Comment by notepad0x90
5 hours ago
> People are lovely. Go out and try it.
I hope this is not an inappropriate question, but are you by any chance fit and/or attractive? I've heard that and being well dressed affects your experience with people a lot.
For me it's a mix, the majority at least try to be decent and pleasant, no argument there. But as with many other things, the minority who aren't tend to have a much bigger impact. Honestly, I'd take just being safe from violence from people is good enough for me, even that isn't a given.
You might want to adjust your media diet because society often isn't just randomly violent.
I agree. 95% of violence is committed by men aged 15-25. If you wanted to be extra sure, just avoid that very specific group. But in general, minute by minute, nobody wants to be violent.
But then I'd be prejudiced. Stereotypes exist because they have a certain good degree of accuracy, but that doesn't make them right. For the sake of that one person in that group that didn't do anything wrong, I have to try and be fair to the whole group.
I wish it was just media. And it's certainly not random, I wouldn't expect violence in a decent neighborhood. But I would on the subway in NYC for example (depends on the line too I guess). And by violence I don't mean necessarily assault, but anything that involves the cops, getting arrested, etc.. or certain forms of mistreatment (even though it's a stretch to call them violence).
I mentioned attractiveness because when I dress up nice and lose weight, it's a wildly different world. When that isn't the case I'd say at least 60% of my interactions with people is negative. Out of that I'd say maybe 2% is extreme enough to be considered violence in my view.
I'll say this though, I didn't mean we should avoid interaction or being nice to each other in the off chance people are unpleasant or unkind. I'm just saying, don't go into it with that expectation unless you're pleasant to look at yourself.
Some people, especially as they grow old (and especially women unfortunately), see a remarkable decline in how they're treated, and that in turn causes them to be jaded towards people. If you don't tie how people respond to you to how you treat them to begin with (It's huge struggle for me, not preaching here), it's less of a bitter pill.