To ask you to admit doing the annoying things people on MN complain about?

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For an anonymous internet forum, it continually strikes me as odd that people very rarely admit to engaging in the problematic or annoying behaviours complained about on here - it's always someone else doing it, apparently. Whether it's hogging the middle lane on the motorway, having kids who are out of control in public places, being a noisy neighbour or not picking up dog poo, people on MN constantly complain about these things happening around them but if no one on here admits to doing it, who are all these offenders? For example, several people in my neighbourhood are leaving their dog's poo around constantly, but when this is brought up on here every single dog owner loudly exclaims that it it's these dog owners who give them a bad name, that they never go out walking without carrying several bags for good measure! Same with bad driving - people on here love calling out driving pet peeves, but surely at least some people on here are engaging in those very same behaviours e.g. tailgating, driving too slowly or bad parking, that everyone complains about?

Are people on here just squeaky clean or in denial? I admit it, I do hog the middle lane sometimes, there you go 😬

Yeah, whatever.

For the avoidance of doubt, I would never sit next to another person on a double seat if there were other doubles with no one on them.
If the only available seats were next to someone else, I would sit in one of them.
The person jn the other half of it may be you. If you are a woman, the chances of it being you are higher. If you are a woman in a forward facing seat, higher still.
Not because I want to sit by you, but because I'd dislike it less than sitting by a man or facing backwards (train not bus)

Dear god, if you don't both stop you're not even allowed on the bus anymore

@FortunesFavour but why would you do that? Saying: "Yeah, whatever" is a dick move by people who can't explain.

Are you going to take my bus pass away from me? I don't think you are authorised.

No @limitedperiodonly, it’s an indication that I can’t be bothered to engage with you any more. It has been explained until we are blue in the face, but you’re either so very self absorbed that you’re not interested, or more likely you’re deliberately misunderstanding and baiting people to distract from your antisocial behaviour.

Like I said, whatever.

@FortunesFavour if I don't respond to your silly posts any more then you won't respond to mine. Is that a pact? You can indicate yes or no. I won't respond either way.

@Subnauctic

Black pepper or white pepper.
Buy a big can or package of ground pepper and sprinkle it all over where the offending cat poos in your garden. The pepper will get on its paws and will burn its mouth when it cleans itself. It’s harmless but it’s a very good deterrent.
Repeat as necessary, every two or three days or after rainfall.
(I know you didn’t ask but thought this might be helpful)

@limitedperiodonly no I'm going to steal all of the buses to end this debacle

@Sux2buthen I don't think you have a car park big enough to do that but if you did it would be such a shame.

I live and work in a really touristy bit of London and give tourists directions all the time.

I always encourage them to get on the bus rather than the tube because you can see where you're going as a cut price tour on your Oyster card.

Routes 2, 16 and 36 are good up past Hyde Park Corner and Park Lane to Paddington way. Route 24 is brilliant from Pimlico to Hampstead through Houses of Parliament, Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, Theatreland and Camden. Route 38 is great for a route through Piccadilly and Shaftesbury Avenue. Route 73 is good for Victoria to Kings Cross and the lovely Regents Canal - get of at Angel. No 8 is great for seeing all the sights in the City like St Pauls and the Bank of England. There are others. I do talk to people on public transport regardless of what some might think.

I don’t think I say please as often as some people on here would like. It wouldn’t seem natural in a tentative suggestion that someone might be able to help me such as ‘have you got any stamps?’
Sometimes adding ‘please’ suggests the question is a formality rather than a genuine request that can easily be turned down with no hard feelings. I would say please to a person paid to help me but after that it gets more complicated.

😂

Especially if it's an aisle seat the bag is on. I never sit in windows, I feel trapped, so if the only seats free are window seats that's tough shit for the bag

Well I don’t drive so I can’t confess to hogging the middle lane but on occasion my youngest child in particular has been out of control when he was small while I have battled often unsuccessfully, to deal with him. Running around, removing his clothing, screaming at the top of his lungs etc. Disclaimer: he does have ASD and ADHD which plays a part.

Lets see, what else? We have a loo brush which is apparently a massive faux pas on here. When someone’s at the door I answer it, which is also apparently a no-no on MN. I fully believe that everyone, no matter how old, should have their birthday acknowledged. I call people hun.

@NippyWoowoo I don't really like sitting in the window seat either. I don't feel trapped but just prefer the aisle. So if you got there after me and asked me to move my bag so you could sit of course I would. But I wouldn't budge up for you and sit in a seat I didn't want. Why do you think I should?

@limitedperiodonly I don't really like sitting in the window seat either. I don't feel trapped but just prefer the aisle. So if you got there after me and asked me to move my bag so you could sit of course I would. But I wouldn't budge up for you and sit in a seat I didn't want. Why do you think I should?

I never said you should. My reply was based on the scenario that

• you were sat in the window seat and your bag was in the aisle seat and
• there were only single window seats left

At the time I replied you hadn't yet clarified what you meant by other free seats, and you also didn't say which seat you typically occupied, so I was answering on the basis of there being no free doubles left and your bag occupying the outer seat

@NippyWoowoo I'm glad to have cleared that up for you and also glad that you don't expect anyone to move seats for you if you get there after them and aren't physically infirm. I wouldn't have put it as dramatically as saying I feel trapped in the window seat but like you I do like to be able to get out easily when I want to. I hope that is okay with you.

I think that putting a bag on the seat next to you on public transport is rather like standing up in a theatre and then repeating ‘other seats are available’ when people complain. In the end the idea catches on and nobody gets a better view and everyone is standing up. I’m not fussy about where I sit but I want the maximum choice. Getting on a bus and finding all the seats that aren’t occupied by people are occupied by bags must be very stressful.

