"falling"

Last night, in between runs to the office to check on progress, I had a pretty nice round of drinks with some old friends. And I got clarity on something I had been wondering about for a while.
The backstory is this, I have been noticing people being very aggressive lately starting from taxi drivers who are completely rude and hysterical and finishing with bank clerks whose lack of politeness is abhorring. Now, this would not be out of the ordinary for Romania but it is getting clinically obvious.

Last night, these couple of friends told me about the "falling apart" syndrome, visible across the country in crisis-stricken Romanians. The poster boy for this new thingie is a man who, a couple of weeks back, walked into a Maseratti showroom on Romania's fanciest avenue, reached for a chair and smashed a Maseratti's front end without a word, then ran into a Honda dealership next door and smashed a bunch of Honda scooters and then ran into a neighbouring bank and tried to smash the windows before he was tackled by the combined bodyguards of the three locations. The guy looked completely normal and decent. Another case is that of a guy who tackled and beat up a bicycle rider and then broke into hysterical crying and apologized.

"falling apart" or "falling down" syndrome seems to affect the people who have naively taken on lots and lots of loans hoping for an ever increasing economy and now find themselves in straightened circumstances. The symptoms are increased aggressiveness, instant irritation, disdain for everything around, rudeness and paranoia.

still think the crisis is not affecting us? look around...