AIBU to find references to 'a hobby' on Mumsnet odd?

[Jane143]

Why is it whenever a hobby is mentioned it’s always referred to as ‘a hobby’
why the secrecy or it a Mumsnet rule?
am I being unreasonable to find it a bit odd?

They think oddly it will be outing.

The first thing that springs to my mind is hobby horses.

Yes, because apparently only five people in the country do macramé/morris dancing/aerial skills/burlesque.

I always assume they're furries.

Lol I understand, it always makes me wonder. I immediately think of model railways

I thought it was always cycling.

The same way the secret sport DDs do is always gymnastics.

I assume it's because some mumsnetters like to play detective and read what the OP has written on previous threads as well as the current one, so it could be outing if someone in your social circle did that and you were into something really niche like Equestrian Vaulting or taking classes in Linear B.
Also people make some really odd assumptions about folk who do certain hobbies, and people don't like to be pigeon-holed when it's not relevant.

Either they think it will be too identifiable, or they think that the hobby itself comes with associations which mean the thread will be derailed by discussion about those associations instead of the actual issue on which the OP wants input.

Most hobbies (cycling, the gym, golf, zumba) are generic and non-identifying, but I suppose if you're deeply involved in nudist axe throwing there's a chance the twenty three other people in the country who do it too could recognise you from the thread. And if it's something like morris dancing, fox hunting, derelict site exploration or guerilla gardening, your thread could easily be derailed by peoples' opinions on your hobby.

Because most of the tine its irrelevant whether its extreme ironing, swinging, cycling or hiding in bushes shoooting boo at random intervals.

I get this, but it doesn't take that many innocuous details for something to become identifiable. A hobby like macrame might not be outing, but if you're revealing that your hobby is macrame, and you live in Wales, and you're just back from a caravan holiday, it's not remotely unlikely that someone else in your macrame class could recognise you from the information given.

Yes but that's why most of us name change regularly, so that we are able to be reasonably frank on an individual thread about a job application/neighbour issues/ a potential house move without someone who thinks 'I wonder if that's X' being then able to link it to a husband with ED/a drunken indiscretion with Steve from IT/an embarrassing farting problem.

I do find it an odd phrase.
People saying "On tuesday my child does their hobby" rather than "on tuesday they go to Scouts".
It sounds weird.

I love seeing this. Always makes me chuckle. Especially when it’s followed with a description of the hobby, with bonus points if we’re commanded to “think”, e.g. DH was at his hobby, think balls that are hit into holes and there are flags

I’ve never heard anyone in the real world call anything they like just “hobby”, it’s always referred to as what it actually is. Except a woman at work whose partner and her both have “hobby rooms”. Her hobby, as far as I can tell, is meant to be sewing. Couldn’t possibly have a sewing room, could she?!

Two things - firstly I love your username 😊 secondly I just had to google Linear B and have learnt something!

Yes, I’m afraid it immediately makes me think of ‘jobby’ and imagine everyone involved on the loo — macramé makers, cyclists, pot-throwers, Zumba-ers etc.

Oh, she just likes the idea of imagining you thinking that her hobby is aerial silks and his is fire-eating, rather than embroidering hankies and painting model engines.😃

I'm fine with "hobby". I don't need to know to get the gist of the post, and in fact the more irrelevant details the less well focused the post.

I can't stand it when posters get obsessed about some detail they aren't being told and fill the thread up with OP why are you avoiding saying whether the tights you laddered that day were tan or nude? as if they think they are Columbo finding the tiny detail that makes the whole story unravel, when OP really wants to talk about the arsehole who grabbed her handbag and pushed her into a bush and caused her to twist her ankle and just happened to mention in passing her new tights got laddered as well.

I’ve just identified a good friend from this. She wrote a post about paddle boarding and I noticed the unusual username where she mentions something specific to her husbands country of birth. I then noticed the same username on a funny post of the thread where children are taking the piss out of their parents clothes, and read something I’d actually witnessed her son saying to her last week 😂 sorry hun you’ve been exposed now (she’s posted some really shocking workplace gossip recently as well). I actually think you have to work really hard on here not to be exposed as I’ve spotted plenty of people

I think it's a mix of:

• Its not relevant to the story. If someone who's meant to be your partner is fucking off for a day and a half every weekend to do a hobby, it doesn't matter what that hobby is
• you get a load of people commenting on the hobby. Things like 'urgh, I'd get the ick if my husband wore lycra' or 'I've no idea how you can be attracted to a gamer, gaming is for 17 year old boys' which isn't very helpful
• the hobby itself isn't outing. But when you get posters trawling back through a load of posts and sees that the OP has two boys and a girl, they're in x specific years at school, she lives in Scotland, she fell out with a friend after a weekend in Europe, she works full time as a teacher and her husband is obsessed with marathon running, it can become identifying. So people leave the irrelevant details out if they're frequent posters

So jarring

I promise no-one is going to know its you, if you tell us your husband plays 5 a side 🙄

But often the actual hobby is key to the question. As in my husband disappears all day Saturday because of his hobby. Now if it's golf it shouldn't be all day. 5 hours tops. Cycling hmm could be. Karate then a couple of hours unless it's a competition....so the actual hobby means that either the ops being unreasonable in expectations or the husband is taking the piss

I find the word hobby quaintly old-fashioned, so to me it brings up images of sewing dolls’ clothes or painting wooden clothes pegs, or for DHs maybe assembling Airfix models. Anything more strenuous should be an “activity”.

Tis the rules
anything else would instantly identify you because - just because

Because if people knew that I have three times won the World Championship Air Lute competition it would be immediately outing.

And in our house that would be spot on. There, I've said it!