Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with misanthropy

Please make them stop knocking at my door!

pdb — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:14:28 -0800

Is there such a thing as a "NO POLITICS" doorsign? We have a "NO SOLICITING" sign prominently displayed right by our doorbell. This tends to keep away the sales types. It does not, however, stop incessant political campaigners from knocking on our door. When I point out the "NO SOLICITING" sign, they invariably say "But I'm not selling anything!".

So, in the absence of a barbed wire fence, broken glass strewn across my porch, or a moat, does there exist some sort of sign that says "NO POLITICAL SOLICITATION" or something of that ilk, so that I can stop being bothered once a day by someone trying to not sell me a politician? I can't find one anywhere.

I'd probably be OK with making one, but I'd like to see if one exists first.

How can I be less misanthropic and get people to like me more?

Anonymous — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:05:09 -0800

How can I be less misanthropic and get people to like me more? I'd like to know strategies for becoming less annoyed with people and thus increasing my desire to interact with them more. I can tend to be somewhat misanthropic and would like to change this. I wouldn't say that I "hate" people, but just that a lot of people tend to annoy me to an extent where I sometimes want to avoid interacting with them or make the interactions as brief as possible. This occurs almost primarily with people who I don't know at all (i.e., strangers) or those who I don't know very well. Once I get to know people, I actually tend to like most people a lot and, in the absence of any horribleness, even be very optimistic in my assessment of people; that is, I'll overlook quite a few annoying / bad personality traits and focus on the positive aspects of someone with whom I'm acquainted.

This misanthropy toward strangers has two negative effects that I'd like to address: First, I frequently feel an almost constant, low-grade state of annoyance when I'm in a public place with lots of strangers. Something as simple as a walk down the sidewalk can get annoying when people are walking toward me (on the wrong side), talking loudly on their cell phone, or yelling. In general, I tend to dislike anything that is loud or rude. However, I recognize that this is somewhat unavoidable in public situations and wish that I didn't notice it so much. I also realize that the vast majority of the people who annoy me don't intend to do so and that I shouldn't judge them because of it.

The second consequence of these feelings is that most of the time I have a hard time making new friends. I'm actually very social, and have a fairly large group of really great friends (albeit spread about the country) who I love to spend time with. However, making new friends involves interacting more with strangers, something that I often have no desire to do, given the aforementioned feelings. I should also mention that every once in a while I'll enter a super-social zone where I am not annoyed by people and have no problem talking to strangers / making new friends. I guess I'm looking for advice on how to get myself into this mindset more often and avoiding becoming annoyed over little things that don't matter. Thanks for reading.

I hate you.

keswick — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 16:50:02 -0800

What do you do when you're stuck in a persistive state of misanthropy? there is no more inside

"I hate humanity and I wouldn't hesitate to kill"

Wolfdog — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:40:20 -0800

I'm trying to remember a metal song with the lyric "I hate humanity and I wouldn't hesitate to kill." I'd have sworn it was Edge of Sanity, or Carcass, but no dice. Probably mid-90s vintage; almost certainly a growling vocalist; I'm pretty sure this was the opening line.

Moral Nitpicking

prettyboyfloyd — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 22:05:46 -0800

What's worse, manners wise? (Elevator behavior / Train behavior) So which behavior is less ethical/more misanthropic?

A) 'A' gets in an elevator and pushes the button, moving to the side and looking at the wall. 'A' does this because he doesn't feel like holding the door open in case anyone comes, thereby delaying the elevator door's closing.

Or:

B) 'B' gets on the interurban train. she puts her medium sized bag on the seat next to her and opens the newspaper. The train continues to get increasingly crowded as the train passes through downtown. B reads the paper and doesn't move her bag to share the seat until someone asks her to.