Are you a secret Mumsnetter?

[CandidFruit]

Does your family/friends/colleagues know you’re on here?

Do you sometimes find yourself bringing up topics into conversation that you’ve read on MN?

Have you ever “caught” anyone on MN in public, or have been “caught” yourself?

Anyone on here who you think you actually would like to be friends with, based purely on something they’ve posted about or commented on?

I’d like to meet The Sistine Chapel Wailer 😆… I think!

Dh and dc3 (still at home) know. No-one else, I hope! It is surprising how unquestioning people are about your source if you just say “I read recently that….”

DH knows I’m on here. I often read funny threads to him.

DH knows I'm here, and I was recently recognised (twice!) due to quite a specific situation I'd written about as it happened. I've name-changed since!

I do occasionally bring up things I've read on 'a forum' in conversation 🤭

@cartiersantos ... Wondering if you might be my sister 😁.

I'm a hopeless oversharer so I haven't been able to stop myself talking about it (as in 'I read this thing on mumsnet last night...'). It's always baffled me how virtually everyone I speak to about it (apart from my sister... 🤔) claims they don't come on here, or even know anything about it. I guess either they're telling the truth or they're better at sticking to the' first rule of mumsnet' than I am.

Definitely a secret mner. If I am referring to a topic from here I just say something like 'I read online that...blah blah'. It's like I am ashamed to admit it 😆.

Just read the classics threads, they crack me up every time🤣

Maybe I am!

My DH knows I am but no one else. I reference stuff I’ve read here all the time though and just refer to it as ‘having read it on a blog’.

Nobody in my real life knows I’m on here, but it’s not exactly a secret it’s just never come up. That said, I have talked about threads from time to time and always just say I saw it ‘online’ I never admit to being on mumsnet. I’m not a parent so maybe there is a small part of me that worries people would find it weird and I’m also a bit worried about being recognised I guess.

I found my friend’s sister on here many years ago now, she posted a very specific post about their parent’s illness, my friend had been talking to me about it the same day and every detail matched up. I didn’t really know my friends sister, she lives at other side of country so I have only met her a few times but I admit I advance searched her username and did read a lot of her post history and then periodically would look her up from time to time, she and my friend didn’t really get on and a lot of her posts were about their difficult relationship. After a few months she either changed her username or she stopped posting, I never told my friend though as I think some of it would have damaged their relationship. I haven’t ever found anyone else, although did see a colleague reading mumsnet on her phone in the staff once. No idea if she has a username or just lurks though and didn’t ask.

Everyone I know in RL who admits to reading mn claims they only ever lurk, so I claim the same
I sometimes wonder if they're lying too 😅😅

Posters on mn I'd like to be friends with? Have made some actual friends.
But thinking of posters who write posts i like in one way or another, I always think MrsTerryPratchett is fab. And I used to like WorraLiberty, but not seen any posts by her in yonks.

DH knows I'm on here but other than that I don't admit to it IRL despite being a regular. I wouldn't want anyone to misinterpret my views on trans people based on me being a user.

I’ve been here for years under different names, but always say ‘I read on the internet/Twitter (X)/ a colleague said’ when discussing irl. I did find it difficult a few years back when I won a couple of competitions on here and couldn’t really explain where from. NC regularly.

dh and ds’s know but don’t care.

I don’t tell anyone else, although in the early days I did meet a neighbour, we were all new to the area and she was looking for other new parents in the village so I responded to her and we met up. I can’t really image any of my friends being on mumsnet, but who knows, maybe they are and think the same about me.

Such a good question OP. DH knows and often asks what I’m laughing at and I regale him with the latest MN finest. I have mentioned it to friends who deny all knowledge so I don’t tend to bring it up.
I do go through phases and have avoided it for a while when some posters seem unreal and every problem is met with ‘ Are they ND?’ but mostly it’s a great source of information for travel, parenting advice and a general laugh.

Ha, same - DH often suggests I "ask the MN massive "

I do this too. Does my partners head in 🤣🤣

I was recently very chuffed to be told by a wonderful lady I work with that she is on MN too

I say I read somewhere …

Oh here you all are 😁

Wondering what I missed now with the deleted posts!

My DH and DCs know I’m on here, but obviously not my username (I hope! 😬)
They often roll their eyes and joke “Mum’s chatting to her friends again” 😂
and I’ve shared a few funny threads with them.
Only one friend in RL has ever mentioned MN in passing, although a different friend has talked about NMs 😱

This.

(I too know lots of stuff "that I read on the internet")

I’m a lot more secret now after I spotted my pets’ names on a “Good pet names” thread a while back 😬😬 So someone on here knows me in RL. I don’t know how to search for their other posts so couldn’t work out who it was.

Either that or someone else has excellent taste in pet names…

Only DH really knows cos I'm always reading threads out to him. He loves it 😂

If anyone in my friendship or work circle asked if I was on here I'd deny it.

I love to drop references to MN into conversation around my incredibly woke TWAW colleagues. Definitely not about feminism/women’s rights as a topic, but about more normal things. It’s always interesting to see if there is a reaction.

I do have a small handful of very close friends/colleagues who are fellow MNetters but we don’t share usernames. Sometimes I think I might be really recognisable, but I always name change if there is something I don’t want people to see, and have a whole collection of names for different purposes.

Forgot to say, it was actually DH who knew about MN first, he was told about it by one of his (male!) colleagues when we were expecting our second.
Poor firstborn was brought into the world without the wisdom and guidance from the MN handbook 😆