Aibu to be annoyed with posters who conceal details for no real reason

[Yabberwok]

Especially hobbies...there's currently a thread where a person does a hobby the temp leader has paused it for the summer. The actual type of hobby makes a difference to the responses. You also get my husband does a hobby every weekend.

Or people don't tell the backstory to an event and expect a view on an incident. Or they have a medical condition, or do a job and 'it will be outing' err more than likely not, but will impact on the answers you get.

Or when pertinent questions are asked but the op doesn't answer those

It just annoys the hell out me as there are times when your opinion will be completely different....for example on gransnet there's a thread about a couple who have recently married and the DH likes to garden in the nude...it would have been helpful if the OP would say if she knew before they got married.

I guess for privacy. I have spotted an acquaintance on here. It was work related and it was almost unanimous that they were being unreasonable 😂

It was hobby related (leaving work and getting to the hobby) and a pretty common hobby but the scenario and timing - it was definitely them!

If you aren't satisfied with the details given you don't have to engage with the thread.

Because if you keep the same username then over time all these little details add up and can indeed be outing.

Alternatively if you have vented about the problem to friends IRL then they may recognise an identical story on MN.

Finally every single person who posts a story on MN is naturally attempting to present a version of the story that supports their side, so they aren’t going to include details that don’t support it.

Years ago I spotted a thread started by a close relative. She got lots of validation from MNers which would have evaporated had she included a few key points. 😀

I think some of it is fear of being recognised IRL, some of it is people dipping their toe in the water not knowing which way the thread is going to go so they can embellish/back pedal later, and some of it is just people who aren’t terribly good at structuring their original post to include enough context. I don’t tend to mind it, except for in the circumstances where someone says something later that so wildly contradicts their first post that you just know they are a LLPOF.

Because sometimes details make it too outing. If the hobby was say ‘chicken bone weaving’ and anyone else in that hobby was on MN it would be very likely they would know things written it

Tell me more about this chicken bone weaving, sounds interesting! Sadly I don’t think there is a group in my area!

How can a hobby be "outing " ffs.
It can't be so unique that nobody must know about it

I kind of get it, eg you do glass blowing, or stained glass painting or you race dogs or something, then you say you’ve four girls and your husband is a postman, someone will go ‘oh that’s Jenny!’

I don't agree with you because, as others have said, too much detail can be outing.

But not just that, sometimes you don't realise that certain details might be helpful to posters, and you also don't want your post to be an essay of ALL the details, lest you be accused of omitting something.

People like to think they are unique and more interesting than they actually are. Anyone who talks about details being "outing" gets an eye roll from me.

Well I suppose if there's only one nose-picking club in the UK and it meets every Monday at 7pm in Boogerville then you might be kind of identifiable but otherwise no - it's just pretentious nonsense.

It would all depend on the OP's prior posting history and what they have already revealed about themselves. Some hobbies are considerably more niche than others.

People do check up and do advanced searches on people, so if the hobby was, I dunno, humming bird breeding for instance, and the OP has separately mentioned their cricket-playing twins, their pedigree dalmatian, good schools in Norwich and their job as an anaesthetist, anyone in that niche hobby could do a search and work out who it is.

I dunno. I'm often quite ashamed to be married to DH when he's in his man made golf clothing that looks like he chose it from the wardrobe blindfolded......

It's when they go "well I changed some details"... and then present a completely different story

It’s not unreasonable to find other posters annoying. It is unreasonable to expect anything else.

There's always a reason.
Normally its they dont think to include everything
Or it was really long and they were trying to keep it shorter so people would read it
Or they are trying to stay a little bit anonymous
Or they are trying to manipulate readers with half a story in order to get the replies thst suit their agenda.

Agree. It would be better just to change the nature of the hobby to something similar.

The OP’s I find the most irritating are those that ask for help or opinions but add in clauses i.e. husband behaving in ways that suggest an affair but no one trying to help must dare suggest an affair.

Oh I’m getting flashbacks to the thread of a few weeks back where someone had moved her boyfriend into her home with her two children after something ridiculous like two months of dating and came asking for advice and to everyone’s sane responses of ‘break up and make him move out’ she kept wittering: “But I love him! He’s such a nice man!”

I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking back to it!

Ah, did you read about the friend who has a "hobby job" earning £45-50k?

I find it strangest when the hidden features inevitably pour out and are so common. E.g. people try to hide if their bog standard chikdhood issue belongs to a boy or girl child. Or the DH hobby is cycling. Or their car parking issue is in a cul de sac. Or they have a job in reception. Or they went to Spain on the ill fated holiday. Or "south asian" instead of specifying India.

But not as strange as people posting rightmove houses or their real wrinkly faces to request opinions on what's wrong with them!