To ask the most annoying/bizarre flex/boast you've heard?

[phonemouse]

One that gets me is people boasting about how 'tiny' they are, but one that always makes me laugh is my MIL proudly mentioning on way more than one occasion how narrow SIL'a feet are like it's something really special 🤣🤣

I know someone who used to endlessly bang on about how bad her eyesight was. When she discovered after a decade or so that her sister, who’d never discussed it all, actually required a stronger glasses prescription and always had done she was discombobulated.

And someone else who pretends to speak the language of the country where she’s been an expat for years (she absolutely doesn’t) but that she chooses only to address people in English because “the locals prefer getting a chance to practice their English skills”. Apparently they all - every person she interacts with - assure her this the case.

Delusional.

I've had the horrifying realisation that I might sound like this about having had small babies. It's certainly not meant as a stealth boast. I say it partly to explain why they're so small (it's not that I starve them, honest!) and partly because it was to some extent a traumatic experience for me so it's often in the front of my mind.

Poor poor you!!

Stories like yours are partly why I had an elective C-section, choosing to ignore the natural birth braggers and C-section naysayers. No, insert various names here I wasn't being lazy, I was terrified something would go wrong, and no, my bond with my daughter is no less than yours with your child because I didn't also painfully squeeze her out of my vagina like you did yours and end up with second degree tears, you know...

Let's add the breastfeeding braggers) bottle-feeding naysayers to the list. My god, one college friend has made breastfeeding an integral part of her life and identity and goes on and on about how amazing it is that her son is now 3 and she's still breastfeeding him. So, your milk came and is plentiful and you don't take any medications that mean you shouldn't breastfeed. Good for you!!

Someone in my nct group who boasted that their child had never had a fever at over 1 year. My DS had suspected sepsis at 2 weeks old then recurrent infections which caused us to need an ambulance several times in his first year and so it was incredibly insensitive of her. I don't speak to any of them now.

If the topic of weddings, dress size, weight, diet, models, beautiful women, or people being in love comes up, then mil will without doubt pipe up with "I had a 24 inch waist on my wedding day!"

It's so random. She hasn't actually been slim since she had her first child, approximately 1 year after the wedding. She is now a size 20 and is happy with how she looks, so doesnt even say it in a wistful way. She just seems to think her waist size 42 years ago is a massive achievement worthy of public celebration 🤣

‘I do wonder how many of these supposed flexes are being misinterpreted as boasting when people are really just saying what their life is like in order to join in a conversation. What you might see as a boast may actually be the opposite.’

Obviously there is an element of this. I was once accused on Mumsnet of boasting about being middle class.
The op of the thread was literally ‘What class are you?’

My MIL is an ‘I’m so small’ boaster, a competitive under-eater and a competitive ill person. She always has to have an highly unusual (read: made up) reaction to common illnesses.

A colleague bought a hot tub a few years ago.

We tend to only meet up as a team for occasional tram building dinners, and the conversation generally goes like this:

"So, name, what've you been up to recently?"

"Oh, working, meeting my group of girlfriends once a week, going to the sauna every week, and we went to this 4 star hotel in the mountains a few times... and I usually spend my evenings in our hot tub!"

Then: "Hot tub. Hot tub. Hot tub? Hoooooot tuuuuuub...?"

I was on a reality TV forum and there was a thread about a cast members fondness for Nike sneakers.

Someone commented "I don't care for brands and think they're a waste of money but could easily afford them as my husband and I are in the top 1% of earners. But I do buy Khloe Kardashians brand jeans for my daughter as she has the exact same figure as Gigi Hadid".

To those who claim to love fruit & veg, & eat masses of it. Well, you wouldn’t know it you big, fat, lying, get.

Boys go up to a 5, girls stop at 4 but with trainers and DMs the boys are fine.

I know someone who complains that's she's got 'too many friendship groups' and it's just SO hard to keep up with her many, MANY friends.

She never has any free time because she's just SO busy seeing all her many different friends 🤮

I’m not surprised! (That you’re still irked I mean)

Jesus, that's seriously disturbing.
Poor, poor 9 year old.

Oh, we had one of the big baby braggers in our NCT, but the oddest thing was that her daughter was born at something like 7lbs 6oz - a really normal, average weight for a baby - and continued roughly on that line.

My baby was on the larger side - not unusually enormous by any means, but born 9lbs 3oz - and she constantly used to tell me her daughter was sooo much bigger even though she was 6 weeks younger. But a) no one cares and b) she really wasn’t?!

Someone in the group had had a baby who’d really struggled with weight gain so it was such a fucking thoughtless brag anyway.

When I started in my current job, lots of colleagues told me how tidy they were. That they liked a clear desk and absolutely could not work with papers on their desk. Ok yes I clear my desk AFTER I have completed the work. However I do need a certain amount of paperwork to hand to complete the work. This is the same for all my colleagues. We all have paperwork to complete. The craziest thing is that all of the so called tidy people are scruffy when it comes down to it, leaving dirty plates and cutlery in the staff kitchen. Coming in unkept. It’s those who never brag about how tidy they are who clean the kitchen and look well presented.

I think in essence it boils down to being confident your baby isn’t wasting away and won’t die. And new mothers are inevitably slightly anxious, on an
animal level, as it’s what keeps babies alive. So if they can look at their baby and it’s big, and they can feel like they’ve got something right and it’s somehow their achievement and they’ve done something right, then they might annoyingly bang on about it. I had big babies too and I was always pleased about it (first was 98th centile too I think) because I think, at base, I felt on an animal level they would survive. I knew mothers of smaller babies who worried about weight gain. In realty, all the babies were fine but sometimes mothers of tiny babies might worry. Im not saying bigger IS better, I’m just saying it can be one less thing to worry about, specially if you’re feeling a bit anxious anyway

All the small, narrow feet boasts are a trigger for me because mine look like a pair of bloody massive gammon steaks 😂

Yeah I was a bit the same about my baby because he was small and then had dietary problems that means he couldn’t eat much. It was a traumatic time trying to get anything into him for the first six months so I do mention it.

I think it’s more when people are being like ‘oh my baby is so petite’ ie ‘unlike your monster chunk’

Ex colleague: “I’m like Marmite. People love me or hate me.”

(Spoiler alert - everybody hates you)

“Oh I send my child in / I come into work unless basically on their / my deathbed!”

great. Now the rest of us are ill too.

Do these people really not know how the human body works? 😡🤷‍♀️

😲😲😲😲

For the people saying these aren’t really boasts and just normal topics of conversation - the thing that makes them boasts are they’re continually referred to but aren’t objectively really anything that noteworthy or special & yet the person promoting them seems to think they are. Think it’s really just about attention & that’s their guaranteed way of getting it. Some thing they think that marks them out as different & special & that they need to remind people of constantly. Ironically it just does the opposite. Usually from people who find themselves to be the most interesting topic of conversation as well. Yawn.

The one that really gets me is when someone you're dating says they could have anyone.

It may be true, but boasting that basically you're lucky to have them shows an inequality and narcissism beyond belief.

Run a mile if anyone anyone says that, or likewise anything akin to "your loss".