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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

... to think MNers are a strange bunch?

309 replies

user1457213512 · 04/08/2017 21:13

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.

OP posts:
HighAlert · 04/08/2017 23:16

I avoid the Whats for dinner threads. All that fancy food makes me feel inadequate.

VanillaSugar · 04/08/2017 23:16

I don't understand the OP. I think we
Need a diagram.

Itsnotwhatitseems · 04/08/2017 23:17

I found myself looking at people today, mainly in the supermarket, and mainly women. I was wondering if they were likely to be a mumsnetter but decided no on every count.

MissKittyCat · 04/08/2017 23:23

People are always shocked that houses cost varying amounts in diffferent parts of the country. So someone posts a Rightmove link to the average 3 bed semi they are selling asking for advice as to why it might have not sold. They then got a load of replies of "that is so cheap - you wouldn't get a bed sit for that where I live" and "that is expensive - you could get a stately home for that here".

poweredbybread · 04/08/2017 23:25

DonaldStott GrinBloody marvellous and so true!

BarbaraofSeville · 04/08/2017 23:26

Disgusting. I get up at 3am to change the bedding and put straight in the wash

You may jest NinaMarie but I was shocked on a recent thread where a poster suffered from menopausal night sweats and her 'D'H had insisted that she get up and have a shower at 5 am and I was expecting the consensus to be that he was unreasonable, abusive, unsympathetic etc, but no, the majority actually went on about how disgusting it was to sleep next to a sweaty person and that she should have got up to shower before being asked anyway Shock.

The inconsistencies would be amusing if they weren't so ridiculous. It's crass and boasty to mention the sort of thing that many people can afford even if they have to save for a year or two such as a foreign holiday or a 5 year old car without a grovelling apology, but no-one ever calls anyone on, and no-one is ever humbly apologetic about being able to afford to own a family house in a nice and expensive area of the south east or even in London even though in reality you are looking at £500k+ or even more and thus eternally unaffordable to 90%+ of the population.

And YY to the ridiculous risk adverseness - 'AIBU to run to the post box across the road while infant DS is asleep alone in the house' where the majority will reply that the OP is unreasonable because she will get run over and the baby will either wake alone and be traumatised for life or starve to death before he is found or the house will burn down in the 30 seconds that she is gone. Because if the OP is to be run over while carrying out a simple quick errand, it is much better that the baby dies in the expected accident too.

ChickenVindaloo2 · 04/08/2017 23:27

I agree with being astounded at how little people on here (allegedly) spend on their weekly food/grocery shop. "Oh yes, £30 per week for a family of 6 - we just buy 6 giant bags of lentils and a small onion and that does all our meals all week: lentil soup, lentil curry, lentil dhaal, lentil stew, lentil burgers..."

I can spend £70 a week on food shopping just for me. Just from Lidl, not even Waitrose.

Strokethefurrywall · 04/08/2017 23:27

There's no need to feel inadequate HighAlert, my response to "whats for dinner" threads is 9/10 times "leftovers".

Also, when people write wanky stuff like "I'm making a deconstructed fromage tray with wild apricot chutney and artisanal bread", it means they're eating a cheese sandwich. Just say fucking cheese sandwich. Anything else makes you look like a pretentious wanker.

CockacidalManiac · 04/08/2017 23:28

The famous MN chicken that will last a family for a week.

GeillisTheWitch · 04/08/2017 23:28

My favorite chuckle of this week was on the "what does your 3 year old eat?" thread

Mine was the statement by a batshit poster that letting your DD wear a JoJo bow is setting them up to fail in life and fall pregnant by 15. So long as we're not overreacting to a bit of ribbon on a hair clip, eh....Grin

poweredbybread · 04/08/2017 23:29

I am also amazed at the amount of people who suggest ASD as a cause for everything and I have an ASD son but the other two are definitely not ASD so would just laugh if someone said have you considered they might be autistic !!!

