Mumsnet posts which drive me mad

[Ilovecleaning]

Anyone hate these posts?

• really really really long posts
• long posts with NO paragraphs
• posts which start ‘ I have a friend, let’s call her Jane; her DH, let’s call him Sam… you can’t bloody well follow the post. Much easier just to say Friend and DH.

Any others? 😊

The ones where the OP has admitted they're a monster and wandered off but there's still pages and pages of the same three posters frothing at each other over stuff that they never said ... lt's like dogs who bark for ages after the squirrel has gone!

The ones where a poster wedges in a comment about them being abused which has nothing to do with the thread or any comments at all. It is very sad but not appropriate to that post and irrelevant. Post somewhere else or put up your own thread but don't try to derail a thread or upset/trigger other posters.

Oh I’ve thought of another one: posters who consider anyone who enjoys having even a tiny bit of consideration shown to them on their birthday completely unreasonable. “How old are you OP [with the inference they must be a child to still care about birthdays]?” or “he’s not a mind reader / why do you care so much about a cheap piece of cardboard / he probably has more important things to think about” when the OP’s partner hasn’t so much as bothered with a card, or simply the withering “grow up / why are you making such a fuss / are you usually this entitled, OP?” type replies.

I appreciate we all have different experiences, but in 50-mumble years on this planet I’ve never encountered such dismissive attitudes to birthdays, or that the idea that to want your partner / parents / closest friends to remember and wish you happy birthday and maybe be available to go for a pizza at the weekend or whatever is wildly “entitled”, as I have on MN.

Trauma dumping.

You're right but people who are living with trauma become very self centred (not criticising - speaking from personal experience and now further down the line so it doesn't happen!)

The slightest thing can be a 'trigger' for trauma responses and some people aren't yet at a stage were they can regulate their emotions or resulting behaviour.

It is annoying though!

The professionally offended. Posters who look for insults where none is intended. It says more about them than the person paying the compliment (or the insult in the poster's case).

When someone says that husband is horrible to them but he is a good dad.
with this it's showing how so many women will prioritise their kids though so I get it

Not necessarily.
How is he a 'good dad' if he treats the mother horribly? How is that affecting the children and does he really care if he continues the behaviour?
And is a women who stays in a shit relationship staying because she's prioritising their kids or because they can't be arsed leaving? Not that I can see how exposing the children to, and modelling and unhappy relationship is prioritising them 🤷‍♀️

At the same time posters who live rurally who are terrified of London as everyone appears to be mugged or stabbed on a daily basis.

(actually that doesn’t really bother me, nor your scenario. We all use our own sphere of existence really. It’s easy to believe everyone lives like you do)

Not forgetting the pubic hair mafia. If you choose to exercise your personal choice and remove your pubic hair, you are evil and the daughter of the devil. Yet many of the same people shave their legs and underarms and have male partners who shave their faces.

I wondered what those full stop posts were. 👍

One popped up on another thread and I had forgotten how pissed off it made me

Any single person asking how to meet a partner, wondering if they're too old, why they can't find a partner, etc

Up pops a poster to say words to the effect of
"It'll happen when you least expect it" or "you'll meet the right man eventually"

Really unhelpful and guaranteed to make the single person feel even more inadequate when he doesn't actually come along

Yes this. Extra points when it's a massively long list that the poster clearly just copies and pastes of their own favourite names. Eg:

OP - I like American style, unisex girls' names. Current shortlist is Blair, Taylor and Regan. Any similar suggestions?

Annoying poster -
Penelope
Clementine
Liliana
Beatrice
Lettice
Pandora
Annabelle

And on, and on...

I have a pet peeve that's the reverse side of that! I am absolutely birthday-phobic (my own, not anyone else's) and it's very important for me never to be reminded in any way of the loathsome occasion, and especially of any age-milestones. That doesn't mean that I think that people who do wish to celebrate their birthdays are childish or entitled: but I find it really annoying when people can't understand that some of us really don't like birthdays. and that it doesn't mean that we must be miserable, stingy, ungrateful, or playing some sort of dishonest game in order to get more birthday attention. I also hate the expression 'you should be glad to get older; some people don't have the privilege'. I know all too well that some people die young; nevertheless, the older I get, the nearer I am to death, and, before that, to increasing health problems on top of my existing ones.

@ToWhitToWhoo I would think you would feel at home here, I have never met anyone on real life that has a birthday phobia.
I am with the other poster, mumsnet seems have a large volume of people that seem to think that a poster wanting some kind of acknowledgement of their birthday is childish and entitled.

I'm the same.

I don't celebrate my birthday either. My lockdown birthdays were the least stressful ones I've had in years.

The year of my 40th was the worst and my 50th is coming up in the next year. Dreading all the "What are you doing for your 50th?" conversations.

I do celebrate others' birthdays though if they choose to.

You wouldn't necessarily know that. We don't generally announce it because that would draw attention to it.

At my workplace, we acknowledge staff birthdays. I've been in my work place for 4 years. Mine's never been announced and no one has ever questioned it because no one has noticed. And thats just the way I like it.

I'm sure all of those people would say they don't know anyone who doesn't celebrate their birthday.

Is it’s an actual birthday phobia, as in I’m scared of cakes and cards, or is it I don’t want a huge fuss with balloons and party poppers in the works canteen ?
The latter I can understand, but I’m talking about a simple acknowledgment from your nearest and dearest, that an unusually high number of posters on here dismiss as unnecessary and childish. I would be quite hurt if I was ‘ forgotten’ about on my birthday, by close friends and family and I don’t think I’m unusual outside of mumsnet in that respect.

I wouldn't use phobia to describe it but I become very anxious in the run up to it, I don't have any cards or presents, I find the whole thing very uncomfortable and quite stressful. I accept that people who know will say Happy Birthday but I'd feel more comfortable if they didn't 🤷🏻‍♀️

I wouldn't describe someone who wanted to celebrate as childish but I think some people's expectations are OTT.

Posters who can't think beyond their own circumstances or experiences. This can manifest in various ways, the most annoying being:

1. Can't believe anyone could actually earn £100k or £10k and has to be lying about it.

2. Thinks "but then, I live in London" means they live a completely life to anyone else, and demands double the salary.

3. Reads a pretty generic AIBU story ("My boss is mean to me", "My hairdresser is mean to me") and think they can pinpoint exactly who it is ("Are they called Darren?", "Is this in Kent, OP?")

Also, anyone who posts to say "Zombie thread!!!!" like you're going to catch a disease off it.

Why does it matter if you're reading or posting on an older thread?

It's known as sock puppeting(!) Apparently it's a common enough problem that it's against talk guidelines, and if reported MNHQ can and do pull the posts that engage in it.

It does beg the question of who in the hell would be tragic enough to do this? Quite as opposed to irritating, I find it so pathetic as to be hilarious!

I can see how that happens. No one really checks the date of every thread they post on, but occasionally a list of 'threads similar to this one' comes up at the bottom of the desktop app, and people click on them and respond as though they are new.

There are some longstanding threads where groups of posters follow the progress of the OP - and that's fine and I think invaluable for support reasons. But surely it isn't beyond technological capability to automatically instigate the closure of a thread once no one has posted on it for, say, three months?

I'd say this one was less user error than software limitations.

I'm pretty sure it's because it's a waste of everyone's time if the poster left the building about 3 years ago and the problem is over.

I know why it happens but I don't understand why it's a problem that someone responds on an older thread.

Would this thread be any different/better/worse if it was added to over six hours or six months?

That assumes that Mumsnet is some personal problem-solving service, when really it's just a timeless pub chat.

People then start responding to the op, who has likely long since departed.