... to think MNers are a strange bunch?

[user1457213512]

Aibu to think that Mumsnet can't be representative of real life, can it?!

A lot of people on here just seem so, I don't know, just... odd. Bizarre. Strange. A lot of people on here just seem to have really outlandish odd opinions that I'm just not sure if I'd ever hear someone have in real life. Posters just seem to pick up on the most unusual things from posts i.e. A poster posts about how they didn't get a house they bid on, and then another poster chimes in saying how they're even lucky to have 5p in savings etc etc (I'm rubbish at examples).

So yes, aibu to think that some (not all) mumsnetters are crazy aliens who I have no idea how they function in the real world?

Ps I like mumsnet and it provides me with a lot of entertainment. The strangeness does not make me want to leave.

Yes, and I have never ever ever come across anyone in RL who doesn't answer the door! That's neighbours, friends, acquaintances, random people - everyone who has ever passed through my life answers the door. I've also never heard anyone say the doorbell ringing annoys them. It is definitely a MN thing!

I'm very glad I answered the door on Friday. A lovely bouquet of flowers for me (have been helping a friend out) that I just would not have got if I'd ignored the doorbell!

Great thread.

I am surprised that anyone is still alive to post here, what with the extreme reluctance to go to the GP, A+E, Walk in, call 999 etc. I am sorry, but I laugh when I read threads asking should I or not do this!

I am often surprised also at the amount of threads where someone is asking advice. No I have no family, friends or supports here at all. WTF. Is that normal. Seems to happen a lot.

And I don't want to know that you have name changed or are placemarking either thank you.

But it's a mad place and passes an hour or two on a boring afternoon. The thread about the neighbour who knocked out the listed window and installed doors into the neighbour's garden was hilarious. For a while anyway.

It is a place where politics and the like can be discussed alongside mad things.

I love it.

I now and again used to go onto Gransnet but got fed up because you can't have a gripe about your mother or OH without someone coming on to tell you they would love to be able to moan about them but can't, because they're DEAD.

I think I'm reasonably competent in most areas of life, fairly normal, but adore MN because it's so varied. Everyone feels free to express opinions, often strong ones, and sometimes it changes my views.

I find the compulsion to ask daft questions to a bunch of strangers interesting, e.g. should I go to this party or should I go to the GP type things, how did anyone make a decision pre-MN? Next it will be should I go to the loo now or wait or should I set my alarm for 7.15 or 7.30? I am guilty btw of asking similar stupid questions.

Oh glitter you're so funny.I was laughing so much reading your posts.
Like another poster said 'are you comedienne'

I've only been reading mumsnet for a few months and when I came to read this thread earlier I was laughing and agreeing with the familiar posts and acronyms etc.

People saying. LTB because he didn't wash the dishes,or a narc for leaving the toilet seat up, or he's having an affair being the answer because he came home from work late for the first time in 9 years.

Brilliant thread.

@rosietosey I am surprised that anyone is still alive to post here, what with the extreme reluctance to go to the GP, A+E, Walk in, call 999 etc. I am sorry, but I laugh when I read threads asking should I or not do this!

And the people who post asking what they should buy from Aldi or Lidl, like they are some portal to a mystical otherworldly realm of magic, not just another supermarket.

Food. You buy food at them.

and shit from the middle aisle

And baby names. " Can't decide between Claire or Sarah , which one do you prefer?" Followed by a mass of posts ,some liking Claire , some liking Sarah but mostly " What about Princess Honeybottom ? ", " Hate both , have you considered something more classical like Corinthia ?", " my Dd is called Evergreen " ?!?! It was quite a simple question - didn't ask for alternatives , the names of your children etc but everybody acts like the OP hadn't already considered other names before narrowing it down to the ones mentioned.

A Swedish car 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

@BabychamSocialist Cut off time:

ten o' clock cut off time
No it's 10.30
No..it's ten o' clock cut off time

Ha ha ha, Brilliant!!!!! Ofthread

i've had and posted on a couple of funny threads. One i got an absolute roasting on because i wanted to donate some old but decent clothes to people locally.

Another posting to someone who'd had some news at their 20 week scan. I'd had similar and was trying to give my experiemce without going too in depth and some other poster kept saying everything was fine when i was trying to say i would get more info. I reported myself to mn for that one - they sided with me.

