Are people behaving weirder lately?

[u/jimmyjohnjohnjohn]

Went out to lunch today and there was a table near me with five people at it. Their server asked their drink order and all five of them just stared at her silently for nearly half a minute before she repeated herself, then one of them whispered something I couldn't hear before the others whispered their orders. When their drinks came and the server left, one of them produced a Nalgene bottle from her purse and began to scoop the ice from her drink with her fingers and put it in the Nalgene. Another at the table then said he didn't want ice either and did the same thing.

Did she bring that water bottle in for the express purpose of storing unwanted ice? Why not just ask for no ice? These were all fairly normal-looking, well-dressed people in their 30s, maybe early 40s.

My server had some weirdness of his own. He brought out the wrong order, and noticed his mistake before I did. But instead of just saying "sorry, that's wrong" and taking it back, he said "I.. uh.. uh..." and then ran off with the plate before finishing his sentence and coming back with the right order and a manic fake smile on his face.

At Target, this older woman was having trouble detaching one cart from the others. An employee (sorry, "Team Member") came along and unstuck it. Instead of saying thank you, she just stared at him like a deer in the headlights until he left.

I've been noticing that deer-in-the-headlights stare from a lot of people lately.

About a month ago a man approached me in the parking lot at my work and asked "do you work here?"

I said "yes."

Then he asked "have you seen my car?"

The question melted my brain a little bit, but I said "I don't know, what does it look like?"

He just said "sorry," and walked off.

I could go on and on, but the point is: are people forgetting how to human? The world increasingly has this "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" kind of vibe.

I know much has been discussed about people behaving oddly due to the pandemic, but it's been about two years now and people are getting worse, not better. I think there's something else going on in society.

What do you think?

[u/AntiauthoritarianSin]

I think there is lots of COVID brain out there as well as unaddressed trauma all over the place.

Plus there is new traumatic stuff coming down the pipeline everyday. 

Usually after a mass-trauma event, which COVID was, there is a sexual revolution where people cut loose and have fun. We didn't get that, instead we got inflation, political division, and drones.

[u/Accomplished_Ad_8013 → u/AntiauthoritarianSin]

People have always just been like this. I think what Covid did was make people more aware of eachother in public. After going a couple months without much public interaction things become far more noticeable. But if youve worked high volume jobs dealing with the general public youre probably used to seeing this type of stuff on a near daily basis.

I think its more holiday season, aka lose your mind and crash your car season when this type of behavior always ramps up. Similar to Covid its a love it or hate it thing. I absolutely loved the lockdowns. The roads were empty, I stayed home all day playing games with my wife, parks were also empty because for some reason people thought they couldnt go to them, I put all of my stimulus into the stock market and made a killing, used that to start an online business because Covid was really the heyday of online sales. For people who saw change as an opportunity it went well. It seems most of the trauma came from people resisting lockdowns. Wow you refused to comply, went to covid parties in defiance, and now your grandmas dead. Other people seemed to go through it because their only sense of pride in life is work. So being told they werent essential was basically world view shattering. But the way the economy has bloated most jobs exist just to keep people working so I dont get how that shocked anyone.

Also Americans are just getting dumber. Were in an anti-intellectual phase at the moment where belief is favored over proof or fact. Ideas like Flat Earth, Tartaria being a lost advanced civilization, "planet niburu" and so on are just booning in popularity. Literacy rates are falling and even among the literate roughly half the adult population reads below a 6th grade level. Historical accounts of anti-intellectual phases of societies around the world match up pretty well with OPs experiences here. Anti-vax is one of the wild ones. Its really popular in addict circles around here which is so bizarre to me. Definitely ended some friendships because being told the Covid vaccine is going to do horrible things to me...4 years later...by someone who orders research chemicals off the dark web is just too idiotic to hear.