship serves a self-interest. They are friends because the person is: the bosses' favorite; they want cooperation on something; they want a favor ect.

When I look back on my relationships I had years ago (regardless of where I lived), there is a sharp contrast between then and now.

Yup, +1 to all of that, and it's what I have seen as well. I had always thought of friends as two or more people who associate for the mutual enjoyment and support of each other. Not so anymore. These days it would seem to be for one to use the other.

I used to be able to quickly make friends wherever I ended up, but something changed in people and society somewhere at some point, and now whether others will associate with you has become a matter of what you bring to the table and can be used for.

For the most part people seem completely uninterested in actual friendship as I used to know it, where you had each others back and were there for each other through thick and thin. I've not seen that in a very long time now.

[KathrynAragon]

Originally Posted by amylewis

Over the last decade I've increasingly experienced a social trend that does not bode well at all for society at large, and speaks quite badly of our culture in general.

It used to be that one could go out in public and perhaps meet new friends at the various social venues, such as coffee houses, restaurants, and even bars, though I've not had much luck in bars, and largely avoid them anymore, but I do try to show up at places where people can meet and mix. It doesn't serve me to do so anymore.

I first started seeing the trend when I lived in San Francisco around 1995, at the coffee shops I frequented. More and more the social predators were showing up there to work the regulars for whatever they could get out of them, and they became so oppressive that many of us just stopped going to those places.

After I moved to Michigan it was pretty much the same, and anyone who approached you in public had an agenda running and had targeted you for some short term gain or long con. Then I moved to Alabama, and found the same thing in operation. Anyone who would talk to you in a public social venue did so only to push their agenda with you, and would not let you get so much as a word in. They were all after something, and it wasn't friendship either. Finally I moved out of there and came to Naples Florida, which has proven to be an absolute social desert.

Here in Naples making friends seems quite impossible, and I hear that echoed by many others, both online and offline. Some of those who have talked to me about it attribute it to there being two kinds of people here, the isolators, and the users, those being the social predators who are out to make use of anyone they can in the usual ways for the usual things.

I've seen this in operation at every public social venue I've been at. The isolators come with someone they can talk to in order to exclude everyone else there, or they bury themselves in their iPhone, iPad, laptop, book, etc. or have their earbuds in dark shades on, and their icy wall up around them.

The users prowl all such public social venues hunting prey in the form of those not good at isolating in pubic and who are therefore vulnerable, and can be chatted up and manipulated toward the goal of whatever short term gain, or long con the user has in mind. Starbucks is the favorite hunting ground of the users here, and anyone who approaches you at a Starbucks here will turn out to be a user, seeking to manipulate you into letting them use you for something. I've yet to see an exception to this.

Some of them are very subtle, some are quite overt and aggressive, but it soon becomes apparent they want something from you, and are working toward that. I was approached by such a person a few weeks ago at a Starbucks, a woman who wanted to share my table, and she was very glib and personable at first. She quickly began pushing the notion that we were to be the very best of friends, telling me what a good and loyal friend she was, while dropping subtle hints about what she wanted to use me for, and there were several things she had in mind for me.

Over the course of a week and the texts and emails we exchanged she showed herself to be a manipulating drama queen of the worst sort. I tapered off contact with her quickly after she started calling me up drunk at night. I'm quite sure she's back out there hunting other prey.

I was not in Naples two hours before I was approached by a man in public who very aggressively did his best to pry into my personal business and push his scam on me. I froze him out completely, but he didn't give up right away.

Next I ran into the couple next door who are very aggressive freeloaders and will do all then can to chat me up pursuant to getting into my house to look around for what they want to steal, or use me in any other way they can. They have already victimized some of my neighbors and the word is out about them, but they never ever give up.

Next was the horny creep next door who came knocking on my door offering me money for sex, and telling me where to knock on his bedroom wall. I have to be careful going about the neighborhood on foot because of these people. If they see me outside they come right after me. Over the two years I've lived here I've not been able to make one friend. If they don't already know you they don't want to, at least if they are not the users they don't. In the same time period I've run into 28 major social predators who approached me first and immediately began working their angle on me. I've had to learn to isolate in public and make myself the smallest possible target. I have no social life at all here.

I've talked with old friends online who live in other parts of the country, and they all tell me the same trend is in operation where they are, and that it's really going on everywhere in the US.

I find this quite depressing, and I have to wonder how we got here.

Wow.

I haven't had these experiences at all, not even when I was single and dating - and hanging out quite a bit at Starbucks, I might add.

I'm not an overly trusting person, but I'm also not paranoid. "28 social predators?" Come on, doesn't this OP sound a bit over the top?

I will say, though, that it does seem harder to develop true friendships, and I do blame our dependence on technology and "social networks" for that difficulty. People don't seem to know how to just sit and talk anymore - even when they're doing so, they're eyeing their cell phone and seem distracted.

I'm glad to still have a few girlfriends who enjoy sitting out on the patio in the evening with a bottle of wine, and smack talking!