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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Why is everyone such a wet lettuce?

185 replies

gorlomi · 01/10/2025 15:12

Hand-wringing over badges. Upset over name origins. The list goes on and on.

Are people just bored and want some attention online or something?

It's my own fault for reading threads on here, and having other social media I guess!

OP posts:
Teeteringpiles555 · 02/10/2025 11:07

eqpi4t2hbsnktd · 01/10/2025 16:11

Or worse... talking about their 'journeys'...
my weightless journey, my self acceptance journey, my sobriety journey.... fuck off and arrive.

😂😂

FancyBiscuitsLevel · 02/10/2025 20:48

Oh the being offended at being invited to things you don’t fancy /can’t afford.

just say “no thank you”. People aren’t being rude to invite you to things. You can say no without being annoyed about being asked in the first place.

HouseOfGuineaPigsReturnsWhereSheLeftOff · 02/10/2025 20:57

EasternEcho · 01/10/2025 16:21

I saw a video yesterday of a woman in Florida losing her mind over two ducks mating in a pond in a public park. After yelling at the male duck "get off her!!" many times, and "is everyone just going to just stand there?", she waded into the water to physically separate the ducks. I'm not sure what's happening to many of us, but we don't seem to deal well with reality anymore. So many are losing the plot.

Edited

@EasternEcho I hope Florida lady doesn't Google duck willies. That is trauma!

MorningCoffees2 · 02/10/2025 21:29

Upstartled · 01/10/2025 15:34

You can't even wish for snow on here without someone carrying on like you are personally manifesting a conga line of broken hips and wrists at A&E.

This is the funniest thing I've read for a while. My daughter even came into my room to find out what had happened to make me burst into laughter.

That comment is so true.

HouseOfGuineaPigsReturnsWhereSheLeftOff · 02/10/2025 21:41

MorningCoffees2 · 02/10/2025 21:29

This is the funniest thing I've read for a while. My daughter even came into my room to find out what had happened to make me burst into laughter.

That comment is so true.

I laughed so much I spat out my wine

CoffeeCantata · 02/10/2025 22:20

It’s the posts which ask “Is this offensive?” Which depress me.

Where to start?? Aarrrggghhh…

’Offensive’ is a totally subjective concept. Only the OP in these threads can say whether something is offensive TO THEM. But they ask MN.

brunettemic · 02/10/2025 22:24

Honestly the complete and utter inability of some people to deal with anything of even the most minor issues baffles me at times. So yes, I’m with you!

RampantIvy · 02/10/2025 22:41

The inability to decline an invitation to an overseas child free wedding without lots of angst just baffles me.

I think DH and I probably project the "don't try and guilt trip me because it wouldn't work" too well.

BadLad · 02/10/2025 23:47

3luckystars · 02/10/2025 09:56

I am here for years, most days,, but I have never seen a ‘Christmas fridge’ thread.

Can anyone explain what this is? Is it photos of fridges packed with loads of food for Christmas? I don’t think I would like that at all. I hate fridges with too many things in them.

or are people decorating the fridges?

Literally threads of people posting pictures of the festive food in their fridges.

Generally peaceful enough although the 2020 one had plenty of miserable virtue signaling.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/christmas/4113150-show-me-your-christmas-fridges

LaMarschallin · 03/10/2025 08:27

The fridge threads cheer me up as I'd always imagined everyone else having beautifully curated fridges full of sophisticated goodies...
Instead, everyone has everything crammed in higgledy piggledy and you can see that the last pack of butter, or whatever, would have to be shoved in and the door slammed quickly before it fell out...
Just like mine!

WildFlowerBees · 03/10/2025 08:36

Many many people would do far better if they stopped having an opinion on what someone else is doing or not with their lives. The art of minding your own business is dead on social media. Perhaps it’s their way of not looking at their own lives so pick at others. Also I can’t wait for winter, I’m sure that will offend a few 😬

PositivityVibes · 03/10/2025 10:16

This thread reminds me of the EBay advert, where the bloke goes round to tell his neighbour to turn down the music. He ends up going in, taking his shoes off and listens all about the speakers 🤣

As a manager I make so many adjustments and allowances for mental health issues but no one asks about me! No, I just get on with it.

