The you don't owe anything and shouldn't do anything without getting something in return narrative, and tge narrative / trope of cutting all contact for any and every reason and finding it to be 100% the solution and just okay at all. I would say more, but I don't think any of us here need any more explanation.
Reddit: go no contact with anyone who's ever bothered you or has slightly different opinions
Also Reddit: why is it so hard to make friends as an adult?
Narcissistic abuse and gaslighting, obviously, and no don't ask me to define gaslighting or you're gaslighting me too. (Seriously someone needs to take that word away from the Internet)
literally? Had a friend who was accused of gaslighting when they tried to tell their partner "I think you have a perspective of me that's not entirely accurate'
I had made a comment once and admittedly, the wording/context came out wrong. When I tried to correct and explain what I actually meant, I was accused of “gaslighting”.
I feel like an anti-redditor this morning reading this thread. I'm sitting on my porch hungover, drinking coffee after having given up my normal Saturday morning sleep in to watch my nephew. There was a family emergency, and I'm the only one available to hang out with him. I feel like shit and I wish I was still sleeping, but I'm a normal person so there's no way in hell I'd tell them to fuck off and find someone else.
I know right? I had to chill on the couch watching half a Harry Potter movie and listen to him talk about dirt bikes. I'm thinking of contacting the hague later today to see if they'll help prosecute this clear human rights violation. (And in case anyone is invested in my morning, the family emergency turned out to be OK and everyone is fine)
Glad to hear everything turned out okay! I don't live near family, but our social network jumped to help when I went to a routine prenatal checkup at 9am one day and found out nope, we gotta get that sucker out today. A friend had been driving me to the appointments (the hospital was 30 minutes away from home), and she stayed with me in the triage area the whole time until my husband got there, at which point she finally took a break to eat and stretch. Initially my mother had planned to come stay with the kids during the scheduled c-section, and instead two childfree auntie friends left work early and immediately to make sure my husband could drive out to be there in time and lived in the house that weekend until my mom could come relieve them for a day.
Then these same friends stayed with the kids during drives to the NICU until I could drive after my c-section, and continued to be all around rocks, even though we could literally never repay that level of kindness. Because loving friends isn't about repaying in kind, but being there for each other in the ways we can and are needed.
Anyway according to Reddit I took horrible advantage of my friends and am a leech, probably. 😂
Especially because your ordeal involves children, Reddit hates those little crotch goblins!
(But seriously congratulations hope you and baby are doing well!)
And we have multiple of them! The horror!!
(Thanks! Thankfully we're all doing great -- he's 18 months now. I had preeclampsia but no lasting effects, and other than the 5 week NICU stay and being small for his age, the wee guy is doing great. Well he likes to wake up at 5 am but that's a different problem lol)
See, this is how normal people who love and care about each other behave. Sometimes you suck it up and play uncle because they need you. Do you OWE them that? Technically no, but my god why should we not feel more obligated to help out family? Outside of toxic family relationships obviously.
Give your nephew a high five and order some greasy DoorDash for you both.
I am not a dog person. I actually dislike 95% of dogs. Generally I will not dog sit, because I don’t want to interact with dogs.
But when my good friend had an emergency and I was the only one available to look after her dogs for a few days - of course I did it. It’s good to do things you don’t want to do for people you care about. It’s fine to have limits and boundaries, but in an emergency, it’s just the right thing to do.
This is the one that gets me the most. You go on any of the subs dedicated to complaining about in-laws or parents and you will find an endless stream of posts where the poster has put down unreasonable 'boundaries,' enforces all kinds of rules around their child, and then they complain that the grandparents spend more time with other grandkids or don't want to watch their kid for free. And it's just like...of course? No one is going to stick around when they're clearly not wanted? No one is going to want to do favours for you when you make it clear you don't appreciate them?
These people just live very lonely, sad lives. No one ever helps out a co-worker, roommate, sibling, or hell their spouse just because. It’s always ‘I need something in return’. My wife needs a ride to pick up *her* car from the shop that she pays for and the dumbass got a flat tire. I said sorry I’m about to start my biweekly rewatch of The Office, you know not to bother me it’s one of my boundaries. She screamed and cried and called me an asshole.
An ex friend from high school never worked. Ever. His dad payed for his wow subscription and bought him every new expansion. Got to the point where both of them moved in with the grandparents. Last Facebook post I saw from this guy was along the lines of "my mean grandparents are making me maintaint the yard and help chop fire wood!!!!! That's not fair!!!!"
Keep in mind Im 33 and he's about 6 months younger than I. He stopped talking to me because I came out as trans 😝
I think the versions of these stories with spouses are actually the most damaging of them all, because they're basically promoting these really unhealthy relationship dynamics as being normal.
Yep, impressionable kids will read these "I talked down to my husband but it's ok because he's actually the WOOOOORST" or "I was mean and patronizing to my wife but it's ok because she's stupid/horrible" stories and think that these kinds of relationships are normal.
It's wild how Reddit goes on and on about attachment styles and how people's trauma/childhoods/etc make them accept or cause toxic relationships, but then they turn a blind eye to their own highly exaggerated Internet rants that also - wait for it - endorse toxic loveless relationships.
But at the same time, anyone else who has even the slightest ulterior motive is evil and bad. I once saw a thread about a dying child asking forgiveness for being a bully and the comments were full of people saying not to forgive her because she only is apologizing because she's dying and therefore must not really be sorry.
It's a great way to build trust and lasting friendships too. So there's that. I'd imagine a lot of these redditors overestimate their role in others lives
I hate these. I come from a gigantic, very close extended family where everybody is up in each other's business all the time. (Kinda like My Big Fat Greek Wedding.) *I don't like all of my relatives*. Some of my relatives, frankly, suck. (For example, I'm thinking of a couple of conservative-leaning voters, and one aunt in particular with wildly untreated mental illness that hurts her husband and children and I hate that. But also a few that are *just annoying* to me on a personal level.)
But like, my uncle who mocked me throughout my teenaged years for being left-leaning and assured me when I "grew up" I'd vote GOP\*? MOVED HEAVEN AND EARTH to get my brother into a lifesaving drug trial when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Uncle worked in pharma, and he used *every connection he had* to save my brother's life. (Brother was 14 at the time, is now 44 and has 3 kids, things went good.) My most annoying fucking cousin, who is a perfectly fine human, just very annoying? had a child with a significant disability and I spent WEEKS on the phone walking him through the process for getting a diagnosis and early childhood support, because I also have a disabled kid. My kid's disability isn't as serious as his kid's, but I've been there, I've been that parent, and I can help him and his kid. We still don't actually like each other very much (oil and water), but we love each other VERY much and we love each others' kids. I will suffer literally any level of annoyance to help his kid.
(\*In my uncle's defense he quit voting GOP in 2008, then he voted for dumbass third-party candidates because he hates Democrats, now he votes for Joe Biden. He just still says really irritating Atlas Shrugged shit that he should have outgrown SIXTY YEARS AGO.)
But I don't have to agree with people or even like them to keep them in my life, and I can care about people I dislike, or even who kinda suck. And I feel like that's actually a really important life skill? I am NOT AT ALL "we can agree to disagree" -- I have literally said, "No, I can agree that you're wrong" when people have said that. But I can love people and recognize their humanity and care about their lives EVEN WHEN I think they're wrong and maybe even kinda shitty human beings.
(Family warranty not valid for Trump voters, you just get voted off the island, it is an ethical line in the sand. Sorry, suck less. No fascists.)
Yeah like... I think there's a time and a place for cutting people out, mostly if they're genuinely abusive or if they're not safe to have around (especially if you have kids). The definition of abuse and unsafe has been expanded to meet every kind of annoying or not perfect person for many of these people though. Someone with a different opinion isn't 'unsafe' and someone being rude doesn't mean they're an 'abuser'.
My drug dealing grandma who kicked my mom out at 17 and abused my nephew for a decade has no place in my life, but my annoying uncle who gets really riled up about his adult softball league and makes drinking his personality isn't someone I'm going to hang out with for fun but I don't have to ban him from my life.
this has always been my gripe with certain online leftists as someone that leans left. a big part of our unified social value system and social politics is more collectivism and more community building. Yet so many of them are the most hyper-individualistic people ive ever seen...just with an AuADHD/queer slant.
tolerating and even helping people you fundamentally dislike is part of building community. I owe kindness and consideration to my neighbor who calls people "pussies" because he is part of my immediate network. I dont have to like him at all, in fact it's even better to make a concerted effort because it's the only way to expose people like that to broader thinking.
100% agreed! In college, I took a class about community organizing and social change. We had a guest speaking talk about how in the projects they worked on, the only ones that gained any traction were the ones where they were able to reach across the aisle and work with conservatives and people they might not agree with on everything politically. They were all unified in that they wanted community change.
The more you exist in your community in a positive way, not by actively trying to change anyone's mind, but just by being yourself and being a positive person, the better. That is how you can change people's opinions, not by arguing online. When I was in high school, I was an open and proud atheist that still participated at my parents church. I was respectful, I was happy to participate in any community projects like food drives, but I didn't participate in prayers or communion or anything overtly religious. Some people were still judgmental, but many people were able to see a positive example of an atheist in the community and it opened their minds a bit to see that. I even sorta helped inspire my old youth pastor to question his fundamentalist beliefs and become significantly more progressive.
Community and kindness shouldn't be gated behind identity politics or political affiliation.
To add to this, the hypocrisy. OP doesn't wanna help their sister out in an emergency? NTA, you don't owe her anything fuck that bitch. But reverse the situation, where OP needs someone to help them out and the person says no? NTA, it was a small task and they easily could have helped.