Having said that, i've had some bloody brilliant advice and support too so it's not all 'odd'

This place is batshit at the moment. Never mind odd. It's a relief to find the silly locked in a house thread.

I never thought I would get so sick of the word 'hobby'. NOBODY says, IRL, 'Oh, Nigel's doing his hobby tonight'. Just say what it bloody well is, it doesn't need to be too specific if you're so afraid of being outed 'DH does martial arts', 'plays a sport', 'is a member of a secret society of flat-earth cultists' (ok, that one may be a little specific).

I've been getting a little bit put off by the (for want of a better word) cheerleading on threads where an OP suspects her DH/DP of cheating. I dunno, there's offering support which is great, but some of the threads seem to take on a life of their own and posters get over-invested. Then, all the demands for updates and 'are you ok, fenella123, I am so worried I can't sleep for thinking about you!' posts look more like they are revelling in someone else's misfortune. It leaves a bit of a bad taste, if I'm honest.

I agree PenguinOfDoom - it's all very over-invested. Lots of "oh OP, I'm just sobbing for you here..." - seriously, you're sobbing over a stranger on the internet?

Get a life. The only posters I genuinely think about (think about, not cry over) are those battling illnesses, dealing with bereavements etc, and that's in a "I hope they're ok" way, not in a hand wringing desperate way.

But I do think there are some people who use mumsnet as an extension of their social life and get heavily involved, rather than me who delves into it on a daily basis, reads the threads, mocks people silently but rarely starts threads.

I agree with you dustarr re: weird reverence shown to some posters. It comes across as slightly cliquish.
I love the support and great advice given but hate the nastier side. One "lovely" poster decided to swear at me after I made the mistake of skim reading a thread. There's ways of putting things...

Update:
Oh my goodness, honestly, anyone would think I was making this up, although obviously I'm not, because this is mumsnet!
Made our way home from the restaurant in Terry's van. Terry's mum wasn't very happy as Terry suggested we split the bill 3 ways, and she was upset at having to pay her £16 share. She said she could feed a family of 35 for 7 weeks on that if she'd gone to Aldi.
We approached the road leading on to our estate and there was one hell of a commotion. Ex husbands girlfriend of 2 days had turned up to pick my kids up, only to find them unattended. (It turns out she thought having tiny elderly Korean lady at the bottom of the garden is NOT the same as being in the next room as them!) So she went on mumsnet for advice, which explained why social services, the police, fire brigade, ambulance, Greenpeace and the RSPCA were all now parked outside my house. Quick thinking Terry backed his van up the road a bit and parked in someone else's drive, (it was nearly school run time, so whoever owned the drive would just think it was one of those brass neck school run mums). We made the rest of the way to my house on foot, only to find elderly Korean lady signing autographs for all the emergency serices in the garden! Well nearly all of them. I found a woman from the fire service going through my kitchen cupboards. She was getting out packets of crisps and my secret stash of jaffa cakes and chucking them in a black bin bag, (I have to sneakily eat the jaffa cakes in the utility room, so I don't have to share them with my 3 year old). I asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. Turns out she's one of those reserve firefighter people, so it's not her proper day job. In real life she is actually a dinner lady!
Retrieved junk food from bin bag and told dinner lady to f off before I shoved her face in one of the schools chocolate sponge puddings, (as any good mumsnetter would). Terrys mum offered to wipe the whole lot down with zoflora before putting it back in the cupboards as we were 'practically related now'. I said "Don't you have a daughter of your own?" She said she did, called Kerry, but Kerry had to go NC for her own sanity as when she had her first child, Terrys mum brought a toy for her every single time she visited!!!! and, get this, the toys were NOT Gender Neutral!!!
Finally managed to usher everyone out of the house and garden, except Terrys mum, who asked if she could borrow my laptop. The days events had left her feeling a bit wobbly, and she was a bit too skint to visit the chemist after our extortionate restaurant bill, so she just wanted to log on to mumsnet to see if she was pregnant.

Thanks to those who have made nice comments. No I'm not funny in real life!! I am very quiet and spend far too much time mumsnetting.

Glittermakeseverythingbetter....I love reading your posts they really make me laugh...I mean proper almost crying laugh...I just read one out to my husband and he agrees with me....you should write comedy sit coms you are that good...really refreshing to read...keep on doing it I am sure you cheer lots of mumsnetters....

