What drives you mad about MNers?

[omafiet]

I woke up grumpy today and reading some posts is making me grumpier. Perhaps I'm turning into a curmudgeon. But sometimes I read posts and think "Good grief, woman, you don't help yourself, do you?"

The gems that seem to pop up with alarming regularity: "We live rurally and I don't drive" in a post complaining of a lack of access to, well, anything really.

Or: "We don't have any family close by to babysit so DH and I haven't been out on our own since 2004." Do what we all do then and pay for a babysitter!

Ugh. This heat is making me grouchy. Anything make you want to shake another MNer?

I can't get my head around the fact that so many Mumsnetters will not open the door to anyone unless it was a prearranged visit. Surly someone knocks on your door, you open it? Or look through the spy hole, or window or if you're really nervous ask through the door who they are! Not hide upstairs and frantically ask mumsnet for help

I don't ask MN for help but if someone is knocking on my door, they want money from me. Always. They want to sell me something I don't want.

Or it's a politician - even worse.

Hence I don't open the door and stick my head out of an upstairs window and say I am not interested. I don't think it's that strange.

If you are a really popular person and have friends and family dropping in all the time, that's different. But I am not opening my home to cold callers!

The ones that don't actually answer the question asked. They pick up on a part of the original post and the thread gets derailed.

The 'leave him' answer to anything from failing to pick up his socks to not putting the milk back in the fridge.
The 'that's rape' comments to a bloke having a wank in the same bed without getting written consent.

@probstimeforanewname

*I don't ask MN for help but if someone is knocking on my door, they want money from me. Always. They want to sell me something I don't want.

Or it's a politician - even worse.

Hence I don't open the door and stick my head out of an upstairs window and say I am not interested. I don't think it's that strange.

If you are a really popular person and have friends and family dropping in all the time, that's different. But I am not opening my home to cold callers!*

Agreed. I don't live near any friends or family so if someone is knocking on my door it's not someone I want to talk to.

I’m not particularly offended by the LTB ‘brigade.’ I have never read LTB about any reasonable sounding relationship. I don’t think it’s generally used inappropriately in my experience of Mumsnet.
I find it more annoying when it’s clear from an OP’s intro post that there are many worrying signs in their relationship and people focus on a detail rather than on the bigger picture e.g. OP: my DP threatened to kill me when I asked him to get help with his snoring, then belched in my face for good measure. Reply: Has he sought help for his snoring? I swear by whatever. It saved our marriage etc.

FFS, why do so many MNetters see basic adult communication as 'confrontation'?

I see so many martyrs. I see them in real life too. They want to moan about how their sister expects them to babysit every weekend or their neighbour wants a lift to work every day. But when there is a simple solution to it, they don't want to take it. Because then they wouldn't be able to take the moral high ground any more.

My MIL is like this. Moans incessantly about how much of a strain it is to Eg cook dinner so someone offers to do it for her and she is mortally offended at the cheek of them, implying she can't cook dinner.

The ridiculous accusations of transphobia.

The hatred shown to and belittling of posters on the Feminist Board.

The manipulative posting by very overweight people of themselves in outfits or bikinis who know damn well that no-one will dare make even the most mildly critical comment and that their thread will be full of praises and plaudits on how they look.

The posters trotting out the 'real princesses help adjust each other's crown' nonsense. Or lecturing everyone to 'just be kind'.

Like it's a woman's default setting to aspire to be a simperingly sweet, girlie Princess character, FFS.

I agree about the inability to have adult conversations. It has surprised me how many posters don’t seem to have moved beyond their school days when the teacher sorted situations out for them. It is always talk to the police, council, HR, manager and get them to sort it out. Rarely go have a chat with them about it. Anywhere I have worked, we were expected to have a chat ourselves first and no-one senior would get involved until that was done. I can see why they had to make that a rule.

The lack of reading comprehension is dire.

Posters who shoehorn their particular hobby horse into every thread they reply on no matter how irrelevant.

Posters who deliberately misunderstand the opening post just so they can be nasty, rude and aggressive towards the OP.

Posters who don't/won't behave like the adults they are supposed to be and communicate with others over minor issues, people taking advantage, etc., usually excused by saying I don't like confrontation, accept it and live with it and stop moaning about it then. What exactly do you expect users on an anonymous internet forum to do about it?

“The 'leave him' answer to anything from failing to pick up his socks to not putting the milk back in the fridge.“

I have literally never seen anyone say “leave him” for a trivial reason. I have, however, seen a lot of minimising of awful behaviour of men towards women and children.