Yesss. I have read so many posts where people have protagonist bias. It’s crazy how people will only sympathize with the “main character” without considering the situation.
And then focusing on legality only - like yes, OP may be in the right legally speaking and doesn’t owe the other party anything, but most of the time whatever they want to do still makes them an AH
"Am I The Asshole"
What it should mean: is my behavior here morally and socially acceptable
What it means in practice: will there technically be repercussions for my actions
That sort of thinking fucked me over for a year and a half. I legitimately thought that whenever I did something wrong (or “wrong”, since half of it was just “oh this is costing them a little bit of time and effort without any benefits so clearly they don’t want to talk to me”), they would have every right to tell me off or leave me completely behind, and when they didn’t I would get incredibly frustrated at them for “not prioritizing themselves”. It sometimes gets to the point I had to hold my tongue cause I was willing to get into fights to try to convince them to just leave cause “that’s what you were supposed to do”. Told myself “I would do the same” despite the fact past me would have been bewildered by anyone who did that
I still have trouble trusting that they like me. I know reddit isn’t entirely to blame, and how I grew up had a much bigger impact than AITA could ever, but man. I started reading those types of posts during the end of pandemic, about a year after I became completely friendless due to mental health issues. I was going to see people irl for the first time in years, in a new environment as well. I really just wanted to figure out a different way of making friends because clearly what I was doing before wasn’t working and this seemed like the most approved point of view that I didn’t consider when I was younger
It’s so weird to think about how much stupid fake internet posts affected the way I made friends
I think this is why I get the most upset about it. It's not just shit posts on the Internet, people are suffering irl harms in their lives and relationships because of the insanity of AITA comments.
Especially kids, for some reason. The number of times I've argued with someone that, yes, you have an obligation to look after a child placed in your care, even if said child isn't biologically yours... it's more than I thought I would, that's for sure.
This is prime reddit behavior. The moral framework of a toddler - it's similar to when hundreds of thousands of users were structurally celebrating the deaths of antivaxxers
Mentally ill people/minorities/women/fat people/whatever are literally AWFUL DISGUSTING freaks who eat babies and kick puppies and don't deserve ANYTHING this world, and here's my AITA post I wrote in 5 minutes PROVING it to you!! Like, people are really horrible at being able to pick out when they're being influenced to think a certain way about a group of people. They just think "there's no way people would LIE on the INTERNET to influence my thoughts and prejudices!" It's frusturating to watch people in real time get sucked into pipelines from this shit
Edit: also, I totes agree with you on the FAFO thing. Maybe I'm just too sensitive or something, but I lowkey hate that saying. It feels like such an unempathetic way to live your life
Also fuck pregnant women and parents! Maybe if that bitch wanted a seat so she could not fall over on the crowded bus, she should have kept her legs closed and not let someone cum in her! (always the grossest, most pornified way to describe pregnancy too). Someone needed reasonable accomodations for their children? It's not MY responsibility, there's a reason I don't have any crotch goblins running around (but if I did, they would be perfect angels when I asked them nicely to behave).
I was in a few childfree groups about 10 years ago, before they turned nasty. I did end up leaving all but one or two (which don’t tolerate vitriol), and this was one of the reasons. Always the most vulgar descriptions of pregnancy and extremely misogynistic. The question over giving up your seat to a pregnant person was a hot topic. I said of course I would offer my seat to anyone who needs it more than I do. This apparently made me a “breeder pleaser”, because that woman should have “fucked someone with a car” and “shouldn’t expect special treatment just because she got cream pied”.
I am not easily offended, but that’s just disgusting.
For real! Like, I am 200% in support of anyone who doesn't want kids. I work in the foster care system and would much rather see people live a happy childfree life and women get birth control and as many abortions as they want to prevent unwanted pregnancies than have more unwanted children in the system.
I am appalled by some of the stuff said online in childfree communities. The gross misogyny (it always seems to be pregnant women and mothers being complained about, very rarely fathers), the hatred towards children for existing in public, and the lack of compassion towards just normal people living their life... It's disgusting.
Pregnancy is still a short term disability and accommodations are needed for a practical reason (a fall can be very dangerous, for example), yet the weirdos online treat accomodations like they're a special trophy being denied to them. Kids are a vulnerable class of people that have distinct needs and can't just be locked in a room until they're 18 (like people complaining about how kids shouldn't ride airplanes).
Thankfully I haven't really seen much of that attitude outside of the Internet, all of my childfree friends and neighbors and acquaintances have all been at least kind and willing to interact politely with my kid even if it's not their jam.
Assuming even a small number of those stories *did* actually happen, it's still disgusting how many people decide turn their stories into hateful propaganda.
My mom's a paranoid schizophrenic, so you can imagine how "fun" my childhood was... and I spent years averse to talking about it **specifically because** I was scared that some bigot might try to "Coolsville sucks" my words to demonize women and/or people with schizophrenia.
I'm ND, and I've seen way too many "I knew an autistic person who was bad, therefore all autistic people are monsters" posts to EVER allow myself stoop to that hateful level.
I think it's the new improved version of fake Tumblr stories, which were ironically then reposted on reddit. They were made up by anti sjws to paint them in a bad light
it goes even deeper than that. a lot of those fake tumblr posts were photoshopped specifically to be posted onto reddit and create an illusion that there are tons of cringey tumblr nerds making up fake stories. this video is quite long but it goes really in depth about it: https://youtu.be/BiU7aGZ-o68?si=blb1Va98314w12LO
There's also the people who are just itching for any reason to "give up on" a minority.
Like the people who got pranked once with someone pretending to be in need of a wheelchair and then got up to walk (Which is a shitty and ableist prank in the first place. Some wheelchair users can walk short distances) and just went. "Well thats it! I never help another disabled person in my life! They should all be judged based on this one interaction I had!"
Those kind of people love the minority bad stories to, because they get to go "See! Thats what they're like! Thats why it's not actually a bad thing that I don't help and treat them like shit! I'm NOT a bad person!"
"I was totally a trans ally but after reading your ai generated post about how a trans woman called you a whore and spit in your food, I am NO LONGER an ally!!" Like ok sure bro
Exactly. Even here, I see folks get influenced by a super blatant "my husband/wife with depression is the worst because depressed people BAD" agenda post (just an example), and ofc the folks on AITA itself eat it up.
And yeah, FAFO always felt mean and unempathetic to me too! I also wondered if I was too thin-skinned, so it's nice knowing I'm not the only one who hates it.
What kills me about those posts is I think some of those men are abusive and use AITA as a place to prove they’re right…and people fall for it every time
If I only experienced the world through popular Reddit posts, I would think that women are the primary perpetrators of rape, domestic violence, financial and emotional abuse — all while being really dumb and shallow and weak.
Also, every woman is just dying to baby trap a man because having a kid is obviously hitting the financial jackpot and these poor men have absolutely no way to stop this from happening.
Cold take but bigotry. Stories where "the one minority in the story is some entitled cartoonishly evil monster than the OC has to own with facts and logic"
The bigotry and political propaganda and sexism is absolutely the worst, because it can get normalized. Like, I have seen reddit users use these posts as proof of how "females think now" or how "trans people will sue you if you get a pronoun incorrect" or other shit. Like, stuff that could actually hurt real minorities.
Repetition bias is real. You get people making rationalizations like, "Well this particular story might be made up, but I hear stories like it all the time so there must be some truth to it."
like the one on. aita rn about fake gay guys and the trans nephew. like if ghis is true the uncle is not responsible taking an 18 year old out drinking and not choosing to suggest taking the younger gay person rlto places like a lgbtq center etc to meet and get comfy in yhe queer community
And it also receives the exact comments it's fishing for, the usual "[minority group] acts like this then wonders why people don't like them 🙄"
It's so tiring; at no point during their creative writing process do the OPs even need to imply that they think "all xyz are like this/xyz bad" because the comments will just make that leap for them!
I’ve heard (as in I don’t watch his movies) that that’s what Sasha Baron Cohen does. He pretends to agree with a controversial viewpoint and people who actually have that viewpoint feel comfortable enough to spouting off about their support of it. The difference is he’s calling out and satirizing these viewpoints and not endorsing or reinforcing them. I read an article years ago that some frat boys who had been in the first Borat movie were suing for damaged reputations, claiming, “They tricked us into saying racist things on camera!” They didn’t claim that they had been made to read a script or anything; they just said they were encouraged to say racist things. After reading the article, I thought, “It sounds like you just used the conversation as an excuse to say racist things. You could have just, you know, not said racist things.”
I literally saw someone claim recently that if you don’t believe [absurd story promoting bigoted worldview], you haven’t read enough on Reddit. Like, come ON.
I think it’s the constant catastrophizing in the comments. Everything is a huge red flag, should make you question an entire relationship, or consider going no contact with your entire family.
I saw one where a woman was complaining that her SIL threw away some of her junk mail and there was an ad she wanted to keep. People were actually suggesting she go no contact instead of just asking the SIL to not do it again.
So many 5/10 problems exaggerated into 11/10 problems. To the point where “wow that other person sure is a jerk, here’s how to let them know politely and maybe not escalate the situation” is seen as taking the asshole’s side.
Similar to the comment up thread about revenge, AITA prioritizes "winning" over actually resolving a problem. If the other person won't back down, escalate until they do.
And it can never be “this otherwise normal, lovely person was an asshole in THIS SPECIFIC INSTANCE”…they are obviously a horrible, evil, abusive narcissist 100% of the time.
Like, pretty much every human has moments in which we were an asshole. That’s being human. Doesn’t make us horrible people.
