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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Rude/tactless things people have said.

202 replies

Belledan1 · 31/10/2021 09:27

I know we all love a CF thread. Chatting to a fellow commuter waiting for the bus to go to work. Not seen each other since beginning lockdown. Dont even know name. I mentioned I liked her hair totally different to before and I said was having mine coloured/cut in 3 weeks, planned it so done for a night out so holding out. She said to me, I wldnt wait that long looks like needs a really good cut, it's very dry. It probably does but you wldnt say that to a person you hardly know. I have very fine menopausal hair and conscious of it anyway.

OP posts:
LouLou789 · 31/10/2021 16:22

Been taken for the mother of two different friends, both only 8 years younger than me.

When I had no hair during chemo, summoned up the energy to go for a quick drink. Old woman on the next table stared at me and said loudly to her companion, “My neighbour had HER head shaved when she had ringworm!”

On getting cancer diagnosis, a neighbour said to me, “I’m glad it’s you that’s got it as of all the people I know, you’re the one who can bear it best”. Thanks.

number87inthequeue · 31/10/2021 16:23

My old boss once gave me a telling off for approving some flexible working for a junior colleague so that she could go to medical appointments for her DS, who was in the process of being diagnosed with autism. He told me I was setting a dangerous precedent and asked why I thought he would allow it (not that I actually needed his permission). I told him that I knew he understood how difficult it was for parents of children with medical needs (he had recently taken lots of time off whilst his newly diagnosed diabetic daughter was getting her condition under control) so assumed he would not have a problem with this. His response? His DD had a proper medical condition that she was born with, colleague's DS was just 'a bit odd' and 'encouraging him will only make it worse'. Twat.

CaputApriDefero · 31/10/2021 16:24

When I was pregnant with my third and we were past 12 weeks, we started telling people. At my kids school, one of the parents said "oh you silly bitch, what have you done that for?? You had the perfect set up, and you've gone and ruined it!"

I had a girl and a boy already

Nannewnannew · 31/10/2021 16:43

A male colleague was looking at another female colleague who was also my friend, and said “ you always see that, where a pretty girl ( my friend) has an ugly friend( me). 😪

WomanStanleyWoman · 31/10/2021 16:46

@Toddlerteaplease

When I was diagnosed with MS I had loads of people say "my cousins, daughters, wife's ex had MS and she died/ is bedbond/ in a wheelchair. Not really what I wanted to hear!
When my dad was diagnosed, I told one of my friends about it and she started asking if it meant he’d end up in a wheelchair. I said I didn’t know. She said ‘Ooh, do you want to ask Ruth? I can ask, she wouldn’t mind’.

Ruth was her sister - a second year medical student. Apparently she would be able to give a definitive answer; unlike the specialist who’d actually diagnosed it 🙄

REP22 · 31/10/2021 16:54

Someone once complimented my on my singing. A friend piped up and said "Yes, she has got a nice voice. But it's not really surprising - she's built like an opera singer."

Classy guy. Bless him all the way to Hades... Halloween Hmm

CarrieMoonbeams · 31/10/2021 17:02

Thank you so much @BlueFlavour, that's really kind of you.

I'm absolutely grand now though, despite (or maybe TO SPITE!) my upbringing. DH and I will celebrate 40 years together next month, he's brilliant. Such a kind, loving, nurturing man. We've filled our home with a variety of rescued animals and we're honourary grandparents to my friend's wee girl. It's a good life now.

Thank you again for your good wishes Flowers

muddyford · 31/10/2021 17:09

DH's cousin's wife gave me a brown gilet, with the comment, "You always wear sludge colours anyway." I do, but only when working or training my dogs!

Daddydog · 31/10/2021 17:10

On a company night out in my first job after Uni I was chatting to an Aussie lady from another team. She was like 'so you must be about 34-35 right?

I was 22. "Shit mate, you must have had a HARD life!"... Gee, Thanks.

BlueFlavour · 31/10/2021 17:17

That’s good to hear @CarrieMoonbeams Smile
And flowers to everybody who didn’t get the parents they deserved Flowers

Simonjt · 31/10/2021 17:24

One that I’m sure every parent through adoption has heard “wheres their real mum/dad?”