UnctuousUnicorns · 03/10/2025 11:37

MorningCoffees2 · 02/10/2025 21:29

This is the funniest thing I've read for a while. My daughter even came into my room to find out what had happened to make me burst into laughter.

That comment is so true.

Well, speaking from personal experience, after falling and breaking my hip in my entirely snow free kitchen, the end result is that every time I laugh now, the area tenses up involuntarily. It's like having bloody Braxton Hicks in my hip! So can people please stop bloody making me laugh!

Pricelessadvice · 03/10/2025 21:38

PositivityVibes · 03/10/2025 10:16

This thread reminds me of the EBay advert, where the bloke goes round to tell his neighbour to turn down the music. He ends up going in, taking his shoes off and listens all about the speakers 🤣

As a manager I make so many adjustments and allowances for mental health issues but no one asks about me! No, I just get on with it.

The need for the younger generation to have their ‘mental health adjustments and allowances’ does nothing but enforce the idea that the whole world will bend to accommodate them. We are turning into a nation of drips.
The rest of us just got on with it, cried in private, maybe saw a doctor…. but never once expected a workplace to change things for us.

YouAreTheCauseOfMyHeadache · 03/10/2025 22:07

FancyBiscuitsLevel · 01/10/2025 18:51

I see your Christmas fridge outrage and raise you designer handbag threads. “I want a good work bag, must fit a laptop, no more than £2k” If you see that, get a brew and some biscuits, set your bets if you will see “get a bag for life and a mini break” or “cotton tote and donate the rest to a foodbank” first.

Bonus points if the wet lettuces turn up to say they’d be too scared to use any bag that cost that much.

Oh they’d rather spend it on “Making Memories” swiftly followed by AIBU all my children are crying and DH isn’t speaking to me in Marbella.

OhFeyreDarling · 03/10/2025 22:16

Saw a shopping list thread a while ago, the one with twin snakes on it, the vitriol the poster got for daring to even start the clearly lighthearted "pointless" thread was so weird.

Some are dispairing, and to think these people have had or will have children. The next generation is as wet as it gets.

Househassles · 03/10/2025 22:18

People who aren't you care about things you don't, and vice versa.

RampantIvy · 04/10/2025 11:25

I posted this on another thread, then thought of this one, so I will post it again here:

I feel that the internet encourages people to avoid personal interaction. Back in the day we all had to interact with people in person or on the phone, and we built up resilience to do this because there was no other choice.

I realise that there will always be people who will find this impossible, but for someone like me who was frightened to say boo to a goose when I left school in 1977, learning to deal with the public on the phone and in person eventually gave me more confidence to speak to people and enjoy their company.

Nowadays people think "I don't have to anwer the phone/see people I'll just hide behind a screen instead". People don't know how to get out of their comfort zone because they have choices.

AgapanthusPink · 04/10/2025 12:46

RampantIvy · 04/10/2025 11:25

I posted this on another thread, then thought of this one, so I will post it again here:

I feel that the internet encourages people to avoid personal interaction. Back in the day we all had to interact with people in person or on the phone, and we built up resilience to do this because there was no other choice.

I realise that there will always be people who will find this impossible, but for someone like me who was frightened to say boo to a goose when I left school in 1977, learning to deal with the public on the phone and in person eventually gave me more confidence to speak to people and enjoy their company.

Nowadays people think "I don't have to anwer the phone/see people I'll just hide behind a screen instead". People don't know how to get out of their comfort zone because they have choices.

Totally agree with this. My son, who isn’t a shrinking violet by any means, needed to contact his 6 Form college whilst he was at Uni. He has sent an email (well more than one) and over a month later had no reply. I suggested ring and all he said was ‘I don’t like using the phone’.

