Why are we such a negative nation?
Discussion
Everyone is guilty of it. Buy a new car and someone makes a nice comment on it. Guaranteed, the owner comes back with something like "It's a nice car, but...."
Ask someone about their holiday - "It was OK, but..."
Did you enjoy XYZ last night on TV - "It was OK, but...."
It feels like the UK just scramble to find the negative in any situation. To the point where it's actually odd if you ask someone about their holiday and they just tell you they had a great time.
It seems very unique to the UK as well - go anywhere else and this approach just doesn't seem to exist. PH is terrible for it, you don't have to scroll for long on any thread to find someone having a whinge. I have this impression that every member is sat in a dark room, rain running down the window listening to Dido and just hating life. Same with social media - local groups I'm looking at you! 'New £30M complex leads to 10,000 new jobs!' open comments, "It will never work", "It will cause traffic", etc.
Ask someone about their holiday - "It was OK, but..."
Did you enjoy XYZ last night on TV - "It was OK, but...."
It feels like the UK just scramble to find the negative in any situation. To the point where it's actually odd if you ask someone about their holiday and they just tell you they had a great time.
It seems very unique to the UK as well - go anywhere else and this approach just doesn't seem to exist. PH is terrible for it, you don't have to scroll for long on any thread to find someone having a whinge. I have this impression that every member is sat in a dark room, rain running down the window listening to Dido and just hating life. Same with social media - local groups I'm looking at you! 'New £30M complex leads to 10,000 new jobs!' open comments, "It will never work", "It will cause traffic", etc.
8IKERDAVE said:
Everyone is guilty of it. Buy a new car and someone makes a nice comment on it. Guaranteed, the owner comes back with something like "It's a nice car, but...."
Ask someone about their holiday - "It was OK, but..."
Did you enjoy XYZ last night on TV - "It was OK, but...."
It feels like the UK just scramble to find the negative in any situation. To the point where it's actually odd if you ask someone about their holiday and they just tell you they had a great time.
The British are generally not a boastful people, so any positive experience needs to be tempered with a negative to balance it out lest it be deemed too showy-offy.Ask someone about their holiday - "It was OK, but..."
Did you enjoy XYZ last night on TV - "It was OK, but...."
It feels like the UK just scramble to find the negative in any situation. To the point where it's actually odd if you ask someone about their holiday and they just tell you they had a great time.
Unlike the Americans, success is not something Brits like to shout about, and there is always a little bit of secret shame in doing well, or buying a nice car house or experience. Bragging about one's achievements is not the done thing in polite society.
Fear, posturing, thinking they know better, opinion, unbalanced views.
One example. They spent a couple of years improving the A249/M2 junction because of queues. All the mouthbreathers were complaining that it would never improve things. I posted give it a chance and see if it improves and was shouted down by everyone. Now there are rarely any queues unless there has been an incident and is free flowing.
One example. They spent a couple of years improving the A249/M2 junction because of queues. All the mouthbreathers were complaining that it would never improve things. I posted give it a chance and see if it improves and was shouted down by everyone. Now there are rarely any queues unless there has been an incident and is free flowing.
I have never, not once, listened to Dido without a huge smile on my otherwise miserable face.
I believe I am her biggest UK based male fan in the 30-36 year old category. I even once setup a Facebook page called "Blokes who like Dido".
Did you know her real name is Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong? What a woman.
I believe I am her biggest UK based male fan in the 30-36 year old category. I even once setup a Facebook page called "Blokes who like Dido".
Did you know her real name is Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong? What a woman.
Just spent a weekend around an American lass, she was lovely but by christ by the end of it I was fed up with the relentless 'positivity' - everything, and I mean everything even the most prosaic was 'awesome' or 'amazing'. Never quite sure if she actually believed it.
I think we tend to be a more measured folk in the UK - I'm a realist and that is often mistaken for being negative IME.
I think we tend to be a more measured folk in the UK - I'm a realist and that is often mistaken for being negative IME.
I know exactly what the OP is talking about. It is an intriguing characteristic that I think is uniquely British. I summarised it a while back on similar thread using the 2012 Olympic Games as an example:
When we announced were going to bid for the games, everyone said: "Waste of time, we never win stuff like this"
We won it.
Then everyone was: "It'll cost twice as much as they say and we'll never be ready on time".
Delivered on budget and in time
Then it was "It will be a shambles"
Delivered the best games ever
Then it was "yeah but what about the legacy?"
Massive uptake in Olympic based sports and enhanced funding, etc..
Then it's "There's too many bikes on the road"
Same with anything successful. We love a trier but whatever you do, don't succeed because people dislike people who do that - see Lewis Hamilton for more information.
I have no idea why this is the case. Someone used the word 'modesty' but I think it runs deeper than that and is perhaps rooted way in the past when class subservience was commonplace and accepted.
I think I'm right is saying that the Royal Navy was given first dibs on what was to become the submarine but declined as it would give us an unfair advantage! (Navy buffs feel free to correct that if wrong!).
When we announced were going to bid for the games, everyone said: "Waste of time, we never win stuff like this"
We won it.
Then everyone was: "It'll cost twice as much as they say and we'll never be ready on time".
Delivered on budget and in time
Then it was "It will be a shambles"
Delivered the best games ever
Then it was "yeah but what about the legacy?"
Massive uptake in Olympic based sports and enhanced funding, etc..
Then it's "There's too many bikes on the road"
Same with anything successful. We love a trier but whatever you do, don't succeed because people dislike people who do that - see Lewis Hamilton for more information.
