Frugaleer just jamming.

[Unescorted]

Hoping all your new year wishes come true.

I'm a lurker but previously posted on this thread. I think some of you are reading Autumn's post with the arguments she had with jam in mind. I've binged the last thread and this one and have noticed with concern that lonely has been increasingly irritated and outright aggressive toward autumn - who has been clumsy but has only been guilty of awkward posting style. I've been worried for lonely as I feel she is suffering at the moment and probably has rather too much emotionally on her plate and therefore where previously she might not have been annoyed by tone deaf posting she has escalated quite quickly last night.
I just thought it might help to have an outsider perspective - I mean no offence to anyone and shall go back to lurking for inspiration as you are all lovely people. You all have many different troubles in life and sometimes those can jostle up against each other and create friction.
Fwiw I have been able to see that since the aforementioned dust up with jam when autumn was quite unreasonable, she has made a huge and significant effort to fit in and be jovial. I have also seen how tough things have and continue to be for lonely and how hard she works at holding things together for everyone - I wonder if she needs a lot more support directly from everyone as I get the feeling she pootles on taking care of everyone and trying to make things look ok when she is maybe feeling the weight of all that responsibility rather sharply.
I hope you will both remain on the thread as you both give a lot to lurkers like me who aren't able to keep up with posting. Lots of love to you both and I hope it's possible to draw a line under this and move forward with you both.
I hope none of this causes offence; as I said, I thought it might be helpful to have a more objective outsider's view who doesn't have a "team" as such to side with xxx

Thanks 100years. I really appreciate you giving your view.

I can't remember anything about the dust up with jam, so if people are reading my comments in that context, I've forgotten what that context is. I don't mean it's a bit hazy either. It's a total blank.

I have been trying hard to be more jolly though, because I remember that something happened that made me think that I ought to.

Just Poor kid, it’s not the end of the world though. Much as it feels like it.

Autumn, it was a similar situation but you were in the position of lonely in a way and took offence at jam trying to be helpful. You were clearly having a tough time and it was before you received your asd diagnosis. You asked her not to speak to you in the end but I have seen that since then you've made a real effort to talk to everyone and be part of the community positively. I think lots of people on the thread were quite taken aback at some of the responses you gave at that time though so I think that may now colour how they read your posts.
Again I am not meaning offence to anyone x

I think Autumn that you don’t always pick up on other people’s tone in their posts. So last night after answering one of your posts Lonely said And breathe. Now I am going to turn my bloody tablet off before I launch it. That would suggest that she was getting a bit annoyed at something you said and most people would either confront her or ignore her. You responded by paying her a compliment which is something most people would never do therefore I think people thought you were taking the piss. You say you weren’t and I believe you, but sometimes if people are stressed then they won’t have the time or energy to take things at more than face value.

I hope that you can both continue with this thread as I think it provides real support for both of you

Looking back at what Happier quoted:

It might be for you Lonely but it wasn't for me.

Is that where it went wrong?

I didn't mean to imply anything about lonely at all. I was just revisiting the stress and trauma of my experience in weaning ds and saying "Oh my goodness those days were hard, I'm so glad to be able talk to you all about it and get out of my system a bit."

Born yes you're right. I would never either confront or ignore Lonely. She sounded upset and I wanted to help her to feel better.

Autumn it was definitely the you know so much comment.

Thanks Born.

I'm sorry about that coming over the wrong way. I just meant that she must know a lot about weaning as she has four children, and is clearly very experienced. It wasn't meant to be sarcastic.

I'm not very experienced at weaning because I only have one kid, and I'm constantly in awe of the mums I see at the school gate who have three or more children. I think they must be amazing, strong and skilled people. They are kind of like heroes to me.

I mean that quite sincerely.

Sorry cross posted as ridiculously slow at typing. I should have added to the confront or ignore that some people would have apologised. I am not saying that you should have or indeed needed to, but saying I’m sorry I didn’t mean to upset you is more socially acceptable. I do think it is important to remember that you have openly said that you struggle with this sort of thing, that’s why I’m giving you a detailed breakdown as I see it

100years that is an interesting take on things. Why don’t you post anymore? You should definitely come back

Thanks Born yes this is really helpful.

I'm not good at conflict in RL either. I'm really really not good at saying in a kind assertive way when someone has said something that I find upsetting either, so it would be useful to learn that too.

Honestly Autumn not many people are. If you master that skill let me know so I can try it too 😉

tbh, I didn't feel it was appropriate to apologise to Lonely as I'd been having a nice chat about weaning all day, and she just suddenly appeared and seemed to get explosively angry at me for not knowing as much as she does about weaning.

I felt hurt by that too.

LOL! Born. I'll work on it.

Girlie you'll be fine. Breathe and count breathe and count.

Hardly any traffic today so I'm early waiting for my colleague in a car park 🙄

Autumn why did you then pay the compliment. If someone hurt me it would be the last thing that I’d do, but I get the feeling that that is your way of coping. You think that by saying something nice it will diffuse the situation - does that sound about right?

Yes that's right Born. I thought that acknowledging lonely's expertise might make her feel better.

But I think it's still okay for me to use the forum to talk about the struggles I had with weaning, even though other other people may not have had those same struggles.

We haven't heard from Lonely herself yet. Should we stop talking about it until we hear back from her?

Success again with Amazon, I'm getting a second replacement for Instant Pot, hopefully it'll be a case of third time lucky

Bootcamp is happening again next week €100 for 5 daily classes for 4 weeks, I love it and the social aspect is great but I'm also getting on well at the gym as I've paid annual membership for that. I felt so sad last year when I was physically unable to do bootcamp that now I'm healthy I don't want to miss out the camaraderie, it goes against my frugal principles though, in a quandary. Ran it by my sis and she said to stick with gym, but she's a pt and loves gym herself, she did say as a footnote you love bootcamp though

Meant to say good luck Girlie and Love. I hope your lecturer appreciates your braveness and cuts you some slack.

Good idea Autumn

I’m meeting another friend for lunch today. I’m sounding like that’s all I do ( I wish 😜) but I am on holiday and haven’t been out much over the Christmas period so catching up. Can’t remember if it’s my turn to pay - see this is where a diary where I wrote down all my spends would be handy. I really must start that.

I just tried watching Parliament channel to get away from the stress and they're all shouting and getting angry with each other, but much much more aggressively. Gosh.

Good luck today Girlie and CagDH, hope you both get some answers. Give yourself a treat afterwards Girlie, you’ll deserve it for being brave!

You didn’t mean offence Autumn but you definitely upset Lonely. And most of us would have felt the same way - that’s an unfortunate consequence of the common neurotypical interpretation of your tone in that post, unintended as it was.

If I upset someone, even (especially?!) unintentionally, I would apologise. But it’s up to you... I realise you are quite bewildered by the reaction to all this so it might all seem a bit unfair. But you are still here and she is not and we’d all like her to feel she can come back. I hope we can all just get on with being frugal. (Or in my case, struggling with being frugal.)

Spends were £3.40 yesterday. I am buying water and tea in the work canteen each day as I literally can’t carry another thing to work (have no permanent desk so am carrying a laptop, office shoes, massive flask of soup, work papers... etc). Not the most frugal but my chilly bottle as well would tip me over - literally.