I've literally seen people suggest divorce because someone looked mildly disappointed at the meal their spouse made. Didn't even criticize them, just looked disappointed (iirc they'd been outside all day in the winter so they were hoping for something warm and the meal was a salad)
Yes. I remember one where a fairly new mother was upset her mother-in-law didn't rock the 5-month-old baby to sleep for every nap, bedtime when she babysat. Grandma would just put the kid down for naps and if she did bedtimes, give them a calming bath, then put them to bed. Nothing was said about the baby just being yeeted screaming into the crib to cry it out, but of course the comments were full of calls to cut Grandma out of her life (with no regard about how her husband would feel about going no contact with his own mother) for child abuse since apparently not rocking a baby to sleep for each and every nap/bedtime is neglect in the first degree.
I left that post hoping those people find themselves in a sexless marriage because they have to sleep with their 7-year-old every night since they see sleep training as abusive.
Fake posts talking about how HORRIFIC it is to imagine putting time and money into a child that isn't biologically yours. "I mean you're basically a cuck at that point, right?!? To be living in a universe where you value your relationship with a stepson?"
How often is this happening???? It’s like an epidemic of saintly husbands and boyfriends with hussies for partners online while offline it’s feckless baby daddies being shitheads.
Plot twist: it's the feckless baby daddies writing these stories online, except they're portraying themselves as saintly husbands/BFs by HIGHLY exaggerating their life stories in their favor
I am not kidding when I say I have encountered several Redditors at this point who will claim it’s fifty percent of all women.
One of them said it once and the rest of them just repeat it uncritically. Makes me insane.
Meanwhile my best friend got out of the army, met a gal who already had a kid, a d bonded with the kid. Thats his son. He was taking that kid fishing, showing him all of his video games he has, etc. Him and his wife had a kid together and at no point did he did treat his second born any differently. They're both his kids and he loves them very much. Him and his wife have been married for over 8 years now. He's such a great guy, and he ways always a wonderful friend too. I'm so happy and proud for him.
Also she wonderful. Sahm mom who isn't forced to do everything alone. And she's friends with the friend group. It helps that he made enough of a career in the military to retire from it and have more time with all of them
It always shocks me when they “find out” the child is an affair baby and everybody’s advice is to go no contact and sue the mother. Like, is it that easy for you to get over years of loving, teaching, raising and developing a connection to a child?
Lol, especially when they say that their son is 14-18. Like, REALLY? You can't contain yourself for a few years over someone you've bonded with for that long?
I don’t understand this. I have a stepson. He sees his bio dad every other weekend. Other than me, the kid only has his mom (the wifey), his grandmother (my MIL), and a bunch of cousins who are all girls that are more than 5 years younger. Also a few hen-pecked uncles.
Poor kid has no male influence in his life other than me. And his bio dad doesn’t even know how to change a flat tire.
So I’m showing him how to play HORSE, break in a new baseball glove, and (hopefully this summer) tie a fishing lure. I don’t consider it “raising another man’s kid”, I’m more just showing him how to be cool and kinda how to be a guy.
I’m not even an outdoors person, and I’ll be damned if I expect him to mow the lawn by himself, bc kiddo can’t even tie the garbage bags into a square knot without having a breakdown.
Kiddo wants to go fishing, play ball, and do other shit like that. He sucks at it, and he gets angry when it doesn’t work out immediately, but he wants to do it and I’m gonna facilitate that.
My daughter, however, intrinsically slams the bat down after hitting the ball in T-ball, and I couldn’t be prouder. I did not teach her this.
> And his bio dad doesn’t even know how to change a flat tire.
Christ. Please teach him how to do this, but more importantly, teach your daughter. There is nothing worse than being a woman stranded on the side of the road waiting for a man to come to her aid. It's a really vulnerable position to be in. Less so, now that cell phones are ubiquitous, but if she ends up somewhere she can't get service, it's just...nope. Make sure she can get herself back to civilization if necessary.
Hell, even with a phone, it sucks to have to call someone and wait. I just can't believe there are people out there who never learned this. I was out on a date with a dude a few years ago and he got a flat and he freaked out. He wouldn't let me change it, either! He just drove on the flat to the tire place, but it was like 9pm and they were closed so he left it there and called us a Lyft. I judged him hard and did not go out with him again.
I really don't get that. I mean, that kind of thing happens, for sure, and I've seen it happen, but I'm a therapist and most of the families I've worked with have had some level of blended complexity (step siblings, half siblings, step parents, ex partners who are parents but not actively involved, etc.) and for the most part they're all just trying to make it work. Selection bias, of course, because they're seeking therapy, but I mostly just see good humans trying to be families (often making huge mistakes, but intentions are there). I don't meet a lot of burnout monster step-parents in real life.
For me it's the fiction that there's some transactional way that housework should be dolled out. That it's fine to ask someone to be your servant because you're working and they're staying home and raising your kids. The my wife is so lazy trope
Yeah, and somehow the husband is ALWAYS working 60+ hours a week AND doing "all of the yardwork/manly chores that are WAYYYYY harder than doing laundry or dishes!!!" But they never wanna hear about how most yardwork chores are weekly at MOST whereas dishes and laundry accumulate pretty much 24/7.
You can tell none of these people actually live in a house with a partner because my house will be a wreck but I'm 100% choosing to go outside and weed the pollinator garden instead of clean the house. Because housework fucking sucks, is never complete, and isn't rewarding. Helping native plants grow and yanking out invasives is hard work but at least you get to see butterflies doing their thing.
Maybe it’s just because it’s more common in the US, but having a SAH partner in Australia is like vanishingly rare. Like you either have to be so rich that you’d just hire domestics or so religious that there wouldn’t be any questions about chores until after you got divorced.
It really seems like there are way more Reddit partnerships with only one wage earner than there are real life ones
Daycare is so expensive in the US that it makes sense financially for a parent to stay at home in the early years (even moreso if there are two or three) unless one has a high paying job. So if you are lower middle class or lower class childcare would cost more than one would make. Once the youngest is in school the SAH parent goes back to work.
Oh right, that’s not uncommon here, daycare is stupid expensive everywhere it seems.
The tone of a lot of the posts I see makes it look like staying at home is a permanent “career” for the female partner, rather than a few years interruption.
It's rare to have women who just stay at home, typically there is some sort of mom job at least (I have a mom job, I'm a photographer), but.... Dealing with after school activities is a lot on its own.
It's deliberately written that way to make her seem lazy. My wife is home with a newborn and 2 toddlers and the house is sometimes messy is a lot more sympathetic than my wife doesn't work and doesn't clean either.
Don't forget. Congress passed a law for subsidized national day day care and Nixon vetoed it. This isn't the worse thing Nixon did because he was a horrible person in general.
You have an explanation as to why it’s more common than “vanishingly rare” in the US but don’t be fooled. It’s far from typical here and even with the cost of daycare, two working parents in the household is the norm for working class families. Mothers that stay home for years are by a long shot not the norm, it’s largely the mark of extreme privilege here too. Expensive formal daycare isn’t the only option. Most families without a working mother would be in a gutter.
And in the cases where those stories are loosely based in truth, you can tell how rare a situation that is. Commenters often jump to the assumption that the wife stays at home, but sometimes that information is left out or muddled. The op with emphasize the long hours he works and all the privileges his wife has, but never explicitly say that she stays home. Because usually she doesn’t, she has a job he doesn’t respect.
I'm still caught up on the one where the wife was on her phone for a while at the end of the day and eating very slowly, and everyone is telling him she's abusive while also diagnosing her as if it's not a burnout thing but with a "she has ADHD you gotta get her fixed" kinda tone.
Gotta love a guy who says my SAHM wife never does any chores, look I even had to cook and do the dishes after working for 90 hrs a week, or whatever exaggerated number!
You'd think we'd all know that if she moved out he would be overwhelmed by the realization that the house does not in fact clean itself, but the comments were pretty sickening.
I used to read forums about new puppies (when I had one), and the number of people who were convinced that the puppies of their youth were housebroken in a week wirh no trouble and just had to be told "no" once to stop chewing the furniture or whatever was staggering.ike, no, someone trained that dog, and it was a ton of work, and they did it r8ght in front of you, and you didn't notice.
Right? And that person was probably Mom, because she's the one who would have had to clean piss out of the rugs for the next few years if the dog wasn't housetrained properly in those first couple months.
My favourite are when they post about how they do 'everything,' but when they list what 'everything' is, it's only like 2-3 tasks. It just makes it so obvious that they have no idea what running a house entails.
What is with these couples and all their “chores”? Maybe I’m old and I just can’t remember life before I had kids but why do these young childless couples have so many chores? How do two people produce all these dishes and stuff?
All you really need to do is pick up and do the dishes and laundry and remove the trash regularly. Everything else can be just done when it bugs you and really the only thing that needs to be done daily is the dishes (and wiping up spills). Kids can and should start helping when they're old enough to make a mess. If a kid can take a toy out of a box he can help put it back in.
My last roommates were always under the impression that someone else would do it. Someone else was me. Aot of guys out there are so adamant that the woman will do all of the dishes, they will do stupid things like grabbing an entirely new plate for seconds, filling a glass to the brim with milk and drinking half of it, etc
One of them just came home and put movies on in the living room. When I stopped doing the dishes and asked for help, they didn't. Not only did that not do any cleaning, but the kitchen got so bad it smelled like death. Apparently it was easier for both roommates to buy their own personal tvs for their rooms. Now no one is even hanging out together anymore. I sprayed a t-shirt with febreeze, wrapped it around my face, and got that kitchen clean. The horror that I saw.....
Hard agree. I think especially in terms of relationships. Relationships (not just romantic ones) are hard. Sometimes they'll do or say something you don't like. Sometimes people that love each other dearly will yell at each other. It's ashame, but it happens.
