Am I a laughing stock?

[CovidHeadache]

I jokingly call my house “surname towers” so for example if my surname was Jackson, my house would be called Jackson Towers. I’ve called it this for years, it’s very very lighthearted as I’m sure everyone knows. We host a lot of social events and I use the name in invites for example “birthday party, Jackson towers”, “Strictly finale party, Jackson towers” etc
In Christmas/birthday cards “love from A, L and all at Jackson towers”

All my friends and family know I call the house this and some call it this name too either in replies or just in general.

Anyway, last night I’d popped to my mums and my sister was there, we were talking about taking the kids to a Halloween event tonight and I said “why don’t you bring them back to the towers afterward and we can have a little party?”

My sister then said “I’m sorry but can we stop with this towers bullshit, it’s so cringy”. I said “It’s a joke! And you’ve never complained before!” My mum then said “not to your face maybe”. They both started laughing and my sister then said “no I’m sorry, someone needs to say something, people have been ripping the piss out of you for years for it, just give it a rest now”.

so to cut a long story short, turns out almost my entire family have been slagging me off for it for years and my sister hinted that my friends have too.

When I got home I rang my friend and asked her if the towers name annoys her and she said “no course not” so I asked if she knew if it annoyed anyone else to which she hesitated and then said “not annoy as such”. She wouldn’t elaborate further.

Now I’m pretty thick skinned and can mostly laugh it off if I’ve been a dick but this time I’m a bit upset, I keep trying to tell myself I’m not bothered but I can’t stop thinking about it. Have I been a laughing stock for years? If so AIBU to think someone might have mentioned it before now?

This is a serial mumsnet troll operating under a new user name.Just report and ignore.

I don't think it helps that your house is a 3-storey town house. If you had a bungalow it is obvious it's a joke, but a 3-storey town house? Maybe some wondered if you had pretentions. Anyway, all jokes wear thin after umpteen repetitions for years. I can understand your embarrassment and would definitely not be doing it any more.

You could try Indeed or Monster and see if they have anything that may suit you on there.

Engraved door plaque and personalised stationery required 😁

Agreed @PucaBandearg- I think maybe bunny (not so) cute should probably take a break, she’s sounding pretty unhinged!

I think it's one of those things that is mildly amusing the first time it's done or if done occasionally.

But if everything is done in this way eg from the op

We host a lot of social events and I use the name in invites for example “birthday party, Jackson towers”, “Strictly finale party, Jackson towers” etc In Christmas/birthday cards “love from A, L and all at Jackson towers”

And

we were talking about taking the kids to a Halloween event tonight and I said “why don’t you bring them back to the towers afterward and we can have a little party

It starts to look a bit less like a joke and starts to sound as though the host is taking it a bit too seriously to be a joke. Maybe people thought it was funny to begin with but now 🙄 at the assumption that Jackson Towers is the hub of all social events and The Place To Be.

Basically, the joke just wore a bit thin.

Omg the cringe 😬 it sounds like you think your house is massive/ think it’s better than everyone else’s. Your family are right. Putting that on imvites as well, twee and embarassing.

I get that MN is hardly a COBRA committee! I just don't get why people would presume to know all of the far-reaching facts from one tiny insignificant glimpse!

It reminds me of an old sketch they had on Dead Ringers, where they parodied Time Team. They found an old discarded empty beer can on their site and then computer-modelled it to show the 'ancient Roman temple' made wholly out of thousands of beer cans that this one would without question have been a remnant of!

I wouldn't particularly cringe if you had said it once or twice but it's not amusing enough to be a running joke and the way you describe using the nickname is a bit cringe tbh.

God I would find that so annoying and cringey if someone kept referring to their house as “…. Towers”. Or saying things like “you can come back to ‘The Towers’ afterwards”

I would probably find it funny or lighthearted the first couple of times as a joke but to keep on calling your house [insert surname here] towers for years afterwards would annoy the shit out of me and I’d come to the conclusion that you were batshit.

I would think it is a bit Hyacinth Bucket.

I don’t know, I think of ‘towers’ as some sort of dark, medieval place and that’s how I’d picture it if someone was referring to their house as ‘towers’ 🤣 But that’s just me….

Think that you would have to be pretty mean spirited to have a problem with this OP. But then I shared a garden flat the size of a postage stamp in London with a couple of girlfriends in my misspent youth which became known to our friendship group as Totty Towers, and in chats friends from that time still talk about parties and gatherings that we had at "The Towers". One of my old flatmates still lives in the city in another small property which we all refer to as Buck House, and another in an old mews in Oxfordshire - also tiny - that is known universally as *Their surname" Manor! I think just accept that a few family members and other people are having an issue - for whatever reason - and go forward with what suits you.

It's a bit Hyacinth Bucket. It's the name you picked for your house, but I think you need to acknowledgement its beyond a joke and what you call your home.

There has been a very similar post to this before. Something to do with a postman though?

The thing is, you might find it funny but I can see it would wear thin quite quickly and a lot of people wouldnt realise your tongue was in your cheek when you keep using it.

I wouldnt have laughed at you or been mean about it though. I would have rolled my eyes and thought it was daft.

Totty Towers is worse than 'Jackson' Towers tbf. We were all young once I suppose!

My first email address was something ghastly too iirc

My dad sometimes used to call our house this, and I thought it was funny, but it sounds like you've really overdone the joke, OP. Sorry!

Oh and if you want to call it Towers, just own it.

The joke has just worn thin, that's all. I doubt all of your social circle have been discussing it behind your back for years. It's just that over time it's moved from mildly funny to eyeball roll. I wouldn't expend too much energy thinking about it.

I think the reason it's hit a bit hard is because it's one of those moments in life where you suddenly see yourself from the outside and that something you had assumed to always be one way isn't that way for everyone else.

I would continue. I think it's funny

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I have to agree with PPs that it’s the, “making it a thing” that has had people rolling their eyes but I can’t believe it was more than that? Surely your friends and family have better things to do than discuss this in any great detail or with any level of frequency? We all have our quirks and we’d all probably die to know what people say about them behind our backs…

As usual everyone's focusing on the wrong thing i.e.whether you're being 'wanky' rather than whether your mum and sister were being cruel.

So at the second or third or seventh time you'd say ' That's not really funny any more' instead of letting her carry on and laughing behind her back.

It would be funny in the way I think you were intending if you lived in a small flat.

But as it’s a three storey townhouse it just falls completely flat/sounds wank.