Hobbes8 · 04/08/2017 23:29

The bit I find weird is the monologing. Someone will post about a tricky situation with a neighbour or school gate acquaintance and will get advice to give some sort of speech along the lines of "I simply feel that you and I have different views about our fence boundary/playdate diet/soft play etiquette and whilst I recognise that you feel that I have impinged upon you I really must insist that blah blah"

Who talks like this?

HighAlert · 04/08/2017 23:30

I posted the other day we had fish fingers,chips and peas and could hear the sharp intake of breath Grin

poweredbybread · 04/08/2017 23:30

This reply has been deleted

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Strokethefurrywall · 04/08/2017 23:30

I mean general 'you', not you personally HighAlert - just in case my frustration wasn't clear!

ChickenVindaloo2 · 04/08/2017 23:31

Cos I eat like a normal person, not a thrifty mumsnetter ie:
Steak/Chicken/Fish/Burgers/Chicken/Steak/Fish crafty takeaway steak/chicken...etc

Lexieblue · 04/08/2017 23:32

It can get a bit caustic on mn at times, certain topics are almost guaranteed to get you torn to shreds, step parents are all considered malign and wicked by some regardless of anything, if your husband so much as changes his breathing pattern or farts he is having an affair, benefits threads will almost always play out with as many handbags drawn as the Jeremy Kyle show and if you're not one of the "in" crowd your opinion will either be dismantled by a mass of pearl clutchers, twisted into something you can be yelled at for or ignored completely.

And if you have the bare faced audacity to ask a question that isn't deemed worthy of asking, the very reality of your existence will be questioned and post reported until MN pull the thread to investigate.

Thems the rules Wink

echt · 04/08/2017 23:33

Snurk at vanilla's diagram request.:o

I don't think that MNers are weird, much of the outspokenness is likely to be the anonymity effect, just being frank in a way that they might not in public, which has its upsides as well downs. Who hasn't wanted to say ODFOD in RL?

Cue poster to tell me not to project my own wishes onto others.Smile

sweetkitty · 04/08/2017 23:33

I remember posting about my emotionally abusive horror of a mother coming to visit (this was year ago I've been NC for 8 years) to be told "at least you've got a mother" Confused

Strokethefurrywall · 04/08/2017 23:33

I posted the other day we had fish fingers,chips and peas and could hear the sharp intake of breath

Had you said you had hand breaded fish goujons, hand cut potato wedges and minted peas, there would have been no intake of breath... remember that for next time Grin

Gwenhwyfar · 04/08/2017 23:34

"I think it's overwhelmingly representative of a certain variety of lower-middle-class Englishness (and yes, granted that other nationalities and social classes do also use the forum, but that's what predominates for me)."

As a lower-middle class Welsh person, I have to disagree. It's completely skewed towards the upper middle class. While there are people struggling financially on MN, most are much better off than the average.
They also seem to be much less friendly in real life than people I know. Almost anything that is said to them is 'rude', any question other than about the weather is 'too personal'. Anyone using their toilet is an imposition. Lots of very precious, quite sheltered people.

There was one thread about a teenage girl getting a bus on her own at 4pm where one MN said that as an adult she would be afraid to get the bus at 4pm. There have been others where people have said they would refuse to go to certain parts of their city (even in the day time!). Some of them remind me of Catherine Tate's posh mother sketch.

echt · 04/08/2017 23:34

Sheesh, sweetkitty, that kind of response you can do without. Thanks

HighAlert · 04/08/2017 23:35

A thread was pulled tonight because some posters objected to a phrase the OP used. Shame really.it had potential to be a funny thread.

CockacidalManiac · 04/08/2017 23:37

I remember posting about my emotionally abusive horror of a mother coming to visit (this was year ago I've been NC for 8 years) to be told "at least you've got a mother"

Lots of that about; you can be pretty much guarantee the 'treasure then while you've got them' poster on any thread about terrible parents.

Strokethefurrywall · 04/08/2017 23:37

GeillisTheWitch what in the holy hell is a jojo bow? I don't live in the UK so I miss out on all the kid corrupting crap...