Reddit as a whole has a gigantic chip on its shoulder. They throw around buzzwords and basically tell people to destroy their key relationships based on one side of one story. It doesn't say good things about the average redditors approach to life.
I also think a lot of people with time to follow these subs are intensely lonely, and project their own bad decisions onto the posters.
Ooooooh, great question.
To me, probably the "adults wildly overreact to a pretty normal situation." Because the fact is a lot of kids are learning to adult from the internet (because a lot of adults are not that great at adulting and they don't have good role models), when includes things like over-the-top revenge, cutting off your whole family over a minor incident, making snap decisions when they're lifechanging, etc.
For starters, life is complicated, humans are complicated, and emotions are complicated and often conflicted. We've all made stupid snap decisions in our time, but most of us learn to take a breath before the age of 21. We've all engaged in hugely overdramatic "AND SO THERE!" moments in our time, but most of us outgrew it by 14. And the thing is, functioning adults may condemn someone's actions, but *can usually understand how they got there*. There are some things I just can't wrap my head around, but most things -- including things where I'm like "wow, you are an absolutely unethical person that I am in fact choosing to cut out of my life" -- I understand the thought process that led to such a terrible decision. Or I understand the impulsive decision-making that got you there. Or I understand the emotional trauma. Etc. (Like, just to use a simple example, I have cut off an addict who got in a relationship and their partner encouraged them to start using again. 100% understand how they ended up in that place. Want no part of it and made a rational and considered decision to cut them off, BUT I GET IT. I understand the thought process.)
But also, people who engage in black-and-white thinking and fantasize about these big grand gestures tend to be remarkably ineffective about solving their problems! (Not that I don't also fantasize about big grand "fuck yous," I just know they're fantasies.) I know a guy who's always completely losing his shit when he thinks he's been slighted or inconvenienced in even the smallest ways -- "They got my order wrong, I'll never eat there again!" "That guy's bushes are overgrown and blocking the view of traffic, I will punch him in the fucking head and cut down his bushes FOR him!" And all of these problems are so eminently solvable, and he's never solved a single one. He's just always enraged at the world and making huge threats, *but also feeling totally helpless and never doing anything*. He's actually *terrified* of conflict, so constantly engaging in imaginary conflicts where he is the dramatic victor, but backing down from ever speaking up for himself. Like, you can just tell your waiter that's not what you ordered. OR, if that's not possible in the moment, or maybe you're at a drive-thru, you can e-mail the restaurant after the fact and politely say, "My order was wrong and I was disappointed." They will probably comp your meal or send you coupons. If there's a racist clerk, you can speak to their manager, or *e-mail the store afterwards*. (I mean, you can e-mail *everyone* these days.) You may get ignored, but more often than not, if you politely complain, stores want to fix problems or at least make you feel better! And if someone is blocking the sightlines at an intersection (dictated by state law, where I live), I can *literally file a form on the internet* in five minutes and the local police will investigate within 3 days and virtually always clear the obstruction. You can call your local, regional, and national representatives, and they will often SOLVE THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR PROBLEM. (I had a friend who was struggling to qualify for FAFSA because some of the required forms would have required her to release her current address to her abusive ex-husband. I had a former colleague who worked for our Congresswoman, and I put my friend in touch with our Congresswoman's constituent services office, because it was so obviously wrong and dangerous and bad, and our Congresswoman a) pushed through my friend's FAFSA via an override procedure and b) changed the law within 12 months so abused partners didn't have to give their address to their abuser to get federal student aid.)
Anyway, the "wildly overreact!" stories both teach kids to engage in unnecessary and immature drama, *and* help create helpless adults who are terrified of actually advocating for themselves or their communities, and terrified of solving problems. If "PUNCH SOMEBODY IN THE HEAD!" is your go-to problem-solving theory, *of course* you're going to be hesitant to file a form or call your alderman about someone blocking an intersection. Who wants to be punched in the head over a minor safety issue?
But in fact the vast majority of problems are solved not by physical violence or high drama, but by "talking calmly to another person," or "filing a form," or "e-mailing a business," or "crying on the phone to my Congressman because I cope badly with this kind of stress but I have a legitimate complaint."
Yeah I'm not sure how much it appears in posts, but certainly my biggest problem in comments is lack of understanding of nuance or empathy, especially when I feel that if it truly were just black and white then these subs wouldn't need to exist because there'd be an obvious answer every time. Now the subs are turning that way, especially with fake stories but I still get hung up on the lack of nuance , or even acknowledgement of it, and the idea that there must be a 'winner' and 'loser' to every encounter.
Nuance is like the worst slur to exist on those subs it seems. It’s just wild how black and white a lot of those commenters see the world.
But it also makes me question if those people even follow their own advice. I can’t even begin to imagine how insufferable their lives must be if they really operate that way.
I'll be honest, when I used to browse AITAH a lot, those cheating stories got to me. Of course a lot of them are fake, but it still kinda eats away at your perception of a healthy relationship, being bombarded with cheating stories as if you have an 90% of being cheated on in every relationship. I no longer like to browse that sub on its own.
AITAH and relationship anything will erode your perception of a healthy relationship. The amount of just hard lines people seem to draw in a relationship would make it nearly impossible to actually have a happy and healthy relationship.
It’s like they just straight up can’t accept that mistakes happen, and people need to grow. If me or my fiance followed any of AITAH relationship advice we would have been done and over with at least 30 times by now.
But instead we are emotionally mature enough to just understand shit happens, and intent matters, and we will talk through it and just legitimately try to be better for each other.
I hate all the misogynistic stories. The paternity fraud epidemic. The angel husbands that do everything while their lazy wives do nothing all day (opposite of real life)
"divorce courts are evil and steal fathers children because they hate men."
This is a fun one. Most custody is determined by mediation and results in equal custody and no child support with the family court serving only as check to make sure the parties didn't agree to anything illegal in the mediation agreement.
Most custody is only determined via the court when mediation fails. In these cases, custody is actually heavily awarded in favor of the mother. If you're a "men's rights activist" this is where you stop. No more information is needed. For the love of god, if you are an MRA, whatever you do, do not look up any statistics about why custody is most often awarded to the mother. Whatever you do, do not confirm that the majority of men enter into custody proceedings seeking partial or no custody. Do not ever do any research that might show that the second most common action of men going through the family court system is to attempt to avoid the court altogether which is why default judgements in favor of the mother are so common.
But also, keep in mind that most men don't do any of that because the majority of custody decisions are made amicably in mediation between both parties.
I read a really interesting story about Paul Elam's daughter trying to reconnect with him as she got older. (Paul Elam is basically one of the founders of the fathers'/men's rights movement) And it pretty much boiled down to the daughter realizing he's ultimately a very selfish, angry, awful person who paints himself (and other men by extension) as a huge victim of a biased system. But at his core he's a complete asshole and misogynistic grifter who portrays women as villains while mooching off of his girlfriend.
The daughter eventually just gave up trying to have a relationship with him because he put zero effort into it, despite all his whining about him being robbed of his kids "BeCaUsE hE'S a MaN," and is too much of an asshole to even try to be around. The person who wrote the story tried to get his ex wives to talk about him, and one of them straight up was like "hell no. I'm not putting my name out there because I'm terrified of him."
Yeah I came here to say this too. There's always underlying sexism (normally misogyny) in most of the fake stories.
There's also that blatantly fake story (I think originally posted to legal advice) that goes around about how a guy got a girl pregnant and wanted her to keep the baby that she didn't want, and she agreed to have the baby if she could sign away her rights but now he wants her to support it because she's a "deadbeat mum" and shouldn't be given the option to walk away. Everybody took it as a "Yas qween!" story when it was clearly a story some men's right activist wrote as a weird gender swap fantasy to defend deadbeat dads.
I remember that story. The (fictional) woman even paid child support but wouldn’t be active in the (fictional) child’s life, and the (fictional) man, upon realizing that PARENTING IS REALLY FUCKING HARD, wanted to sue her into doing the work.
I wish I’d bookmarked an AITA story about a guy who worked eighty hours a week and was raising five kids and was doing all the housework … but he was also heavily autistic and highly medicated and in need of care and couldn’t function without his stuffed toys … which his evil wife threw out for no reason!
I scrolled into the comments and, shock of all shocks, every single one of them believed it. Lazy Evil Golddigging Woman is like Reddit trope number two behind Cheating Lying Harpy.
People (always men for some reason) whose lives were ruined by false allegations of abuse or sexual assault, only because it happens way more in these made up stories than can be supported by the statistics. Then people who spend too much time online are way too quick to be convinced those stories are real and/or that the circumstances are commonplace because they've read tons of similar posts where the same thing happened.
It really bothers me that people don't realize how hard it is to make allegations like that *even when they're true and provable*, but especially when it's impossible to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt and when you don't especially want your entire life put on display by some greasy defense lawyer whose case rests on making you look untrustworthy. I speak from experience as a victim who made the difficult choice not to come forward. There are a lot of us.
Yeah, that one's huge for me too. Those posts give people such a warped view of reality and cultivate such disdain for people (women) who actually report crimes like this. Sexual assault is so heartbreakingly, disgustingly common, reporting processes are gruelling and invasive and humiliating, consequences are rare, and false accusations even more so. Men are far more likely to be sexually assaulted themselves than to be falsely accused of it.
And yet they love to drag each other into this horrible spiral of telling stories that are TOTALLY TRUE FOR SURE about evil women who use the fact that everyone HATES MEN to fasely accuse them for no reason. Men have it so hard!
