AIBU - use of ‘Dr’ title - is this normal?!

[Cheesecake45]

Just not sure if I need to get with the times or not - is it normal to go by the title ‘Dr’ simply for having a PhD, if you aren’t in the medical profession? I’m talking one of the easiest PhDs to get (comparatively speaking), nothing vaguely linked to medicine.

AIBU??
YES = this is totally normal get over yourself
NO = wouldn’t be caught dead calling myself a doctor unless I could be assistance in a medical emergency!

No back pedalling. Why do you think so?

Because it’s what you said?

you really are beginning to sound like someone to avoid on a long flight

It's a valid point. I'm sure history will not remember me or many other honest hardworking (!!) estate agents.

Nor will history remember 99.99% of people, whether they be surgeons, plumbers or poets. But at the end of the day, we deal with what is for most people their biggest asset outside their pension. So like us or loathe us, you'll likely have to hold your nose and use us. And the medieval poet doctorate is welcome to come and start as a trainee with us when they are sick of living on beans on toast! They can even have my car when I next upgrade!

By the way, ripping the pish out of you guys tonight has been an absolute blast! You all take yourselves so seriously! Lighten the fuck up!

How can I not be amused? People are resorting to tired old insults about being triggered and feeling inferior and then getting annoyed when their baiting doesn’t work!

Having earnt the title is reason to use it.

What did I say? I wouldn’t use your title if you asked me to. That hasn’t changed…

You're the one consistently baiting.

It’s worked fine, Ronald.

You could quite easily make the same argument about people who change their title to "Mrs" on marriage.
I can and I do.

Titles are weird at the best of times. Objecting to someone using a title based on a high level of academic achievement while not objecting to other "variable" titles (ie anything except "Mr") is a weird anglophone-world hang up based on a strong strain of anti-intellectualism.
I agree that titles are weird at the best of times, and I wouldn’t limit my objections to those titles associated with academic achievement. Perhaps our sense of politeness still requires some basic titles to be used, but generally I find them archaic and elitist (yes, including Mrs).

But you’re not a doctor…

If you need it to validate your sense of self and your achievements, sure, but people are entitled to think less of you for it.

But people who are simply “amused” wouldn’t take such a rigid stand . Therein lies the back- pedalling.

100% this. I have a PhD and always use dr. It does make me cringe a bit to use it in a non professional setting tbh, but then again, so does choosing between miss, Mrs or ms. At the end of the day I’d rather be identified by my academic achievements than my gender and marital status.

Actually I think your passport says Dr Glom of Nit!

I said I’m amused by the thread. Not sure how I’d feel if someone asks me in real life. I would say no but I don’t know if I’d be amused.

Yes, of course it is okay!

Of course it’s normal

well firstly - you don’t know my title

and secondly, people mostly don’t have to ask people to use any title. They aren’t usually referenced unless there’s a reason to.

but if you had reason to be using someone’s title, and they’d told you what it was, and you had such a problem with that fact that you would literally choose to - do what? Make up your own? Call them something else? - then you would, without a doubt, look like the most bothered, most triggered, most tragically fragile-ego loser ever. As well as shockingly rude.

Not quite the ‘faintly amused, raising just one eyebrow ever so casually’ look you are straining for. So yes. If you ever do find yourself in that situation, just be normal and call them Dr, or Judge, or Brigadier, or Rev, or Mrs, and get over yourself.

And people are entitled to think less of those people that it would so rankle them as to think less of the people using their well-earned title.

Don’t tell me you don’t understand satire as well as titles? I can’t take much more. You ARE Alan Partridge and I claim my £5

In what world does having earnt something equate to needing validation, exactly?

No it really isn’t the faintly amused look.

And I’m curious to see what pensione would do if asked to use personal pronouns she didn’t agree with for someone.

I could insist on people using my earned title if I liked (but I don’t, because I think it would mark me out as a pompous bellend).

Me too!!! It started with my John Lewis loyalty card by accident but now I do it just for fun! Only on non legal stuff of course 😀