Does age make us grouchy old men and crabby old ladies?

[TheShadow]

Living in a community where 80% of the people are 10 or more years older than me has proved interesting in ways that I didn't expect. I have found that the majority of folks here are generous to a fault and more friendly and outgoing than you would expect, but there are always those few. We have a community forum called Next Door that is sort of like an online bulletin board. People buy/sell/comment/give recommendations/etc. The discourse is generally civil, or even friendly or humorous, but there are definitely a few, and I would guess maybe ten out of the 6000+ who live here, who are ALWAYS cranky. You can depend on these same few people to always post negative replies. They are also always complaining about the same things over and over and always crabbing about the community governance, or the way money is spent, etc, but never do they volunteer to help make it better. They prefer to complain about it, and if it got fixed they would have to find something else to complain about. The rest of us chuckle over it, but I would think that level of negativity would be harmful to one's blood pressure, etc.

For myself, I have found that I have 2 cranky factors going...one is that my BS detector seems to be heightened and I can see things more clearly than in my naïve younger days. The second is that I am less willing to be held hostage by narcissistic blabbers who go on and on about their kids or grandkids and how amazing they are, blah, blah, blah, or people in their past that I will never meet, blah blah, blah. After a very few minutes of this stuff, I will use literally any excuse and get away. fast. Someday I will snap and just tell them what I think, tick them off, and (hopefully) never have to speak to them again

[NYgal1542]

IMHO, there are times in stage 4 of life when situations become unbelievably difficult. Financial, lack of family, no support, losses (pets and people), etc. If someone has led an independent life for many years, some things can come along and completely bulldoze it.

It may take a while to pull out of the anger/bitterness, but they can do it. Life is not a piece of cake for everyone and while I don't endorse anyone being abusive, some compassion can go a long way.

[theatergypsy]

I don't get cranky over the little stuff. Maybe a bit miffed, but it doesn't ruin my day because I know that I can go home and have ice cream.

I have read posts that get my knickers in a twist and I feel I MUST tell the poster just how wrong/stupid/ridiculous they are, so I type an answer pointing out exactly where they should go and when they should go there. After I have edited and corrected my post, I hit my back button, tell the pop-up that I want to leave the page and move on. It's amazing how cathartic it is to say what I think and then delete it. Got it out of my system but didn't hurt the other poster or get myself an infraction from the Mods.

I've also learned that just because some Froot Loop posted something, and just because I was unable to help myself and read the post, there is no law that says I have to respond. Of course, in a few extreme cases I'm willing to make an exception and leave a reply that is - shall we say, somewhat snarky. After that, I head for the ice cream. If I was especially snarky, I bring out the big guns - chocolate syrup and whipped cream. I don't know how anybody can be cranky when faced with a big old bowl of Ben and Jerry's; it's a swell cure for the grumpies.