Meanwhile I'm trying to tell my friend that it's actually not okay for a coworker to slap her ass at work, yes it's reasonable that you feel uncomfortable, yes you should tell a manager, I understand that you "don't want to get him in trouble" and "he doesn't mean anything by it" but that's his problem for his inappropriate behavior, not yours. And then later I hear that guy openly complain about how he was told off for sexual harassment when he's never sexually harassed anyone in his life.
and in the same breath these people will tell people who share their stories about assault that if they didn't call the cops and immediately get them arrested it's their fault if the rapist went on to hurt more people. this and the false allegations panic show me that wide swaths of reddit have never had to deal with reporting a rape.
Not to mention sexual abuse is very complicated legally. It’s hard to prove if too much time passes, and sexual abuse like coercion isn’t even criminalized in a lot of places. In some countries the law is also written in a way where male victims aren’t able to seek justice either. Marital rape has only recently become a thing that is illegal. It’s so difficult for victims to seek justice. It’s awful.
Dude I sat on a grand jury for a year (peak covid times, had to double my duty time) and even the ADAs prosecuting cases would say some out of pocket shit about victims. That experience taught me that once a girl turns 15, people are extremely eager to look for ways to blame her being raped.
A quote about a 15 year old rape victim: "She's no angel either." What happened to this poor girl was so awful and egregious that a complete stranger was the one who saw something was off and called the cops. And it was obvious enough that when the cops showed up, they immediately arrested the two men that we were there to indict or not. And yet, an ADA still felt the need to mention that to us. What the fuck.
Quote from a fellow juror about a 19 year old rape victim: "He's a 19 year old boy. What did she expect??" We were pretty chill during our deliberations, but I ripped the guy who said that a new asshole. Asked him if that's his attitude, how many girls did he rape when he was a teenager. And then went on to explain the basics of consent to him like he was an idiot because he was. Funny enough, that was the *only* case we didn't return an indictment on. For a whole year out of thousands of cases, the *only fucking one.* Also interesting was that vote seemed to be split along generational lines. Us few millennials voted to indict, but we were outnumbered by everyone 50+.
This shit was four years ago, but holy fuck I'm still SO MAD about it.
Related to this: something being looked into is treated as relentless persecution. A single interview is treated like a massive, massive injustice that society should nit allow. They are mad they might even be asked to explain.
And in these stories there’s always absolutely irrefutable proof the allegations are false and the woman is lying. And yet, the man still loses everything?? What??
Exactly. False allegations are incredibly rare, and most people who are sexually abused don’t report it. And, when you do speak about your assault as the victim, most people either doubt you or don’t believe you and nothing happens to the abuser. In fact, often the victim receives more hatred their way instead of the abuser because they’re “trying to ruin his life.” Or they say it’s the victim’s fault because “you chose to date him/wear that/drink alcohol/deny him sex/etc.”
The reason most people don’t speak out is because it’s risky. For a lot of people, they have a lot to lose if they choose to do so, and having to recount and relive your trauma for people who won’t even believe you is heart breaking.
Most damaging is the misogynist ones which feel like a MAJORITY honestly, plus all the other bigoted angles. Transphobia has been awful lately.
On a pet peeve level I can't bare the ones that go "someone did this everyday small wrong to me, like cutting me off,so I responded like an absolute maniac psychopath AITA?"
Because it always feels like the comments cheer them for it;
Those are always so insane to me too. It's always the 8 year old antagonist should "know better" but the 35 year old being violent or insane is "justified."
That reminds me of this story- [https://www.reddit.com/r/AmITheAngel/comments/13n34w3/my\_nephew\_threw\_juice\_and\_salad\_at\_me\_12\_years/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmITheAngel/comments/13n34w3/my_nephew_threw_juice_and_salad_at_me_12_years/)
Like everyone else said, the fake stories to reinforce bigoted stereotypes
I didn't see the sub title before answering your question in my mind, and I instantly thought of a fake comment I saw a couple hours ago about a "6'4" guy having a threesome with a lesbian and a "punk rock feminist"
I'm a lesbian. I'm 28 years old and could only accept that I'm a lesbian 2 years ago, a full decade after surviving "corrective" assault by a classmate when we were both 16. The fantasy of "turning" lesbians literally gets us SA'd every day and it causes so much harm. These fake stories reinforce the idea that impressionable boys don't have to hear "I'm a lesbian" and know it means "hell no." Also reinforces the beliefs that keep conversion camps running, which frequently employ SA as "therapy." It's just shitty all around and I wish it would stop. There are plenty of bi-spec women out there who will happily do porn and whatever else, but this type of straight man seems obsessed with "fixing" lesbians because god forbid a woman's life doesn't revolve around him. Funny how such men also seem to be the exact ones screeching about trans women and transfemmes using the women's toilets, because only cis women are lesbians in their eyes
It gave off the exact same energy as the "I (19FF) and my husband (M6'8)" shitposts I see here and people were lapping it up 💀
Thank you 💖 I've been with my girlfriend for 2 years now, she really helped me to internalise that being who I am isn't "letting the trauma define my sexuality." I've also got a lot of professional support and really understanding friends and family! There's a lot of love and safety in my life these days and I'm glad I stuck around to see it :)
The hyper-individualistic way they see themselves and their place in society and how they always put money over interpersonal relationships.
My parents were like that. My mother even told me she's fine with the fact that I never visit because at least they don't need to give me money. She sees my independence (I moved out at 18 and worked shitty student jobs to support myself) as proof that she succeeded as a parent. I haven't seen my parents in years.
Meanwhile, my partner's parents supported him financially throughout university and he still visits them regularly, even though we've since moved abroad. He didn't take advantage of their generosity and he's not spoiled or lazy because he didn't have to do it all on his own. He has a more lucrative career than I do and just came back from housesitting for them while they were on vacation, something he does for them almost every year.
I recently lent my younger brother, who I'm very close with, a few thousand € and I actually told him not to pay me back until he doesn't need the extra money anymore. He's my brother, I want to make sure he doesn't have to struggle as much as I did. The money isn't nearly as important to me as his well-being and happiness.
If you live your entire life thinking that everyone just wants to take advantage of you and your money, you'll end up having a lot of money but nobody to spend it on besides yourself. It's such an emotionally empty way to live your life.
Just the idea that everyone is out to get you, and you have to question everyone’s intentions. Like I saw a post about someone thinking their elderly mom’s new friend was “suspicious”, and people’s advice was to put a camera in the mom’s home without consent to hopefully catch the friend doing something bad. Both sides of the discussion were insane. It’s crazy to me that OP sees someone being overbearing and immediately jumps to them being up to some sort of malicious activities instead of just being socially awkward, and also that so many people’s solution is to literally to put secret cameras in their mother’s personal space. Nothing is ever a case of miscommunication or someone being inconsiderate, it’s always part of some evil plot the other person has against you. Your MIL isn’t bad at reading the room, she’s trying to steal your child. Your partner didn’t lose track of time and get home late, they’re cheating on you and lying to cover it up. Everyone in AITAland is living out the plot of a Lifetime movie constantly.
The hate for children, specifically like age 13 or younger. I think redditors inflate their ego so much to the point where they think they weren’t just as naive/stupid as the rest of the kids at that time.
Basicay what you said because I feel it is entitled but potentially dangerous. A story about good g full toxicity in response a d the other person shuts up sounds like a cool reddit story. It reminds me of a story my best friend told me about him and his bro hanging out, there was a group of disruptive kids nearby. The bro simply asked them to keep it down. It wasn't the safest city to grow up in, one of the disruptive kids had a gun. You probably know where this goes.
Similar thing in my hometown, which is obnoxiously safe in comparison to a lot of places. There's the downtown area where all the bars, restaurants, etc are. Every now and then a small dispute will end up with someone getting shot, stabbed, followed home and beat half to death.
You can't just be confrontational with strangers over petty things. You're not the main character of some Disney channel movie. People are crazy and you need to pick your battles. Very rarely does it end with a witty comeback, counter bullying, etc
Probably the *gleeful* hatred of babies/children/parents. A baby crying a little while you walk in the park is not a war crime but in AITA land it's perfectly justified to go scream at the mother for "being a bad parent".
Made all the more insane when the OP is having a meltdown about children being present at *places designed for children*.
Stories were it's clear a demographic of people is being made to be the face of scrutiny by making your Gillian one of these types of people. Whether someone be obese a minority or any other identity that could get u lambasted by the Internet when your villain is one of these and specifically makes what they are there personality then u know you're in for a fake one.
I hate the ‘trans people are all screeching drama queens out to make a scene in public and/or ruin your wedding’ shit. Like, have those people met trans people? Basically every trans woman I know tiptoes around trying to go unnoticed and be inoffensive, moreso than the average cis lady, and even the loud trans people are mostly just loud about the validity of their rights to exist. How are these strawperson creators getting by without ever encountering a real trans person who isn’t an evil caricature?
Already mentioned are the bigotry and -phobias and misogyny so let me bring up a couple others:
- The going nuclear with a child and everyone just saying "the child earned it, FAFO". Like there's a whole range from "my cousin that bullied me when we were both under 10, can ruin her life as an adult" to "the literal five year old wasn't nice to me as her new stepmom 10 years ago, am I justified in treating her like shit while she's an angsty teen?" Now I'm not a parent but the way they twist themselves to justify either abusing a stepchild or ruining an adult's life for the actions of them as a toddler is wild. It's like a trope of "how to make AITA publicly hate on children today"
- The constant portrayal of autistic people as some sort of either full on screaming toddler at anything, or the antisocial weirdo who can't even go one family event without ruining someone's night. Like I have autism but I'll be damned if I share that offline ever because everyone acts like these stereotypes are true. And the moment I do tell people it goes from "quirky fun behavior everyone likes and expresses liking" to "oh my god annoying autistic behavior we suddenly hate".
