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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask you for your tumbleweed moments

46 replies

GeekLove · 09/10/2014 18:43

This is a mostly lighthearted thread but the gist is of the times you have announced some good news only to find silence and a tumbleweed from people you thought cared.

I get my GCSE and they are what I am expecting - 9 A*-Cs. My boyfriend also does better than expected. Is he happy for me? Well he was happy for my parents to pay for him at the celebratory meal out but pointed out that my grades could only be possible because (1) I was a girl and education is tipped towards girls and (2) his A in maths versus my B shows that he really has the superior intellect.
That was the first nail in that coffin.

My DP (before he came DH) on announcing to his friends that he had found a girlfriend (me). Tumbleweed as I was a non-Christian. Vicar was most disappointed in that we were living together but still offered to marry us. Fat chance! Not sure how it is part of god's plan to live in shared housing and be poorer by £300 per month.

After 6 months of unemployment I get a job. I phone my friends to tell them and wish them happy New Year only to find I am to be blamed for everything going missing (We vacuumed their squalid front room) and leaving the kitchen a mess (we'd got kicked out before we could clear up). Didn't stay in contact after that!

OP posts:

ovaryhill · 10/10/2014 12:26

Mil reaction upon being told I was pregnant with dc4 'well if it was me I'd be going in for a termination'.......

firsttimerose · 10/10/2014 12:41

I really don't think the majority of you know what a tumbleweed moment is. Especially you OP.

YABU for that alone.

ovaryhill · 10/10/2014 12:47

First, how rude and ill mannered!

JimmyCorkhill · 10/10/2014 13:04

A tumbleweed moment is silence where you would expect a response. Usually a stony silence.

Mine:

Every feckin person on hearing DD2's name.

Got my first teaching job when in final year of degree. Workplace excitedly hand me phone to ring my mum. I hadn't told anyone I had an interview.

Me: Mum, guess what? I've just got a job as a teacher!
Mum: That's nice. Guess who I saw yesterday?
Me: Um, Mum...I'm on the phone in the Head's office.
Mum: Helen! Not Helen from down the road but Helen Helen. You remember her? Blah de blah de blah.....

ovaryhill · 10/10/2014 13:47

Or a shocked silence after someone saying something terrible

JimmyCorkhill · 10/10/2014 18:57

Just realised my job/mum example wasn't a tumbleweed moment - just rude!

Really cringy one at work when someone got an in school promotion and when it was announced no one said anything as everyone knew it was due to person having an affair with the Head. Soooooo awkward.

oldgrandmama · 10/10/2014 19:13

Friend of husband (now VERY EX H) was commenting on my job - I was a journalist and newspaper editor. Friend was saying nice things about stuff I'd written, but then H chips in with 'Oh, anyone can write - it's just a case of putting one word in front of another, In fact, she's just a glorified typist'.

Minerves · 11/10/2014 01:49

A tumbleweed moment is silence where you would expect a response. Usually a stony silence.

I thought was something someone said that was so bad that no response was possible

rebelfor · 11/10/2014 02:19

I started working in a factory, order picking, when I was 18, on the 6am-2pm shift.

One of the men who worked there was friendly and we began chatting when we passed each other. After a few weeks he told me that there had been some scandal there involving two of the workers coming into work a little early and had been caught going at it against the shelf.

A couple of mornings later, the taxi driver taking me to work asked me if I knew 'Peter' who worked there.

Believing him to be a friend of his, (and in my defence, being a naïve 18 year old) I said ''Oh he was caught with his pants down this week with a co-worker apparently, don't say anything though haha''.

He went quiet, and then informed me he was married to his sister. I gulped, with a bright red face, and tried to claim I must have had my wires crossed, and he drove on in stony silence.

rebelfor · 11/10/2014 02:22

I should add that Peter the cheater was married to the taxi driver's sister.

darksideofthemooncup · 11/10/2014 02:46

I created a tumbleweed moment just this week
At my Uncle's funeral, standing talking to his adopted daughter when her son came over and announced that he didn't like tea
Me - 'Well YOU aren't a Mooncup then! '

In my defence we are a close family and I have never seen my Cousin as different to us in any way

darksideofthemooncup · 11/10/2014 02:49

Oh and at the same funeral another Uncle came over, patted me on the stomach and said 'is there something you aren't telling us?'
No, I am not pregnant

firsttimerose · 11/10/2014 03:21

I thought was something someone said that was so bad that no response was possible

No ... its just an awkward or stunned silence. Like if I told a group of people what I thought was a hilarious joke or an embarrassing incident and expected people to laugh.... and they didn't .... tumbleweed

That's why I didn't get the OP. Ringing a friend up to tell them good news and they have a go at you for hoovering their living room isn't a tumbleweed moment.

firsttimerose · 11/10/2014 03:23

At my Uncle's funeral, standing talking to his adopted daughter when her son came over and announced that he didn't like tea
Me - 'Well YOU aren't a Mooncup then!

I really wouldn't know what to say to that either because I genuinely don't understand what you mean.

I'm not a mooncup user though.

darksideofthemooncup · 11/10/2014 03:31

No neither am I! I was using my MN name in place of my real surname so as not to out myself

darksideofthemooncup · 11/10/2014 03:32

darksideofthemooncup · 11/10/2014 03:43

To clarify, we Mooncups are known to be partial to tea so me declaring to my adopted Cousin's son that he can't be a Mooncup because of his dislike of tea was met with an embarrassed silence - a tumbleweed moment.
I did not do this deliberately, it was meant to be a joke as I momentarily forgot that he is not genetically related to us Mooncups*.

*not our real name

BernardlookImaprostituterobotf · 11/10/2014 04:04

I got exactly what you meant Mooncup.
And it's excruciating because it gets you coming and going as you only said it because he is very much a Mooncup family member and there is no distinction whatsoever in your head. Unfortunately to everyone else who has that beat of a pause to digest it...

Not that I can completely empathise after having done something similar by trotting out an old family line in exactly the wrong situation...not me.

Gennz · 11/10/2014 04:05

First job out of university at a govt department, Christmas party. We shared our offices and Christmas party with another small govt department. I was wearing a dress by a local designer.

CEO of neighbouring dept walks in with much younger woman, we start chatting.

Him: That's an [XYZ designer] dress isn't it?
Me: Yes it is, gosh you're clued up about fashion!
Him: Oh I got the same dress in red for my girl for her birthday.
Me: How nice! I wish my dad gave me [XYZ designer] gear!!

Needless to say, his "girl" was his partner not his fecking daughter

darksideofthemooncup · 11/10/2014 04:20

Thank you Bernard (you can call me Darkside ;D )

chipshop · 11/10/2014 14:19

Me, hiding in the toilets at work to call DP: Guess what! I've just been offered a job in your city out of the blue! (after 3 years long distance relationship) It's my dream job! I'm getting a massive payrise! We can be a normal couple! Wooooooop!

DP: Oh.

Amazingly, we're still together.

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