AIBU to think some posters on here lie?

[mystar]

This leads on from the drinking thread. Yes, when my daughter was a baby I barely drank but she’s now 12 so I don’t think twice about smashing a bottle of wine on a Friday or Saturday night.

Obviously if she was ill it would be a different story.

When she was at junior school her pack up regularly included Pom bears or the the Aldi equivalent. And, every now and again we have dinner which consists of freezer tapas or a beige platter (chips/goujons etc). We even sometimes have said platter in front of the tv.

I also swear inadvertently in front of her and I don’t use my recycling bins properly.

Sometimes when I read things on here I think I must be the worst mother in the world. AIBU to think I am normal? Are there others out there like me?

No, the above example is someone I know IRL who has a selective memory and thinks they are god's gift . I'm sure if such people exist out there in the world, similar ones may also exist here.

over 50% of all of mn is bs. aibu, relationships, the whole lot.
then there are the replies.
mn is just a bit of mindless fun.

There is a helluva lot of serious concern and support and very real help on here despite the vast amounts of bollox

It's a mixture.

• Some posters lie to rile people up
• Some start with the truth but end up lying/exaggerating to defend themselves
• Some are lying to themselves
• Some are telling the truth but they may be an outlier. A thread isn't always a fair sample. For example, if 100 people post on the alcohol thread that they don't drink, that seems like a lot - but really it's only 100 out of hundreds of thousands of posts.

Smotheroffive has nailed it.

I've been bit about the pureytitty levels on so many posts. Sooo don't believe the ones who never ever drink in charge of a child. But is that projection on my part?

OTOH I have only lied when making half-arsed attempts to cover my tracks, e.g. DD instead of DS. And then forgetting it.:o

Some threads like that one lend themselves to misunderstanding. A few people posted in the alcohol thread that they don't drink in charge of children - then three pages later clarified it's mainly because they don't drink anyway.

I always lie about amount of DC, area I live etc unless it's specific to the post, then I name change.

I am teetotal though with no history of alcohol problems and I have three degrees, so...

I genuinely don't know anyone who uses MN in real life ( though I'm sure someone somewhere does! ) and I don't post anything that I would consider too controversial or be unable to say to a friend and always tend to stick to the proper details i.e. Dc's ages, our location etc.

I love the fact that this is my safe place to come, I have several health conditions which people don't always understand, I'm so far removed from the typical MN demographic it's laughable but I feel I can be myself here. I smoke, don't really drink, buy Pom bears, wash the bedding and towels far too often ( thanks OCD ) and speak to my neighbours.
I do smile whenever MNHQ post the usual disclaimer on threads about giving more than you can afford financially or emotionally as some threads are obviously begging ones which makes me angry as I hate seeing people being taken advantage of. Luckily most MNers are savvy enough to see through them.

I change the odd identifying detail.

It's the competitive undereaters that get me. I always think if they actually are like that, after a year or two they'd be dead.

I wouldn’t class it as lying but sometimes I give advice that I haven’t dared take myself

I would take drink and food claims with a pinch of salt, wasn't there a survey on how much people drink and it came to half of what is actually sold off the shelves.
Something like that.
And booze and sugary foods are addictive so for some will definitely be a battle they are in denial about.Cigs are the same, I always claimed to others that I smoked less than I did. Partly due to the waste of money.

I always think that about the people who say they clean holiday rentals to within an inch of their lives before they go home. "I always strip the beds, put the sheets in on a hot wash, scrub the bathrooms from ceiling to floor, take out rubbish and disinfect all the bins, wash the curtains, beat all the rugs, dust and polish every surface and steam clean all the floors. I couldn't leave unless I had wiped all the skirting boards with a damp cloth, descaled the kettle, washed all the cushion covers and dusted all the light bulbs".

Surely most people just leave it tidy.

I'm sure people do lie for reasons that Butteredghost wrote. Not sure the extend of it on MN though.

Drinking wise I do know people who don't or drink very little, and those that drink shed loads. Same with food: I know people who eat very little and are very neurotic about eating, then again I know people who eat a huge amount and lie about it (deny it I suppose it more accurate - "ive eaten nothing all day" to someone other than me when I've been with them and see what they've eaten).

Money wise there's the badly off but with ten grand in the bank ones, intermingling with those with less than a tenner, claiming to be the same. Those with five maxed out credit cards who claim fabulous lifestyles

I'm sure there's many married to and utterly in love wonderfully caring man their soul mate whose a amazing dad, when he's a genuinely prized knob.

Do recall on another site a poster was infamous for how fabulous her marriage was and perfect kids, and the day she revealed they had sex zillions a times daily. I discovered I knew someone who knew her in real life, and turned out to be so controlling he had been telling her what to write. (She'd left him by then.)

It occurs in real life too. Probably more on here as there's less chance of being unearthed as a fraud. Weird though.

Of course people lie! It's easy to do on an Internet forum.
The lunchbox ones blow my mind: my DS eats a sandwich (with 2 pieces of bread not 1 like the average mumsnet kid!) a banana , a couple of strawberries and a fromage frais. All hell would breaketh loose if I provided oat cakes and hummus.

The how much you spend on a holiday ones are excellent too. '15k per year but I never get my nails done, I prefer travel'

The lunchbox ones blow my mind: my DS eats a sandwich (with 2 pieces of bread not 1 like the average mumsnet kid!) a banana , a couple of strawberries and a fromage frais. All hell would breaketh loose if I provided oat cakes and hummus.

Competitive minimal eating threads are very funny. You ate a whole kitkat?!? I managed half of one once, and couldn't move for a week.

People invent all sorts of stuff

And want to present their best side in public

And of course MN is big enough that - whatever the issue - there will be someone whose pet issue it is. And who really does what they say.

You can't post expecting universal approval, or to have lots of people saying they're just like you. And it doesn't mean that everyone who isn't like you is lying.

We all find people who are like us in RL. It's one of the reasons that I like MN - I hear from people who are not like me, who do things differently (who have clean houses, no loo brush and wear brown shoes in a city). I think it's a good thing.

I agree there appears to be a huge number of unbelievable stories on mumsnet. The biggest half truths are on aibu, anything diet or drink related and the education boards.

Competitive minimal eating threads are very funny. You ate a whole kitkat?!? I managed half of one once, and couldn't move for a week.

the same ones who have no breakfast, a cup a soup for lunch and a carb free vegan dinner the size of their fist and claim to be 'stuffed'. Can't be true in many cases!

But you forget that they alway have a 'massive' salad

The one I like is the masses of MNers' children who are 'top of their class'. The evidently completely unironic use of a phrase that to me, in terms of educational culture, belongs in the mid-twentieth century. Varients are 'flying academically' and 'acing' every test.

Oh, silly me, the salads are 'huge'

Do you buy 'naice' ham though???

It's the sausages that kill me (literally, I could eat about 12 of the buggers!). She always has just the one sausage, He always has two because he does a manual job and he's twice her size. The children share one. Yeah whatever.

Do people really shower multiple times per day? And am I really “vile” and “unhygienic” because I don’t?!

I find those ones particularly hard to believe but I’m assuming there’s must be an element of truth considering multiple posters claim to (I’d be a dried out prune and what a waste of water too!)

I think people are often lying to themselves. They think something about themselves and their family and it’s slightly true but not really the whole story and then they run with it like it’s the central foundation of of their family.