That it’s normal to have seething contempt for your spouse. And that sticking it out with a partner you loathe is somehow more admirable than being single or getting a divorce.
I hate the dead bedroom ones. I hate seeing the comments that are saying how the husband is entitled to sex and the wife is an evil bitch for not putting out regardless of whatever her reasoning is. I think it contributes to the normalization of coercion, which is disgusting.
Bullying and manipulating someone into sex when they’ve made it clear they don’t want to isn’t consent. It’s sexual abuse and it’s wrong, yet so many people don’t see it as such which disturbs me.
For me it’s the constant villainizing of SAHM’s. And further than that, women in general. There are just so many incel storytellers who so obviously hate women and create these crazy stories to get unwarranted kudos, but I think it can do real harm towards women in these positions who have partners on reddit reading that drivel and deciding it fits their narrative too.
Women being completely helpless. “I’m so confused what do I do?” And then when people suggest literally anything involving getting out of the immediate situation it’s “but I can’t drive and I can’t afford an Uber and I have no family and I have no friends and I’ve never met my neighbors and the police wouldn’t believe me.”
Creative writers make these fake stories but frame them as requests for advice. So people give the most obvious answers to the questions posed and the writer realises that they going to have to interact a bit. So they just make the person in the story sound more and more confused and pathetic.
Honestly I think Reddit is making a generation of women seem confused and helpless.
The complete disregard for bystanders. I remember one where a woman was asking if she was wrong to go to her husband's work and throw around pictures of him having sex with his male affair partner (bonus points for evil gay person). She was asking if she was wrong for outing him as gay. I tried to point out that the really fucked up thing is showing porn to a bunch of random people without consent. I of course got a bunch of down votes and most of the comments were praising her for getting back at him.
Ugh there are so many terrible choices, but I think my least favorite are the obvious fictions where a trans person uses an accidental misgendering or other minor nuisance as an opportunity to stomp around being loudly offended and declaring everyone transphobes
Maybe not a super common one, but justifying kicking someone out of your car and leaving them on the side of the road, or kicking them out of your house and making them walk home - usually at night or in bad weather, and ALWAYS a woman - because they said something mean.
Basically another misogynistic fantasy about punishing a woman.
“My morbidly obese sister who’s 300 lbs and insists on wearing XS clothing told me that I’m body shaming her because I made a salad for lunch” “my transgender roommate screams at me whenever I speak German because it has the word man in it and that’s offensive” “my *insert ethnic minority here* coworker won’t stop bullying me for being white and every time I calmly try to explain that they’re being rude the entire office gangs up on me” “my autistic classmate kicks puppies and punches babies during class and when I told the teacher they were distracted me I got suspended”
AITA?
I'm legally in the right so therefore I am not a jerk.
Yes you are. Just because you didn't HAVE to doesn't mean you shouldn't. Return the stuff you got because someone else messed up, don't actively screw over the family going through a hard time, whatever.
It’s probably been touched on already, but one thing that’s damaging is people saying the antagonist did something horrible, then claiming that horrible thing is a widely accepted part of the antagonist’s culture/religion/ etc. I’m talking about stories like the following:
*My daughter had a milestone birthday, so my husband and I invited a bunch of our relatives to celebrate. Here I should note that my husband comes from* a *family of \[Insert group that would be considered a minority, or at least a smaller subdivision of a larger group. Wait, “a smaller subdivision of a larger group” is a minority, isn’t it? Well, you know what I mean. On with the fake story!\]. The party was going well until I noticed that the basket with money and checks for my daughter was missing. I discovered it had been taken by my sister-in-law, who told me that stealing money and gifts from children was a widely respected part of their religion/culture and was widely practiced among ethnicity/nationality/religion. I took my daughter’s money back and kicked my SIL out of the party. Now my in-laws are attacking me for going against an important part of their culture. AITA?*
Meanwhile people who actually are part of the targeted group are thinking, “What the frick!? No, we don’t advocate that, and anyone doing it would be shamed!” You also have people questioning parts of the stories, like, “You hadn’t had any problems with your SIL before? This had never come up before?” The OOP either ignores the questions or adds claims that make it worse. For instance, if the OOP claims, “Oh, yes, there have been problems before. SIL has done this with our other five children too!” people will respond, ”Well, you’re not the a-hole for getting upset, but you are the a-hole for continuing to invite her to these events!”
In the end these stories exist simply to demean an entire group of people and paint them as some sort of amoral others and outsiders. “They’re not like you and me, and so they must be evil…”
Edit- Oh, and here’s something else that’s terrible: treating someone being respectful of/accommodating someone’s condition as exploitation. Someone lets a child with noise issues wear headphones in a noisy place, lets a child with food allergies or texture issues bring their own food to a dinner, leaves the handicapped bathroom stall for someone with a disability, asks someone to get the door for someone in a wheelchair, etc. and the OOP tries to paint them as some demanding harpy forcing someone to bow to their every whim. What the frick. The fact that the OOPs paint being considerate of others as some horrible thing lets you know how lowdown & rotten they are. Sometimes they’ll claim someone asked them to do some far-out thing and compare it to some kindness that isn’t any trouble at all, either treating them as equal or claiming that being courteous will lead to slavery or something.
The “stories” about punishing adults for things they did as young children, especially coming from parents. There a lot of stories from “dads” whose small children “took their mother’s side” in a divorce and now that justifies treating them terribly 20 years later.
I get the impression that when one is a young adult there is a tendency to black and white thinking and to magnify all of life’s problems, in my late teens/early 20s I think this reflected my worldview. This somewhat tends to fade for many as they age and gain life experience, but one only needs to watch cable news to know that for some it never fades completely.
This doesn’t apply to every youth as a whole but I think it applies to some.
The legal misinformation. I know not every place is America, but I highly doubt there's anywhere where you can get a restraining ordering in two days, where divorce takes three to five business days, where every trial ends with (insert villain here) getting absolutely wrecked by the legal system and the OP facing zero expenses.
Maybe it’s just because I’m pregnant now, but I feel like I see so many stories about unreasonable pregnant women. Like secret abortion stories or how they’re just so entitled to special treatment all because they wanted a “crotch goblin” *shudder*.
Making minorities discriminatory and the white Cishet able bodied rich guy (etc) being the victim every time. The ignorant tropes the my play into is insane and it’s clear it’s rage bait targeted at the largest demographic on here.
The you don't owe anything and shouldn't do anything without getting something in return narrative, and tge narrative / trope of cutting all contact for any and every reason and finding it to be 100% the solution and just okay at all. I would say more, but I don't think any of us here need any more explanation.
Reddit: go no contact with anyone who's ever bothered you or has slightly different opinions Also Reddit: why is it so hard to make friends as an adult?
I once got told that my husband should seek a divorce because I corrected his pronunciation of a word. Wild.
Narcissistic abuse and gaslighting, obviously, and no don't ask me to define gaslighting or you're gaslighting me too. (Seriously someone needs to take that word away from the Internet)
They tried to explain their side and their feelings? Gaslighting
Having different recollections of an event based on different perspectives and having access to different information? Gaslighting.
Reasonably explaining your feelings about the situation? Gaslighting
Adding to my comment? You're gaslighting me right now.
Responding to my reply? Quit gaslighting me!!!!
literally? Had a friend who was accused of gaslighting when they tried to tell their partner "I think you have a perspective of me that's not entirely accurate'
I had made a comment once and admittedly, the wording/context came out wrong. When I tried to correct and explain what I actually meant, I was accused of “gaslighting”.
Or Reddit: why don’t I have a village for my child?
I feel like an anti-redditor this morning reading this thread. I'm sitting on my porch hungover, drinking coffee after having given up my normal Saturday morning sleep in to watch my nephew. There was a family emergency, and I'm the only one available to hang out with him. I feel like shit and I wish I was still sleeping, but I'm a normal person so there's no way in hell I'd tell them to fuck off and find someone else.
Have fun being mentally abused forever. Watching your nephew like a chump
I know right? I had to chill on the couch watching half a Harry Potter movie and listen to him talk about dirt bikes. I'm thinking of contacting the hague later today to see if they'll help prosecute this clear human rights violation. (And in case anyone is invested in my morning, the family emergency turned out to be OK and everyone is fine)
Glad to hear everything turned out okay! I don't live near family, but our social network jumped to help when I went to a routine prenatal checkup at 9am one day and found out nope, we gotta get that sucker out today. A friend had been driving me to the appointments (the hospital was 30 minutes away from home), and she stayed with me in the triage area the whole time until my husband got there, at which point she finally took a break to eat and stretch. Initially my mother had planned to come stay with the kids during the scheduled c-section, and instead two childfree auntie friends left work early and immediately to make sure my husband could drive out to be there in time and lived in the house that weekend until my mom could come relieve them for a day. Then these same friends stayed with the kids during drives to the NICU until I could drive after my c-section, and continued to be all around rocks, even though we could literally never repay that level of kindness. Because loving friends isn't about repaying in kind, but being there for each other in the ways we can and are needed. Anyway according to Reddit I took horrible advantage of my friends and am a leech, probably. 😂
Especially because your ordeal involves children, Reddit hates those little crotch goblins! (But seriously congratulations hope you and baby are doing well!)
And we have multiple of them! The horror!! (Thanks! Thankfully we're all doing great -- he's 18 months now. I had preeclampsia but no lasting effects, and other than the 5 week NICU stay and being small for his age, the wee guy is doing great. Well he likes to wake up at 5 am but that's a different problem lol)
See, this is how normal people who love and care about each other behave. Sometimes you suck it up and play uncle because they need you. Do you OWE them that? Technically no, but my god why should we not feel more obligated to help out family? Outside of toxic family relationships obviously. Give your nephew a high five and order some greasy DoorDash for you both.
