Would this be embarrassing in your family?

[Lorecan]

I know it’s only trivial but it’s hit a nerve.

So my family finds everything embarrassing. As a result I’m rarely able to say anything meaningful or share a soppy toast ona birthday for example. I think it comes from Dh who finds any expression of emotion saccharine. DC have followed suit.

Yesterday we watched Baby Boom (in memory of Diane Keaton who is a fav of mine) and I really enjoyed it. As the credits rolled I raised my mug and said “RIP Diane”.

Apparently I was being embarrassing! I’m hardly a soppy git and quite low key myself but it would be nice to occasionally be a bit more emotional

anyone else have families like this?

I think you need a slightly thicker skin. Many of us express our emotions differently. If your DH and DC found this embarrassing that’s fine let them. It doesn’t mean you should change your behaviour.

I do think it was a bit odd, personally I find the toast on a very different level to expressing your emotions in conversation and saying I’m really sad she died, I loved her films, my favourite was…,etc etc

But ultimately who gives a shit what I or anyone else thinks. Your actions aren’t hurting anyone. Just own it. I’m sure you feel embarrassed by your families perceived lack of emotions at times too

This is the important bit. I feel for you that you live like that.

This isnt trivial, and it’s nothing to do with Diane Keaton. That’s a tactical (ie low-level everyday) issue, but it has strategic importance, as an old boss of mine would say.

I feel like the real post is in your follow-up comment - sick of living in an emotionless vacuum. I would have been fine with your little toast to DK and would feel just as you do if my family had reacted in the way yours did.

What is this really about? Say more words OP. How long have you felt like this? How else do your family’s attitudes to feelings being expressed show up? Has it always been like this? How are you with friends and how do they respond when you’re demonstrative?

Yep, still weird!

I would totally do something like this around people who get the vibe (although Id also make it overdramatic knowing me), but my DP is used to me goofing around and I keep it confined to our home lol. He wouldnt mind.

This is cringe.

I think it’s sweet.

Lordy, people are so uncomfortable with feelings and we wonder why there are so many struggling with loneliness, depression, anxiety.

Op, continue to be soft and kind the world needs more people who are.

@spoonbillstretford I’m doing fine in life thank you!

Are we related 🤣

In my household growing up we would absolutely have taken the piss and if a visitor had done it it would be a family joke, tale or even nickname for years to come ….

But even my parents have mellowed from the ‘cool’ in their old age, they love a good verse written in a card now.

Ive decided with my husband that we need to be careful not to allow the need to be cool to override the need to be kind, we are all pretty cool still but my childhood was so sarcastic and hip that there was sometimes no room for being deep or authentic. I took it into my early twenties and feel the need to be cool probably hindered me.

A bit of balance is probably needed. Like the recent op whose husband couldn’t cope with his 6 year olds like of K-pop songs. Surely you can be cool and but not relentlessly hip, sarcastic, cold and shaming of anything that isn’t.

I’m quite an emotional person, we definitely talk about how we feel as a family and we are not scared to cry in front of each other etc, but I would find this performative. When famous people have died that we’ve liked, we have talked about them and things they did which we liked, I have even shed a tear if they’ve been young, but to raise a glass and say ‘RIP Diane’, as if you knew her is cringe. You weren’t expressing how you felt, you were just performing and it seems a planned performance too, to wait til after the credits.

I'm with you @Lorecan . I watched the Elvis movie again on Sunday and heard myself declare at the end he really was the greatest .If my DH had pulled me up on it I would have thought he had no soul lol!
I loved watching Diane Keaton and will do something similar at the weekend when I plan to watch something.
I work for someone who is obsessed with dates and births and deaths so we are always toasting and watching something in tribute.
Also what are the programmes which are shown when a celebrity dies if not a nod to them.
Every November I have a Freddie night have done since his death in 1991. I am in no way celebrity obsessed but celebrating greatness in our culture chats wrong with that.

its totally fine and not cringey at all. you liked her, she'd just died, it was a brief acknowledgement of her death.
.. it's absolutely fine

Weird responses. When we sit down to our Sunday roast we cheers each other, just the four of us, and there will often be a quick toast from someone, to whoever scored a good goal for Leicester, or e.g. Robert Redford, alongside kid's' achievements of the week.

Relaxed, not performative at all. We just like cheersing/toasting. I was the Robert Redford, DH Ricky Hatton. It starts interesting convos with DDs (13 and 10) about who they were, memories etc. Don't think they find it cringey. Prob used to it.

Why do you care @Lorecan ? My husband often does a silly dance and we all find him embarrassing. He laughingly continues. I sometimes say things that my dc find cringe and I tell them that it's my role as a mum to be embarrassing while they are teens. I couldn't care less.
I think you need to grow a thicker skin OP. We often tease each other in our family and noone is upset. But then I grew up with two younger brothers so used to the banter. As long as noone is maliciously trying to put you down just go with it. Call them out for being typical emotionally constipated English people.

So what if it is embarrassing? You carry on being yourself. In my family we just laugh and mock anything cringe and the person being cringe will just laugh along.
Kids would be forever be saying “do you remember when mum said rip diane? Hahaha” and then when someone else died “don’t forget to rip them with your mug mum haha”

I don't think you are weird or cringy at all!

I don't think it was cringe. It was a brief thank you to a great artist.

I'm surprised at the responses to this thread. It's not like the OP is screaming in the Sistine Chapel.

I'd find it really wearing having to constantly watch my reactions in case the emotion police got annoyed.

Watching a movie in remembrance of an actress just would never happen in our household. Not because we are emotionless but because while we are sad she has died (like we all will) and can appreciate her contribution to the arts, it just seems well … performative. The toast at the end would just be the cherry on the top!

This!

No wonder anxiety and depression levels are spiralling when people can’t express themselves (even in their own homes) without being mocked. You be you OP.

Idk I think I might find it a bit tiny cringe but I wouldn’t say or think anything much about it - - unless you kept repeating it looking for a reaction, but you didn’t do that.

Teenagers always find their parents cringey so that isn’t unusual.

But it’s a bit mean that your DH is leading this. Does he even like you if he’s always having a pop like this? It’s a bit unkind to make one member of the family feel they can’t be themselves or that they’re always under scrutiny.

I would saying toasting or saying nice things about actual members of the family who are there is less embarrassing (if that’s the word they use) than toasting an unknown celebrity, but I guess if the recipient of the toast/ expression of feeling doesn’t like or want it, then it’s not a nice thing for them, more of a punishment.

I’m sorry but this sounds worse!

Absolutely this.

We’d have got years of entertainment out of it.

Snap.