Things I Hate #4: Large Masses

In this recurring blog, I will point out a certain thing I hate from society, or just everyday life.Some of them might be common pet peeves, some might not. I will, however, always try to justify why I hate that particular thing. There are no real boundaries as to what it the topic is. The only one rule: I have to hate it. Don’t agree with me? Leave a comment saying why I’m wrong.

Large Masses (of people)
Saturday morning, around eight o’clock. I have just finished my night shift and I’m desperate for some sleep. I need to get home as fast as possible to get to the comfort of my double-matrassed bed. Between me and my bed, however, there’s an obstacle. One? More like a thousand. Saturday morning is the day Leiden has one of its weekly open markets (the other being on Wednesday).  Seemingly thousands of people pour into the street to get their vegetables, fish, nuts, you name it. And I have to carefully navigate around them to go to bed.

This kind of annoyance is not limited to markets. Festivals, busy streets, practically every place where lots of people conjoin to form one immovable mass. It’s incredible annoying to me, especially because I like to walk fast and purposefully towards my inevitable goal. The longer it takes to circumvent this slowing moving, irrationally turning body of people, the more mad it makes me.

For the same reason, I often decline invitations to go to big festivities, like ‘Koninginnenach/Koningennach’ (Queens’ Night/Kings’ night) in The Hague, ‘Koninginnedag/Koningsdag’ (Queens’ Day/Kings’ day) in Amsterdam, the ‘Bevrijdingsfeest’ (Liberation Party) in Wageningen, Carnaval, and many, many others. The only one I go to on a consistent basis is the 3rd of October celebration, mainly because it is just outside my front door on ironically the second of October.

Not only the ‘not being able to walk at my own pace’ is an annoyance to me. When going to these kind of outdoor festivities, I always lose contact with my friends. I don’t know it’s them trying to ditch me, or me not paying enough attention to the pace of others, but it happens fairly often. And try to find your friends then. There’s most often no signal on my telephone, because of the thousands of others trying to connect or reconnect with their group. It’s a kind of stress-creating chaos I cannot deal with enough to enjoy my time at the festivity in question. Even if I don’t lose sight of my compatriots, the stress of the inevitability that it will happen sooner or later puts some kind of restraint on my enjoyment level.

Combining these factors makes me hate large groups of people. Not that I’m anti-social, just because I find it hard to be at ease among these large groups for the reasons named above. I’d much rather search for a quiet backstreet in order to get some sort of pace going than to browse storefronts.

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