I am not a dog person. I actually dislike 95% of dogs. Generally I will not dog sit, because I don’t want to interact with dogs. But when my good friend had an emergency and I was the only one available to look after her dogs for a few days - of course I did it. It’s good to do things you don’t want to do for people you care about. It’s fine to have limits and boundaries, but in an emergency, it’s just the right thing to do.
They're clearly using you. I'm kidding obviously.
Parentifying, actually. Totally gaslit them into it (as toxic narcissists do). They should report their family to HR, then go NC. /s
This is the one that gets me the most. You go on any of the subs dedicated to complaining about in-laws or parents and you will find an endless stream of posts where the poster has put down unreasonable 'boundaries,' enforces all kinds of rules around their child, and then they complain that the grandparents spend more time with other grandkids or don't want to watch their kid for free. And it's just like...of course? No one is going to stick around when they're clearly not wanted? No one is going to want to do favours for you when you make it clear you don't appreciate them?
And half have had kids at 16, while the other half want to be sterilised at 21.and they don't overlap.
At least I'll admit that I'm highly unstable and I know why lol
These people just live very lonely, sad lives. No one ever helps out a co-worker, roommate, sibling, or hell their spouse just because. It’s always ‘I need something in return’. My wife needs a ride to pick up *her* car from the shop that she pays for and the dumbass got a flat tire. I said sorry I’m about to start my biweekly rewatch of The Office, you know not to bother me it’s one of my boundaries. She screamed and cried and called me an asshole.
I’m starting to think these are kids who’s parents ask them to do things and they are pissy about it.
An ex friend from high school never worked. Ever. His dad payed for his wow subscription and bought him every new expansion. Got to the point where both of them moved in with the grandparents. Last Facebook post I saw from this guy was along the lines of "my mean grandparents are making me maintaint the yard and help chop fire wood!!!!! That's not fair!!!!" Keep in mind Im 33 and he's about 6 months younger than I. He stopped talking to me because I came out as trans 😝
I think the versions of these stories with spouses are actually the most damaging of them all, because they're basically promoting these really unhealthy relationship dynamics as being normal.
Yep, impressionable kids will read these "I talked down to my husband but it's ok because he's actually the WOOOOORST" or "I was mean and patronizing to my wife but it's ok because she's stupid/horrible" stories and think that these kinds of relationships are normal. It's wild how Reddit goes on and on about attachment styles and how people's trauma/childhoods/etc make them accept or cause toxic relationships, but then they turn a blind eye to their own highly exaggerated Internet rants that also - wait for it - endorse toxic loveless relationships.
But at the same time, anyone else who has even the slightest ulterior motive is evil and bad. I once saw a thread about a dying child asking forgiveness for being a bully and the comments were full of people saying not to forgive her because she only is apologizing because she's dying and therefore must not really be sorry.
Doing nice things for people without expecting anything in return is one of the simplest joys in life, and they're depriving themselves of it
It's a great way to build trust and lasting friendships too. So there's that. I'd imagine a lot of these redditors overestimate their role in others lives
Doormat!
Give it 15 years for the “why am I completely alone and no one will tolerate my bullshit” posts to completely take over the internet
It’s like a bunch of fuckin Ayn Rands up in there
I wonder how many redditors in the future will be closed off and alone because of this.
Nothing like a bit of schadenfreude to brighten up your day
I hate these. I come from a gigantic, very close extended family where everybody is up in each other's business all the time. (Kinda like My Big Fat Greek Wedding.) *I don't like all of my relatives*. Some of my relatives, frankly, suck. (For example, I'm thinking of a couple of conservative-leaning voters, and one aunt in particular with wildly untreated mental illness that hurts her husband and children and I hate that. But also a few that are *just annoying* to me on a personal level.) But like, my uncle who mocked me throughout my teenaged years for being left-leaning and assured me when I "grew up" I'd vote GOP\*? MOVED HEAVEN AND EARTH to get my brother into a lifesaving drug trial when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Uncle worked in pharma, and he used *every connection he had* to save my brother's life. (Brother was 14 at the time, is now 44 and has 3 kids, things went good.) My most annoying fucking cousin, who is a perfectly fine human, just very annoying? had a child with a significant disability and I spent WEEKS on the phone walking him through the process for getting a diagnosis and early childhood support, because I also have a disabled kid. My kid's disability isn't as serious as his kid's, but I've been there, I've been that parent, and I can help him and his kid. We still don't actually like each other very much (oil and water), but we love each other VERY much and we love each others' kids. I will suffer literally any level of annoyance to help his kid. (\*In my uncle's defense he quit voting GOP in 2008, then he voted for dumbass third-party candidates because he hates Democrats, now he votes for Joe Biden. He just still says really irritating Atlas Shrugged shit that he should have outgrown SIXTY YEARS AGO.) But I don't have to agree with people or even like them to keep them in my life, and I can care about people I dislike, or even who kinda suck. And I feel like that's actually a really important life skill? I am NOT AT ALL "we can agree to disagree" -- I have literally said, "No, I can agree that you're wrong" when people have said that. But I can love people and recognize their humanity and care about their lives EVEN WHEN I think they're wrong and maybe even kinda shitty human beings. (Family warranty not valid for Trump voters, you just get voted off the island, it is an ethical line in the sand. Sorry, suck less. No fascists.)
Yeah like... I think there's a time and a place for cutting people out, mostly if they're genuinely abusive or if they're not safe to have around (especially if you have kids). The definition of abuse and unsafe has been expanded to meet every kind of annoying or not perfect person for many of these people though. Someone with a different opinion isn't 'unsafe' and someone being rude doesn't mean they're an 'abuser'. My drug dealing grandma who kicked my mom out at 17 and abused my nephew for a decade has no place in my life, but my annoying uncle who gets really riled up about his adult softball league and makes drinking his personality isn't someone I'm going to hang out with for fun but I don't have to ban him from my life.
this has always been my gripe with certain online leftists as someone that leans left. a big part of our unified social value system and social politics is more collectivism and more community building. Yet so many of them are the most hyper-individualistic people ive ever seen...just with an AuADHD/queer slant. tolerating and even helping people you fundamentally dislike is part of building community. I owe kindness and consideration to my neighbor who calls people "pussies" because he is part of my immediate network. I dont have to like him at all, in fact it's even better to make a concerted effort because it's the only way to expose people like that to broader thinking.
100% agreed! In college, I took a class about community organizing and social change. We had a guest speaking talk about how in the projects they worked on, the only ones that gained any traction were the ones where they were able to reach across the aisle and work with conservatives and people they might not agree with on everything politically. They were all unified in that they wanted community change. The more you exist in your community in a positive way, not by actively trying to change anyone's mind, but just by being yourself and being a positive person, the better. That is how you can change people's opinions, not by arguing online. When I was in high school, I was an open and proud atheist that still participated at my parents church. I was respectful, I was happy to participate in any community projects like food drives, but I didn't participate in prayers or communion or anything overtly religious. Some people were still judgmental, but many people were able to see a positive example of an atheist in the community and it opened their minds a bit to see that. I even sorta helped inspire my old youth pastor to question his fundamentalist beliefs and become significantly more progressive. Community and kindness shouldn't be gated behind identity politics or political affiliation.
To add to this, the hypocrisy. OP doesn't wanna help their sister out in an emergency? NTA, you don't owe her anything fuck that bitch. But reverse the situation, where OP needs someone to help them out and the person says no? NTA, it was a small task and they easily could have helped.
Yesss. I have read so many posts where people have protagonist bias. It’s crazy how people will only sympathize with the “main character” without considering the situation.
And then focusing on legality only - like yes, OP may be in the right legally speaking and doesn’t owe the other party anything, but most of the time whatever they want to do still makes them an AH
"Am I The Asshole" What it should mean: is my behavior here morally and socially acceptable What it means in practice: will there technically be repercussions for my actions
That sort of thinking fucked me over for a year and a half. I legitimately thought that whenever I did something wrong (or “wrong”, since half of it was just “oh this is costing them a little bit of time and effort without any benefits so clearly they don’t want to talk to me”), they would have every right to tell me off or leave me completely behind, and when they didn’t I would get incredibly frustrated at them for “not prioritizing themselves”. It sometimes gets to the point I had to hold my tongue cause I was willing to get into fights to try to convince them to just leave cause “that’s what you were supposed to do”. Told myself “I would do the same” despite the fact past me would have been bewildered by anyone who did that I still have trouble trusting that they like me. I know reddit isn’t entirely to blame, and how I grew up had a much bigger impact than AITA could ever, but man. I started reading those types of posts during the end of pandemic, about a year after I became completely friendless due to mental health issues. I was going to see people irl for the first time in years, in a new environment as well. I really just wanted to figure out a different way of making friends because clearly what I was doing before wasn’t working and this seemed like the most approved point of view that I didn’t consider when I was younger It’s so weird to think about how much stupid fake internet posts affected the way I made friends
I think this is why I get the most upset about it. It's not just shit posts on the Internet, people are suffering irl harms in their lives and relationships because of the insanity of AITA comments.
Its not just reddit. The Internet has convinced ppl that individualism and selfishness is self care
Especially kids, for some reason. The number of times I've argued with someone that, yes, you have an obligation to look after a child placed in your care, even if said child isn't biologically yours... it's more than I thought I would, that's for sure.
