Posters thinking every thread is about their personal situation.

[Differentforgirls]

Do you think posters on here take things too personally sometimes as if a thread is completely about them, so they derail the thread then get into a cycle where they can’t rationally agree to differ?

Do you have an example of what you mean?

Yes! My post regarding school as as childcare.

Yes I completely agree. I didn’t see your post you are referring too, but I see all the time that people project their own situation onto things and are unable to see it for what it is.

Thank you.

I think that’s just the way some people relate or empathise & it’s quite normal. But I didn’t read your particular thread, so can’t say specifically.

Yes I agree with you too. A good example was a recent thread about colleagues taking the piss with sickness. So many posters took it personally and started justifying why they needed time off sick. That was not the point of the thread at all!

But isn't that the way that conversations evolve? One person gives their experience of a situation, then someone else gives theirs, a third person makes a comparison, someone else comes in with another perspective?

If it's a post that is just a direct question, fair enough, but I see most threads as continuing conversations that are more 'around' a point than specifically focussed on the op.

I’ve just given in. They get so personal that it’s not worth it.

Agree. But it’s when they start personally attacking other posters, you just think “
this isn’t worth it”.

I do know what you mean about derailment.

But I also tend to think that’s the purpose of a chat forum, that people come with personal opinions and experiences as a contribution.

Agree with you.

Yes I also agree, I think people are lonely and want to tell their story. So they project onto someone else’s thread.

its where they angrily insists the op does something, takes a course of action, they said they didn’t wish to take. Over a job, a friend, whatever. Then go on about what happened to them.

It’s embarrassing actually.

Yes I agree.

Especially when it comes to threads about weight.

Someone will post something like they think they look much better at a size 10, and along will come at least one or two drama llamas to say "Oh right, so all us fatties should stay indoors and never leave the house" etc 🙄

Tiresome.

It’s a pretty normal psychological approach (or trap?
Do you find it surprising?

Yeah, some people just won't accept that their personal situation doesn't apply to the OP.

A bit. Yes.

I sort of agree, except that this really is how people navigate the world.

That’s why, although the evidence about smoking causing lung cancer is overwhelming, you will get someone who says “well, my aunt Whatsit smoked 90 a day and lived to be 103”. Nothing then will shake their conviction that the research is wrong.

In the same way, uncle Frederick never wore a seatbelt in his life and died quite quietly in his bed of old age at 94. Therefore, seatbelts are an unnecessary infringement of our rights and freedoms. I really have seen this argument in the US and it was made here before seatbelts became compulsory.

Have a read of her thread, it is pretty wild. I do not think posters there are making everything about them. I think they are bemused by you calling anyone who tries to discuss you post uneducated, a bad mother or mentally ill.

Is it the bean soup problem? Like when someone posts a recipe for Bean Soup and the comments are all like "This recipe sounded good, but I don't like beans so I substituted tomatoes and it wasn't very filling!"

Maybe highlight those exact posts?

As you know tey have understandably been deleted, but you make reference to them in later posts in the thread. Anyone can read the thread and get context can't they?

Not sure how anyone can get context from two deleted posts they haven’t read?

You acknowledge all the way through the thread that you called a poster mentally ill, as does everyone else. Your behaviour on that thread is vile and now you are starting a thread about a thread to get the validation you aren't getting there.

Some people just can’t bear for it not to be all about them!