What makes some people so nasty? (From Bucks Free Press)

What makes some people so nasty?

10:29pm Saturday 17th March 2012 in Your Say By ivor

Everyday as I promenade around on my regular lunchtime walk around Wycombe town centre I quite often say a cheery hello to people as they pass by.

A few people just ignore me but on the whole most people return my greeting with a smile on their face.

Most people would not even think of instigating conversation with a passing stranger indeed this is highlighted by what I call the railway carriage syndrome.

Simply take a carriage full of people and the sum of knowledge known by all people in that carriage will be immense however for some reason absolutely nobody speaks to anyone else and silence rules.

When on a train I always speak to the person sitting next to me but it seems that everyone else has it programmed into them to be silent or maybe people are afraid to speak for fear the other person will be nasty or even worse reject them?

I have found that on the whole a stranger will always be friendly if you speak to them.

However in daily life there are some people who are rude and nasty to others but people exhibiting this behaviour usually know each other.

For some reason it seems that hatred and detestation of others is formed once people know each other but why should this be the case?

What causes someone to dislike someone else? Could it be jealousy? Could it be discrimination? Maybe its something else?

It would seem that two people do not even have to meet for one to dislike the other indeed as you have seen on this very blog there are those who seem to despise me even though they have never even seen me.

Even though yours truly is a real person they (wrongly) say that I do not exist but they still dislike me. Can someone really dislike someone who they think does not even exist? Can dislike be aimed at nothing?

Over the past few days I have been thinking about the spectre of violent crime that seems to be ravaging parts of Wycombe in recent days.

In most cases of violent crime the attacker knows the victim so are there not comparisons with the analogy that I gave above regarding people being nasty to each other? Is violent crime simply a dislike of others that has been taken to an extreme level?

If only people could learn to live with each other and put aside differences the world would be a better place.

There is nothing to be gained from disliking others, indeed its a sad reflection on the individuals who end up tearing their lives apart in petty squabbles.

Once dislike has set in its very hard to shift it from someone's mind. Sentencing those who have committed violent offences against others to prison will not tackle the hatred that sparked the crime in the first place.

Life is too short to be nasty so why not be like me and speak to others, enjoy the moment and look forward to tomorrow. You never know who you may be sitting beside when you are next on a train or bus so why not say hello and find out....

What do you think?

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