1. Vote Tory (and a party member! But I voted for Rishi back in the summer so take no responsibility for the chaos of the last two months)
2. Frequently have two out of control children in public places. I do REALLY try but they are active and characterful small boys and I am regularly less in charge then I would like. And I shout.
3. LOVE my tumble dryer
4. Spoon fed purée, formula fed and sleep trained. I’m a midwife so it horrified most of my colleagues
5. I think sex is very very important (or at least that it’s absolutely fine for it to be so for you) and that there is nothing wrong whatsoever with leaving a marriage or relationship on the basis that despite trying your best, it’s not working. It’s not pathetic or wrong to not want to live chastely and people shouldn’t be belittled for feeling this.
6. I fix the family secret Santa in my favour

‘Chaste’ in the sense of abstaining from extramarital sex, or abstaining from all sex, @EastEndQueen.

I’m not commenting on the kind of sex people should or shouldn’t have - and I am a huge advocate of the openness and honestly in this area.

What I mean is that when a marriage or long term relationship isn’t meeting someone’s in its sexual needs (which may be because it’s sexless or a frequency issue or the nature of the sex or anything) and it matters to the person in question that this shouldn’t be ridiculed or diminished. I feel like this happens a lot on here, a feeling that ‘after x years of marriage there are more important things/ how PATHETIC to leave just for that’

I don’t think it’s right. Many (most) people will choose to stay for a host of other reasons and that’s good. But equally I don’t think there is anything wrong with openly discussing a need if it matters to you and the options available- a sex life outside the marriage of relationship or potentially ending it.

And I really feel like a culture of not being able to talk about these thinks contributes hugely to infidelity and all the pain associated with it

@NoNameNowAgain It's not a bit like that. In what do you think it is?

I often go to the cinema alone or with my husband or a friend and unless it's a massive event film where it will be sold out we never book seats but choose from the ones they have when we get there.

We get ourselves settled which takes a couple of minutes and then stay there quietly. One of my friends likes an aisle seat because she has a weak bladder and it's considerate of her to do that rather than to sit in the middle where she'd get a better view but would disturb everyone at least once in the film.

We don't rustle popcorn or chat or look things about the actors up on our phones so we are pretty well behaved compared to many people. It would be really weird to stand up and shout "other seats are available" or anything else except perhaps: "Fire!" but again, only if there was one. Does that happen to you a lot in cinemas or ever? Or did you just dream it?

If the seat next to me or DH or my friends is free we will put our stuff on it. If someone comes along we will of course move it to our laps or between our feet. That's not only polite but sensible. People steal things especially in the dark when your attention is elsewhere. That's not paranoid, that's reality.

There is an exception to this. I love morning screenings on my day off because they are deserted. I have my favourite seat at the local picture house which is in the back row on the centre aisle so has an uninterrupted view of the screen. But I rarely book it, just take pot luck and if someone else has bagged it I'll choose another.

But if someone comes into an almost empty cinema and sits directly in front of you or beside you that's weird, isn't it? Why would anyone want to do that? I have some ideas but perhaps you could say. Would you do that?

If I was alone I would move but if I was with my husband or a friend I would tell them to sit somewhere else. I might even stand up to do it. Wouldn't you? Or would you just sit there because perhaps they just wanted to sit next to you even though other seats were available and you didn't like to say?

It's no different to insisting on sitting next to someone on a bus or a train not because there is nowhere else to sit but because you want to make a point and feel that person is safe to make it on.

I have no problem with sharing public space or giving my seat up to help others. Sometimes I notice and sometimes I don't and people need to ask. I have said that so many times. But as i also keep saying I will not do it just because someone else wants to teach me a lesson or has other motives. If you feel that need so desperately pick on someone else.

@EastEndQueen my neighbour was my Tory ward councillor until May when this borough turned Labour which if you knew the borough you'd be surprised at.

I don't wish to rub his nose in my part in his downfall. He is a nice person and definitely more public spirited than me - well not really, just has a different idea of public spirit. But I agree with you that the point of this thread is saying you do things with which other people might not agree.

In the case of my neighbour I have learned through experience that not every Tory is a bastard and not every Labour voter is a lovely person. And we all have to live together.

Your children do sound quite annoying but i don't have to live with them. I would try to repel them on public transport by leaving my bag on the seat next to me.

I was overjoyed when my pick for the office Secret Santa announced: "If anyone has me I want a Lindt chocolate reindeer and some kind of nail thing." I got her a Superdrug multi-way manicure buffer and a deer from Waitrose. The reindeer was 30p more expensive than the teddy or rabbit i could get in Superdrug but though it bust my £5 budget a bit it was worth it and so much easier to know what she wanted.

My own Secret Santa present was a grapefruit-scented Baylis & Harding gift set of body lotion and shower gel. I know people on Mumsnet despise B&H but I used it and liked it. It cost him £12 so more than double the £5 limit and he was so happy I liked it. I suspect his mum chose it.

Because you are supposed to do baby led weaning with finger food. That assumes, however, that your baby can cope with chewing. My ds couldn't. He needed liquified sludge! He finally "got" it shortly before his second birthday and then made up for lost time.

All of this.

Except that sometimes I sit next to someone on a semi-empty train even though there is other space because I would rather sit next to a slim woman (or man) when I know that the train will fill up over the next couple of stops and I don't want a fat man sitting next to me and manspreading.

But that's when I know the train will get busier, not when it's half empty and will stay that way.