Ah that's really kind user149 xx

Terrys mum closed the laptop. "Well, the majority of mumsnetters said it was unlikely I'd be pregnant, due to me being 68, but maybe I could call NHS direct, just to be on the safe side, or I could make an appointment with my GP. One cheeky mare said I was being unreasonable, even though I hadn't even posted it on AIBU!! I posted in Chat (for traffic). Blimey, who'd be mad enough to post on AIBU?! If I wanted to be insulted I really would ring up and try and make an appointment with my GP!"

Just then the doorbell rang. I got up to see who it was.
"No! Don't answer it! We're not expecting anyone!!" cried Terrys mum.

"It might be Terry getting his van back from the school run parking space". I said.

"No, it won't be Terry love, I gave him your key. I said he might as well pop and get one cut for me while he's out. Besides, he'll be ages getting out of that drive at this time of day. Have you seen how some of those mums park? Some of them only live round the corner, the lazy so and so's.

By the way, when I was rooting through your handbag and the rest of your personal belongings I couldn't help noticing that sprout was still in there!

"What if it's the postman?" I asked.

"Ooh, I don't take in parcels for the neighbours anymore, not since I took in a huge parcel for next door, only to find they'd gone on holiday. Tripping over the damn thing for weeks I was, as it was too heavy to lift out of the way. Never again!

When they finally came to collect it, I asked them what it was. It was one of those flipping mahoosive mugs from Sports Direct!
Anyway, next time the postman asked me to take in a parcel for them I just quoted that old mumsnet classic - 'No is a complete sentence' , and then I slammed the door in his face".

YANBU!

Just then, a face appeared at the window. Terrys mum dived behind the sofa. It was DLL.

"OMG I bet she wants you to move your car!" whispered Terrys mum. I decided to join Terrys mum behind the sofa, in case she did. I couldn't bear confrontation without a carefully worded typed out email, written for me by a mumsnetter, first.

"Why does she spend so much time with that woman across the road anyway? All the time I've spent at Terrys and I've never once seen her!"

"She keeps herself to herself these days. Only comes out in the dead of night". I explained.

"Why's that? Ooh, tell us the juicy gossip! Does she sneak across wearing dark clothing and a balaclava and put her rubbish in your wheely bin??"

"No, not exactly". I explained.

"Rumour has it, she used to be quite a well respected and active member of the mumsnet community. She used to comment on a wide variety of interesting topics, such as 'how often do you change your bedding?' and 'what are you having for dinner?' (which caused panic amongst certain mumsnetters who realised they'd had gammon and chips 4 nights in a row and couldn't possibly put that, even if they had proudly cooked them from scratch, and it hadn't ever occurred to them that they were supposed to change their sheets more than once every six months or so. The Marie kondo experts must have missed that bit out of their thread. Maybe they threw their sheets out).
Until, one fateful night, on a fascinating thread about the use of slate tiles in home decoration, she carelessly let slip that she had cream coloured carpets in her house.
All hell broke loose. A group of vigilante mumsnetters arrived outside her house, wearing wolf fleeces and muddy hiking boots, itching to trample all over her cream carpets just to prove how bloody selfish and irresponsible she was, wanting a nice looking house when she was a mother with kids".

"Luckily the ringleader got arrested before they managed to break the door down. It was in the summer of 2016. Do you remember that really hot summer we had? 23rd of May I think it was. 10.49 in the morning, the sun came out from behind a cloud for a good 6 hours, causing the vigilante mumsnetters flocking in their droves to the chat section to complain about the heat and say how much they were really looking forward to Autumn when their wolf fleeces would be back in fashion. They had all decided to put their shorts on for the cream carpet demonstration rally, apart from the mums who frequented the style and beauty threads. They were still braving it out in their long sleeved breton tops and something floaty and expensive from the white company. One poor sod had volunteered herself for the 'no spend 2016 thread' and was down to a pair of holey tights and a shrunken t-shirt from Primark.
The ringleader got so hot, she took her wolf fleece off and was promptly arrested for indecent exposure!"

"Ooh was she naked underneath?" asked Terrys mum.

"No. She was wearing a pair of black see through leggings with a short top".