My work have employed young people who will tie themselves in knots to not answer the phone/make a call despite it being part of their job. They either leave or bite the bullet and start using the phone. A few weeks later they’re fine.

I think this is another issue that young people and older people too seem to think perfectly normal worry is a medical condition called anxiety and the way of dealing with it is to avoid anything that causes ‘anxiety’. Consequently they develop no coping skills and avoid doing anything at all. It all becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and some probably do genuinely end up with diagnosed anxiety.

RampantIvy · 04/10/2025 12:50

DD was like me as well, and at school she genuinely had anxiety - medicated and under CAMHS. However, she eventually built up resilience and after graduating ended up in a role that involved dealing with the public, answering the phone and making phone calls to GP surgeries and patients.

I don't recognise the shrinking violet she was 10 years ago.

SocksAndTheCity · 04/10/2025 12:57

Pancakeflipper · 01/10/2025 15:27

I'm not. I am a crispy snapping carrot.

I am a lovely shiny tomato. Smug as fuck.

(I'm only posting in case there are more links to Christmas fridge threads 😍)

VoltaireMittyDream · 04/10/2025 14:25

SocksAndTheCity · 04/10/2025 12:57

I am a lovely shiny tomato. Smug as fuck.

(I'm only posting in case there are more links to Christmas fridge threads 😍)

I love the idea of having a spirit vegetable.

While I’d love to identify as a chilli pepper, if I’m honest with myself I think I’m probably more of a parsnip.

KelsCommemorativeSausage · 04/10/2025 14:27

VoltaireMittyDream · 04/10/2025 14:25

I love the idea of having a spirit vegetable.

While I’d love to identify as a chilli pepper, if I’m honest with myself I think I’m probably more of a parsnip.

Oooh I'm definitely a potato. In body as well.

AgentPidge · 04/10/2025 14:27

CameltoeParkerBowles · 01/10/2025 15:26

But what about the transition to spring next year? AAARGH! I'm not prepared! Someone HELP!

Just make sure you've got new cushions in to 'refresh' your sofa for the new season.

VoltaireMittyDream · 04/10/2025 14:47

RampantIvy · 04/10/2025 11:25

I posted this on another thread, then thought of this one, so I will post it again here:

I feel that the internet encourages people to avoid personal interaction. Back in the day we all had to interact with people in person or on the phone, and we built up resilience to do this because there was no other choice.

I realise that there will always be people who will find this impossible, but for someone like me who was frightened to say boo to a goose when I left school in 1977, learning to deal with the public on the phone and in person eventually gave me more confidence to speak to people and enjoy their company.

Nowadays people think "I don't have to anwer the phone/see people I'll just hide behind a screen instead". People don't know how to get out of their comfort zone because they have choices.

I agree - I think avoiding real life interaction allows you to nurture an idealising or paranoid fantasy about what other people are actually like.

I hated going into shops on my own, making phone calls, that sort of thing when I was a self-conscious teenager. Fairly normal teenage stuff. But the more I had to do it, the more opportunities I had to notice that everyone else is just doing their own thing, making mistakes, being embarrassing and odd at times, saying stupid things now and then, sometimes being an arse, and that nobody goes through life already knowing how to do things and how to behave in every circumstance.

The earlier you realise this about the world, the better - it frees you up to do so much more, and to let yourself learn and explore.

I notice even with my Gen Alpha kid that so much of the content he gravitates to is by creators going on and on about their experiences of anxiety, or being misunderstood, or embarrassing things that have happened to them - but without any sort of redemptive conclusion where they overcome it. Instead, they monetise it - they stay indoors all the time making little stylised naive animations & really bedding down into their anxious identity, interacting virtually with sycophantic 8-year-olds rather than with friends their own age IRL. This sort of obsessive self-centred navel gazing and fear of other people’s judgement becomes almost aspirational - because look! This anxious kid made millions by staying in a darkened room, talking about how horrible people were to him at school. It’s a mess.

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