I have no idea why this is the case. Someone used the word 'modesty' but I think it runs deeper than that and is perhaps rooted way in the past when class subservience was commonplace and accepted.
I think I'm right is saying that the Royal Navy was given first dibs on what was to become the submarine but declined as it would give us an unfair advantage! (Navy buffs feel free to correct that if wrong!).
WH16 said:
8IKERDAVE said:
Everyone is guilty of it. Buy a new car and someone makes a nice comment on it. Guaranteed, the owner comes back with something like "It's a nice car, but...."
Ask someone about their holiday - "It was OK, but..."
Did you enjoy XYZ last night on TV - "It was OK, but...."
It feels like the UK just scramble to find the negative in any situation. To the point where it's actually odd if you ask someone about their holiday and they just tell you they had a great time.
The British are generally not a boastful people, so any positive experience needs to be tempered with a negative to balance it out lest it be deemed too showy-offy.Ask someone about their holiday - "It was OK, but..."
Did you enjoy XYZ last night on TV - "It was OK, but...."
It feels like the UK just scramble to find the negative in any situation. To the point where it's actually odd if you ask someone about their holiday and they just tell you they had a great time.
Unlike the Americans, success is not something Brits like to shout about, and there is always a little bit of secret shame in doing well, or buying a nice car house or experience. Bragging about one's achievements is not the done thing in polite society.
We British have a problem with success. We crave it, but we get jealous of others who achieve it - it's seen as bragging.
But we also lie in wait for failure.
Witness our treatment of sportspeople - Emma Raducanu, Rory McIlroy, Lewis Hamilton, England men's football team.
We celebrate their success as a nation but then, as a nation, cannot wait to bring them down a peg or two, decry any failure, point out fallibility, denounce the fact that they've either not continued their success and therefore have let us all down, or are having too much success and are too smug as a result.
We like flawed heroes - Gazza, Nigel Mansell, Alex Higgins, George Best - plucky underdogs come good who we can then sympathise with whilst we point out all their faults.
It's sad really.
t.I think we are but I think we like it.
As the person above said there is little more grating than an over positive American (which is all of them IME).
Also yes we don’t like celebrating others’ success and will also play down our own success. People instinctively ‘explain’ how they managed to purchase something nice where our transatlantic cousins would just say ‘yeah it’s awesome.’
I still like our way, be understated and enjoy a grumble!
As the person above said there is little more grating than an over positive American (which is all of them IME).
Also yes we don’t like celebrating others’ success and will also play down our own success. People instinctively ‘explain’ how they managed to purchase something nice where our transatlantic cousins would just say ‘yeah it’s awesome.’
I still like our way, be understated and enjoy a grumble!
StevieBee said:
The one British trait that I like that no other nationally gets is this thing where the verbal abuse you throw at someone is directly proportional to how much you like them.
Men bond by exchanging insults they don't mean, and women bond by exchanging compliments they don't mean.Good question O.P.
I currently spend a lot of my time outside the U.K. and when I return the negativity I witness is very noticeable. A lack of positivity in general conversation is also quite noticeable in many social situations I encounter in the U.K. I don't think the perceived negativity is about not boasting, it's a general negativity that I feel has crept into the British psyche. My social and family groups in the U.K. and outside are quite diverse both culturally and economically, just last night our dinner table had Singaporean, German, Georgian, Native American, Chinese and British people contributing to the generally positive conversation.
The observation of the negative comments here on P.Hs is spot on, look at most threads about a new car and the negative comments usually outnumber the positive ones many times over. It's fine to not like certain design or colour or fuel type or manufacturer but the avalanche of negativity is depressing at times. I often question why so many people join a thread just to add more negativity to an avalanche of negativity, often parroting other negative comments. Additionally the lack of positivity on many threads is also remarkable. I do think my observations are a fair reflection of the British society that I encounter at the moment.
In social situations the conversation seems to quickly turn negative and trying to turn a conversation back into a more positive direction can be difficult, it's as if the negative is the default, the norm if you like. It's the lack of positivity in conversation too, take a few minutes to quietly observe and listen to your colleagues or friends or family talking and see how many positive points or contributions are made compared with the negative ones.
These are obviously generalisations and everyone is different of course but the trend is real IMO.
I currently spend a lot of my time outside the U.K. and when I return the negativity I witness is very noticeable. A lack of positivity in general conversation is also quite noticeable in many social situations I encounter in the U.K. I don't think the perceived negativity is about not boasting, it's a general negativity that I feel has crept into the British psyche. My social and family groups in the U.K. and outside are quite diverse both culturally and economically, just last night our dinner table had Singaporean, German, Georgian, Native American, Chinese and British people contributing to the generally positive conversation.
The observation of the negative comments here on P.Hs is spot on, look at most threads about a new car and the negative comments usually outnumber the positive ones many times over. It's fine to not like certain design or colour or fuel type or manufacturer but the avalanche of negativity is depressing at times. I often question why so many people join a thread just to add more negativity to an avalanche of negativity, often parroting other negative comments. Additionally the lack of positivity on many threads is also remarkable. I do think my observations are a fair reflection of the British society that I encounter at the moment.
In social situations the conversation seems to quickly turn negative and trying to turn a conversation back into a more positive direction can be difficult, it's as if the negative is the default, the norm if you like. It's the lack of positivity in conversation too, take a few minutes to quietly observe and listen to your colleagues or friends or family talking and see how many positive points or contributions are made compared with the negative ones.
These are obviously generalisations and everyone is different of course but the trend is real IMO.
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