AIBU to find it weird when adult friend acts like a baby?

[Puzzled47]

I will preface this to say this is one of my oldest friends and I love her to bits, she is kind, thoughtful, we have great fun etc.

However, she has a habit of acting like a baby a lot of the time and it genuinely baffles me! She's always done it to some extent but I'm sure she's got worse in the last year or so. We are both early 30s btw.

Examples include:
Regularly talking in an actual baby voice (no human under the age of 30 around) and using phrases like "would you like some more winey winey?"
Calls her parents mumma and dadda, never mum and dad etc
Refers to a shower as a "joosh joosh" (wtf?!)
Calls her husband all sorts of really cringy pet names (in public) in a baby voice like "sausage boo" and "bubba".
She sometimes physically acts quite childlike too, it's hard to explain but things like holding a mug of tea, or a glass of water, she holds it with both hands and tips it up to sip with her arms tucked tight to her body (she has no physical disability before anyone suggests that).

It's odd as she is physically extremely petite and quite underweight and has mentioned before how she feels insecure at not having a womanly figure. So I find it odd that she chooses to act like a child if this is one of her insecurities?

Maybe I'm just a massive bitch but this is weird behaviour for a grown adult right?

YABU - this is perfectly normal, I wouldn't bat an eyelid at this behaviour
YANBU - no, weird

Mmm yes this is odd and sounds very annoying. The older I get the more people baffle me, however I accept that surely in turn I must baffle them. If she’s a great friend then I don’t see the issue if I’m honest. We all put up with one another on the end and I hate to say it but you probably annoy her too.

It makes women feel precious and special and vulnerable (I’m guessing here) it’s attention seeking. It’s weird.

I once had a boyfriend who did this. Particularly weird as I was mid twenties, he was late thirties. So fucking weird. Also used to refer to himself in the third person (shudder). Needless to say he didn’t last long! Personally I wouldn’t be able to cope with this woman’s company, but each to their own!

YANBU, it is weird.
Hilarious to read though!!🤣

sounds like her physical demeanour is something thats always been something she's got attention for, being treated like china so she acts on it as she likes that attention. Shame really but if she's not hurting you then move on. If you cant ignore it either talk to her nicely about why she acts like it or distance yourself x

This is weird. I tell my 8 year old daughter off when she starts telling a story with a baby voice and infantile mannerisms!

@WeOnlyPlannedTheFirst

This is weird. I tell my 8 year old daughter off when she starts telling a story with a baby voice and infantile mannerisms!

Me too! I say "Use your own voice please" and she responds well to that.

Look up "agere" - seems to be an emerging thing. Adults building themselves playrooms, filling beds with "stuffies", using adult-sized sippy cups and decorated pacifiers. Taking turns being each others' "CG" (caregiver).

It looks as though most people use it as a comfort/coping mechanism for development issues - looks part fetish-y as well, seems to merge a lot with "furry" culture and making yourself up to look like a pet - fake ears/tails, wearing collars etc.

I find it sickeningly irritating, but to each their own!

I don’t know anyone who does this - perhaps I subconsciously filter such people out. It sounds so annoying and odd.

Reading this thread makes me think, aside from childhood abuse and/or trauma being a reason for doing it, perhaps it’s a neuro-diversity?

It’s so far aside the realms of normal social interaction - so cringe-y to people on the receiving end of it (other than life partners, of course) - that the people doing it can’t really be aware they’re even doing it.

Or, if they are aware and consciously doing it, they don’t have the neuro-typical social wherewithal to realise it’s not going to be well-received.

It's a long story and there's much more to it, but in a nutshell: I was hospitalised voluntary after I had had a breakdown due to work. Inside, I was talking with the psychologist how my personality changes and that I hear different people in my head. Hence a diagnosis.

Couldn't be doing with that

@Jinjen

It's a long story and there's much more to it, but in a nutshell: I was hospitalised voluntary after I had had a breakdown due to work. Inside, I was talking with the psychologist how my personality changes and that I hear different people in my head. Hence a diagnosis.

Thanks for explaining. Sounds extremely harrowing 🌸

@FullThrottle

That is so interesting. What an ordeal, I’m so sorry. And well done for reporting malpractice and getting treatment. What became of the so called Dr in the end?

It’s so odd how an individual's diagnosis my not be fully explained to the person themselves, whereas in other countries your medical reports are not even given to your own GP without your express consent.
It’s infantilising patients. Although I suppose looked at on the whole, it’s an efficient system.

Thanks FullThrottle

What happened to the dr is that he was convicted, granted permanent name suppression and allowed to continue practising. He now heads a big drug trial company.

I agree that it is strange that my diagnoses were not discussed with me originally but things do seem to have changed now and I informed about every tiny record and have to sign that I've seen it and understand it.

Awfully artificial and put on, isn"t it? It would get on my nerves. I know someone who puts on an act in a similar way (but doesn't do babyish things). It's a way for forming a barrier. If people play along they get past the barrier to thr next one. I honestly find it a little controlling and manipulative. We all put fronts on to some degree in certain situations, but some people take it to the nth degree.

If it’s making you cringe, I’d say this friendship has not got a future. Cringing is a strong physical and emotional reaction to something that you personally find very distasteful. Why would you continually put yourself through that?

@ForwardRanger, so he basically got away with it. Wow.

I hope you have made your peace with this and are enjoying your life. Hug.

Oh god, I despise women like this who speak in a simpering girly voice. It just grates on me so much. I feel like shouting at them to speak normally. It’s even worse when coupled with an American accent.

😂

What's wrong with holding mugs with both hands? I almost always use both hands to drink hot drinks - partly because the best thing about hot drinks is warming my hands and partly to reduce the risk of spilling scalding liquid down myself. (I will grant that it would be a bit odd to hold a wine glass with two hands!)

Nothing...except her friend does it a ‘baby’ like way.

Is she doing it to be comical? She might see those words and the voice as her funny quirks and assume everyone thinks it's amusing. YANU for finding it intensely irritating.

*YANBU for finding it intensely irritating

YANBU, and it's one of the things I hate about places like Tumblr - so many people on there talking like they're five. It's not cute, it's obnoxious and it grates like nails on a blackboard.