To find people who hold back good news for themselves really annoying ?

[Beachbooks]

I don’t know if anyone agrees with me, but I find people who keep their good news to themselves for a while before sharing it with friends & family really annoying !!

As an example, one of my friends got engaged and then made a big thing of telling everyone that they’d not told anyone for a week so as not to spoil their bubble. I obviously wasn’t expecting to be top of the list but felt sad for her family who she kept in the dark and then found it quite strange that they made a big point of telling everyone that they’d hadn’t told anyone !!

And my SIL is pregnant and will tell us all the date & time of her scans but then wait for a day or two before telling anyone how it went which then makes everyone worry that something is wrong !!

I know people say they want to prolong their bubble of happiness but I just don’t get how telling people and allowing loved ones to be part of your good news somehow takes the special feeling away ?!?!

I don't see what you gain by finding out anyway.
It's not like you can change it.

Are you not aware that people can be simultaneously very worried or angry about the big things and mildly annoyed about trivial things?
Even recognising that those little things don’t really matter but they’re annoying nonetheless.

I’ll share my good news on my timeline, not yours.

The engaged couple may have a narcissistic family member they can't go NC with so are being strategic about announcing the news so the narcissist doesn't have time to make the engagement all about them?

The SIL telling everyone the dates of scans then not what happened at the scans does sound a bit odd, I would find it baffling a mildly annoying. What do you think she wanted to get out of doing that?

It sounds as though it's not the not telling people that's the issue, but the oddly pre pubescent building up of the fact information wasn't announced/ wasn't given to specific people instantly.

Not instantly passing on "good news" is completely fine, but making a song and dance about the fact they didn't tell people until a week later sounds like a ten year old's bid to be cliquey or create a scarcity economy around their "news" or something. That's what's odd. I don't think I know anyone who does that, or I haven't noticed!

Fine not to tell people straight away. Not fine to say "Ha Ha, we kept you in the dark". Even worse to say "we're going to find out the baby's sex/other information important to us, but we're not going to tell you until we feel like it!"

That's just childish in its blatant exclusion.

Very, very common to put birth, engagement and death announcements in the paper before social media was a thing. Even for us common folk, who would just put it in the local paper. Seriously posh folk put it in the Times or the Daily Telegraph or the Scotsman.

So kids

So perhaps she isn’t close to you and her mum.

is this in keeping with how she’s been in the years you have known her? Or a surprise

I didn't find out for 2 kids. People went mental, it really brings out people's engrained sexism. Lots of "how will I know what colour to buy" bullshit then for the one I did find out, extremely stereotypical presents. If advised people not to share the sex, if they feel strongly about avoiding the blue/pink bullshit.

Yes exactly - looking at the obituaries in the local rag to see who'd died (or as my dad put it "to check I haven't died" was a thing right up until the end of the 1990s, maybe longer for some people.

Not telling anyone the gender guess for your baby hopefully gets you more green/yellow/other neutral colour things that are readily re-useable for siblings.

It would be much kinder of her to not announce the scan dates and just give updates afterwards.

Can't get excited about a couple waiting a bit to announce their engagement.

It's a well known British phrase meaning 'the people you know'.

It's not strange to want to know the sex if only to know which names to focus on choosing, like only having to prepare for the topics actually on the exam paper instead of the ones that won't be (with the caveat of a backup in case it's wrong if you only have the information from a 2D ultrasound). Lits of people think of their foetus by name as the child they'll be, not just as the newborn they'll be (both are projections).

Knowing the sex was actually relevant for me in deciding whether to have a planned caesarean or try a vbac, given the first caesarean for a big baby and the fact sex, as well as birth order and gestational age, and information from ultrasounds, plays a role in predicting the size of the subsequent baby.

RIP.ie for death announcements is still a huge thing in Ireland. It’s my octogenarian parents’ home page in their PC.

My brother got married and didn’t tell anyone for about 8 months. A week is nothing

I hate the gender reveal crap tacky parties people do. Chav crap

I agree- what difference would it make if you knew?!

I’m the same.

I withhold good news because I have people in my life who take the shine off things.

I withhold bad news because the very same people are also huge catastrophisers and manage to make me feel worse about an already bad situation.

Why do you need to “get it”, though? No one is making YOU do the same thin. If they want to keep it to themselves for a bit, let them; it isn’t hurting anyone.

I have to admit we are here as well and by our 40s.

I agree, I stopped telling family I don't see much things because managing their emotions around anything with any tension, need for updates or grief is often more draining than managing the issue itself.

Nobody wants their sadness to be made about someone else, and to have to comfort someone they've rung outvof duty to pass on their own bad news, or their worries magnified by constantly pestering for updates and being lectured about why something is their own fault, or about adopting a raw vegan diet and gargling garlic because cousin Julie believes it cured her neighbour's similar health issues, or whatever.

Good stuff gets garbled, made unintentionally more relevant to the recipient of the information and passed on to all and sundry in garbled form, which then comes back to me and has to be either confirmed "yes, DS is studying chemistry because he looks up to uncle Bernard" when he's actually studying physics because he's good at it... or denied "no actually it's physics" "oh so not because of uncle B then? Well why did you tell aunty Ethel...?"

Different from "DS is studying physics. We decided not to tell you until term two so we could enjoy our bubble". That'd be weird.