[GrumpyOldMan]

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

As people get older, they become more like themselves.

That is not as confusing as it sounds. During our younger years we develop techniques and safeguards against letting those parts of our personalities show through that would be construed by many as hostile, negative, patronizing, or whatever; personality traits that could hinder what we might have seen as hindering advancement in work, destructive of relationships, whatever. Some of us become quite good at it, others, not so much. But as we age, we gradually become less able to hide those traits or to control when or under what circumstances the come to the surface. The older we get, the more the real person shows through.

This is not a rationale for extreme rudeness or negative social acting-out. People might be less able to control their reactions but they can still recognize situations where they are most apt to occur and avoid them. But it does explain why we're more apt to see it here in "the bubble" than in former communities populated with younger people.

I agree