Regional variations in the cost of living are often ignored on MN. Woe betide anyone living in London with a household income of £60k who posts about their financial difficulties. They are always met with a sneer from someone living on the other side of the country who feels the need to point out that their family of 6 manages just fine on £24k so the OP is obviously completely financially irresponsible.

On a related note, a man's income is always family money in it's entirety otherwise he is financially abusive and likely planning to abandon his family for the OW. However a woman's income must be kept separate from household finances just in case she needs an emergency fund to get her ducks in a row and LTB.

Anyone who asks even a basic question about vaccinations is a poorly disguised anti-vaxxer.

No. Guts are very good at digesting food. Brains are very good at thinking. Trust your brain.

I think that some people are more aware of their feelings than others and that explains the "trust your gut/intuition/feelings" comments. Feelings are there to guide you and if you are emotionally intelligent and aware of and tuned into your feelings, you may well also get strong intuition about things, and such people will usually have brains working in tandem thinking things through too. I am talking about people in all works of life - in a very commercial environment amongst very sharp and highly qualified highly educated and experienced people too (though I realise that might shock you!). If you are the kind of person to get strong gut reactions about people, then I'd say they should most definitely be listened to.

People who are aware of feelings are often good problem solvers for technical problems ime - thinking of solutions while asleep!

I would be more likely to back a person who were aware of and listened to their feelings as well as using their brains than a person who thought their feelings would be irrelevant provided they could think it through "rationally".

So it just depends on what you are like and how you operate as a person.

People who use thread titles like "When was the last time you...?" and then I have to click into it to find the rest of the question (which is usually not that interesting).

Or "AIBU to ask what you're cooking tonight?". No, you're not unreasonable to ask; you ARE unreasonable to expect me to answer by telling you what I'm cooking tonight, rather than by telling you whether or not you're being unreasonable.

People who derail lighthearted threads with terrible things that have happened. Like, "Tell me about a time you embarrassed yourself in work", 3 posters tell funny stories and then person 4 says "I cried in a meeting because [insert properly awful life event]"

Feminism is about improving the rights of women, about stopping the rights we have being rolled back. If putting women's rights on a par with men is seen as anti trans then so be it. I've never seen anyone on the feminism board say that they think trans people shouldn't be allowed to be employed or access healthcare, or rent a house etc

The 'leave him' answer to anything from failing to pick up his socks to not putting the milk back in the fridge.

Link us to even one example of this happening @Fishcakey

Yes, I agree (in theory) but a nagging thought is always there that they may have already got there and sat down and I don't recognise them and walk straight past them!

So just text and say you've gone in and got a table. If they're already there, they'll let you know ?

So what if you walk straight past them - it happens.

Ridiculous over-dramatics. There’s a thread going on about a woman whose husband won’t take the kids swimming because he has body issues. One of the replies was ‘Mine is the same, OP - I could cry with disappointment for my children’. Yl could CRY?! They’re missing the odd trip to the baths, not having a limb amputated. Another thread is running at the moment where the OP ‘can’t even talk’ to her husband and ‘this will ruin my weekend. His crime? He was eight minutes late to pick her up.

People who patronisingly state ‘I don’t know ANYONE who would do this/think this is normal/this has happened to’, usually with that fucking stupid face. So that means it isn’t possible? I’ve never met a triplet, anyone who’s been married more than three times or anyone with pancreatic cancer - I’m still pretty sure they all exist.

The use of ‘cringe’ as an adjective. It’s ‘cringey’ or ‘cringeworthy’!

OPs who give you a long list of ‘please don’t tell me I should do X, Y and Z’ - why ask for advice if you’ve already decided you don’t want to hear it?

OPs who are as bolshy as all hell and want to punch their partner or tell him they hate his guts - yet if you dare tell them they’re wrong, they suddenly trot out ‘I am vulnerable and you’re being so harsh; I came here for a bit of support’.

Posts where 99% of people can see the OP is being utterly ridiculous, but that one poster has to turn up and say ‘Why can’t women support each other instead of knocking each other down?’

The suggestion that you ‘obviously haven’t read my post properly’ if you dare to disagree. No love - I read every word and I think you’re thick/a bitch/both.

Asking for medical advice but not going to the GP and/or ignoring advice to go to the GP.

Mumsnet is not a medical service nor does the site know your medical history - therefore no-one is in a position to offer medical or dietary advice.

There has been 2 today alone, an a third who is just attention seeking as they are on day 3/4 and still not gone.

Sometimes this site can be downright dangerous.

Posters telling the OP to cut out this food, or that food because it workred for thier neighbours cats previous owners dead aunt.
Bloody irresponsible at best.

The posters who think you can't wear trainers or a biker jacket over the age of 29.

I hate the stories where people become letters. So A did something to B which meant that C couldn't do x with D.

So confusing.