When my son was due to have his tonsils removed a colleague said “I know someone who had that done and she died” thanks for telling me that, really helped with the nerves and emotions involved when your little one has an operation.

merryhouse · 31/10/2021 17:25

I have two sons: one of my sisters has one daughter and two others have a son and daughter each. All within 6 academic years.

When they were youngish we were all at the park and after a minor incident requiring parental reminders my sister turned to me and with a rueful smile said

"I'm so glad I didn't have boys!"

In the interests of family harmony I am choosing to believe she had no idea how much I wanted a daughter....

notawittyname1954 · 31/10/2021 17:25

I had a friend who said I was lucky my dad died when I was 10 because I don't have to go through it like her in later life!

Also Samaritans came to the door and said oh we had a lovely chat with your son the other day, with big smiles. It was my husband and he's older than me. He thought it was wonderful. I was not happy

YummieMummyof3 · 31/10/2021 17:35

There was a big age gap with my youngest child. I was pushing the pram to my take older child to school. I was stopped outside the school by C.F. Who remarked I see you have squeezed out another one. More fool you as I am getting my life back.

LadyTiredWinterBottom2 · 31/10/2021 17:43

@Nannewnannew

A male colleague was looking at another female colleague who was also my friend, and said “ you always see that, where a pretty girl ( my friend) has an ugly friend( me). 😪
What the fuck. I am sure that's not true.

So many of these comments are about physical traits....!

Original poster
Belledan1 · 31/10/2021 17:45

Sorry for everyone who has had people being so rude to them . I had a school mom once asked me had I coped without a mom who died in my late teens. I just never answered her as what could I say.

OP posts:
Perrymenopausal · 31/10/2021 17:53

I had an older women ask me how far along I was. When I told her 6 months she went on to tell me she’d had a miscarriage at 6 months when she was about my age 😳

EishetChayil · 31/10/2021 17:54

When my beloved partner died a traumatic death relatively early on in our relationship, someone said to me "well at least you hadn't been together very long..." Yeah. At least I we didn't get to spend our lives together like we'd planned. Silver linings eh? Envy

Pieceofpurplesky · 31/10/2021 17:58

We used to pay in to a kitty at work, £5 a month so that if anything happened there was money for flowers/cards/gifts etc.

A colleague moaned that she had nothing out of it and 'purple got two payments this year'. One was when my house flooded with raw sewage due to a local council cock up and I lost everything - they kindly gave me an M&S voucher so I could but knickers! The second was for a miscarriage I suffered at 14 weeks ...

liveforsummer · 31/10/2021 18:06

@Pieceofpurplesky

We used to pay in to a kitty at work, £5 a month so that if anything happened there was money for flowers/cards/gifts etc.

A colleague moaned that she had nothing out of it and 'purple got two payments this year'. One was when my house flooded with raw sewage due to a local council cock up and I lost everything - they kindly gave me an M&S voucher so I could but knickers! The second was for a miscarriage I suffered at 14 weeks ...

Those things are really sad but this came up at my work recently. I earn minimum wage as a single parent and can barely afford to get by week to week. The idea of having to put money in to a kitty for flowers makes me feel a bit sick when my kids can't have the pack of grapes they asked for on the supermarket yesterday
Pieceofpurplesky · 31/10/2021 18:20

@liveforsummer this woman was the boss and on double our salary. We were in well paid jobs and you could opt out

Starbonnet123 · 31/10/2021 18:20

I was in hospital the Sunday morning I miscarried and was visited by the hospital chaplain ,to be told in a comforting manner that " it was gods will " that I'd lost my baby . It still angers me 33 years later .

BlowDryRat · 31/10/2021 18:27

I wasn't the wisest teenager and made some pretty daft decisions. Nothing criminal, just teenage idiocy. A fellow teenager at church gave a talk one Sunday and it was all about me and my colourful decisions. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life and I couldn't do anything but sit there. He has autism and thought I would be pleased 🤦‍♀️

upinaballoon · 31/10/2021 18:27

All the MPs who talk about 'hard-working families' as if there are no such things as hard-working divorced people, widowed people or never-married people, all of them getting up and going and doing a decent day's work and ignored off the face of the earth.

Tara336 · 31/10/2021 18:41

@Toddlerteaplease I have MS too, I’ve always said other people are harder to deal with then the MS.