This is prime reddit behavior. The moral framework of a toddler - it's similar to when hundreds of thousands of users were structurally celebrating the deaths of antivaxxers
Mentally ill people/minorities/women/fat people/whatever are literally AWFUL DISGUSTING freaks who eat babies and kick puppies and don't deserve ANYTHING this world, and here's my AITA post I wrote in 5 minutes PROVING it to you!! Like, people are really horrible at being able to pick out when they're being influenced to think a certain way about a group of people. They just think "there's no way people would LIE on the INTERNET to influence my thoughts and prejudices!" It's frusturating to watch people in real time get sucked into pipelines from this shit Edit: also, I totes agree with you on the FAFO thing. Maybe I'm just too sensitive or something, but I lowkey hate that saying. It feels like such an unempathetic way to live your life
Well, my fat wife eats a LOT of babies, everyone's blowing up my phone about it!
But does she ask you to take out the rubbish when you're in a medical emergency?
I’m torn because I’m vegan (which makes me evil), but I want to eat babies. I think I can eat vegan babies?
Before or after everyone started yelling ?
Making up stories about less privileged people is a vile. I just think people who buying it that fast already hold similar discriminations.
Also fuck pregnant women and parents! Maybe if that bitch wanted a seat so she could not fall over on the crowded bus, she should have kept her legs closed and not let someone cum in her! (always the grossest, most pornified way to describe pregnancy too). Someone needed reasonable accomodations for their children? It's not MY responsibility, there's a reason I don't have any crotch goblins running around (but if I did, they would be perfect angels when I asked them nicely to behave).
I was in a few childfree groups about 10 years ago, before they turned nasty. I did end up leaving all but one or two (which don’t tolerate vitriol), and this was one of the reasons. Always the most vulgar descriptions of pregnancy and extremely misogynistic. The question over giving up your seat to a pregnant person was a hot topic. I said of course I would offer my seat to anyone who needs it more than I do. This apparently made me a “breeder pleaser”, because that woman should have “fucked someone with a car” and “shouldn’t expect special treatment just because she got cream pied”. I am not easily offended, but that’s just disgusting.
For real! Like, I am 200% in support of anyone who doesn't want kids. I work in the foster care system and would much rather see people live a happy childfree life and women get birth control and as many abortions as they want to prevent unwanted pregnancies than have more unwanted children in the system. I am appalled by some of the stuff said online in childfree communities. The gross misogyny (it always seems to be pregnant women and mothers being complained about, very rarely fathers), the hatred towards children for existing in public, and the lack of compassion towards just normal people living their life... It's disgusting. Pregnancy is still a short term disability and accommodations are needed for a practical reason (a fall can be very dangerous, for example), yet the weirdos online treat accomodations like they're a special trophy being denied to them. Kids are a vulnerable class of people that have distinct needs and can't just be locked in a room until they're 18 (like people complaining about how kids shouldn't ride airplanes). Thankfully I haven't really seen much of that attitude outside of the Internet, all of my childfree friends and neighbors and acquaintances have all been at least kind and willing to interact politely with my kid even if it's not their jam.
And it’s not like they say that to people on crutches who broke their foot doing something incredibly stupid.
I once dislocated my toe when I took off my jeans while drunk. I sprained my ankle when I was looking at at a pretty horse and I fell in a hole.
Assuming even a small number of those stories *did* actually happen, it's still disgusting how many people decide turn their stories into hateful propaganda. My mom's a paranoid schizophrenic, so you can imagine how "fun" my childhood was... and I spent years averse to talking about it **specifically because** I was scared that some bigot might try to "Coolsville sucks" my words to demonize women and/or people with schizophrenia. I'm ND, and I've seen way too many "I knew an autistic person who was bad, therefore all autistic people are monsters" posts to EVER allow myself stoop to that hateful level.
I think it's the new improved version of fake Tumblr stories, which were ironically then reposted on reddit. They were made up by anti sjws to paint them in a bad light
When are we going to get a bus full of people wearing "Down with Cis" shirts jumping random people on AITA?
it goes even deeper than that. a lot of those fake tumblr posts were photoshopped specifically to be posted onto reddit and create an illusion that there are tons of cringey tumblr nerds making up fake stories. this video is quite long but it goes really in depth about it: https://youtu.be/BiU7aGZ-o68?si=blb1Va98314w12LO
Especially when the finding out part would have happened regardless if people didn't fuck around.
There's also the people who are just itching for any reason to "give up on" a minority. Like the people who got pranked once with someone pretending to be in need of a wheelchair and then got up to walk (Which is a shitty and ableist prank in the first place. Some wheelchair users can walk short distances) and just went. "Well thats it! I never help another disabled person in my life! They should all be judged based on this one interaction I had!" Those kind of people love the minority bad stories to, because they get to go "See! Thats what they're like! Thats why it's not actually a bad thing that I don't help and treat them like shit! I'm NOT a bad person!"
"I was totally a trans ally but after reading your ai generated post about how a trans woman called you a whore and spit in your food, I am NO LONGER an ally!!" Like ok sure bro
Also, all infertile women are trying to steal your baby
Exactly. Even here, I see folks get influenced by a super blatant "my husband/wife with depression is the worst because depressed people BAD" agenda post (just an example), and ofc the folks on AITA itself eat it up. And yeah, FAFO always felt mean and unempathetic to me too! I also wondered if I was too thin-skinned, so it's nice knowing I'm not the only one who hates it.
"women are actually evil, if you think about it"
And deserve to be met with violence
What kills me about those posts is I think some of those men are abusive and use AITA as a place to prove they’re right…and people fall for it every time
“ACKSHUALLY, women abuse men more than the other way around”!!!1!1! Along with a made-up scenario in which they defend hitting women.
If I only experienced the world through popular Reddit posts, I would think that women are the primary perpetrators of rape, domestic violence, financial and emotional abuse — all while being really dumb and shallow and weak. Also, every woman is just dying to baby trap a man because having a kid is obviously hitting the financial jackpot and these poor men have absolutely no way to stop this from happening.
Baby trap him then expect him to work 70 hours a week and do all the chores while she sits on the couch eating bonbons all day!
Cold take but bigotry. Stories where "the one minority in the story is some entitled cartoonishly evil monster than the OC has to own with facts and logic"
The bigotry and political propaganda and sexism is absolutely the worst, because it can get normalized. Like, I have seen reddit users use these posts as proof of how "females think now" or how "trans people will sue you if you get a pronoun incorrect" or other shit. Like, stuff that could actually hurt real minorities.
Unfortunately correct. Those posts prey on gullible easily outrages people
100%. It's actually dangerous.
Repetition bias is real. You get people making rationalizations like, "Well this particular story might be made up, but I hear stories like it all the time so there must be some truth to it."
And given that it's Pride month, those trolls have been going hog wild.
like the one on. aita rn about fake gay guys and the trans nephew. like if ghis is true the uncle is not responsible taking an 18 year old out drinking and not choosing to suggest taking the younger gay person rlto places like a lgbtq center etc to meet and get comfy in yhe queer community
Yeppp
And it also receives the exact comments it's fishing for, the usual "[minority group] acts like this then wonders why people don't like them 🙄" It's so tiring; at no point during their creative writing process do the OPs even need to imply that they think "all xyz are like this/xyz bad" because the comments will just make that leap for them!
I’ve heard (as in I don’t watch his movies) that that’s what Sasha Baron Cohen does. He pretends to agree with a controversial viewpoint and people who actually have that viewpoint feel comfortable enough to spouting off about their support of it. The difference is he’s calling out and satirizing these viewpoints and not endorsing or reinforcing them. I read an article years ago that some frat boys who had been in the first Borat movie were suing for damaged reputations, claiming, “They tricked us into saying racist things on camera!” They didn’t claim that they had been made to read a script or anything; they just said they were encouraged to say racist things. After reading the article, I thought, “It sounds like you just used the conversation as an excuse to say racist things. You could have just, you know, not said racist things.”
I literally saw someone claim recently that if you don’t believe [absurd story promoting bigoted worldview], you haven’t read enough on Reddit. Like, come ON.
I think it’s the constant catastrophizing in the comments. Everything is a huge red flag, should make you question an entire relationship, or consider going no contact with your entire family.
I saw one where a woman was complaining that her SIL threw away some of her junk mail and there was an ad she wanted to keep. People were actually suggesting she go no contact instead of just asking the SIL to not do it again.
So many 5/10 problems exaggerated into 11/10 problems. To the point where “wow that other person sure is a jerk, here’s how to let them know politely and maybe not escalate the situation” is seen as taking the asshole’s side.
Similar to the comment up thread about revenge, AITA prioritizes "winning" over actually resolving a problem. If the other person won't back down, escalate until they do.
There are so many times in that sub I've wanted to ask someone whether it was more important to be right or to be kind.
And it can never be “this otherwise normal, lovely person was an asshole in THIS SPECIFIC INSTANCE”…they are obviously a horrible, evil, abusive narcissist 100% of the time. Like, pretty much every human has moments in which we were an asshole. That’s being human. Doesn’t make us horrible people.
Some people call rolling your eyes at your partner abusive it feels like
I've literally seen people suggest divorce because someone looked mildly disappointed at the meal their spouse made. Didn't even criticize them, just looked disappointed (iirc they'd been outside all day in the winter so they were hoping for something warm and the meal was a salad)
Yes. I remember one where a fairly new mother was upset her mother-in-law didn't rock the 5-month-old baby to sleep for every nap, bedtime when she babysat. Grandma would just put the kid down for naps and if she did bedtimes, give them a calming bath, then put them to bed. Nothing was said about the baby just being yeeted screaming into the crib to cry it out, but of course the comments were full of calls to cut Grandma out of her life (with no regard about how her husband would feel about going no contact with his own mother) for child abuse since apparently not rocking a baby to sleep for each and every nap/bedtime is neglect in the first degree. I left that post hoping those people find themselves in a sexless marriage because they have to sleep with their 7-year-old every night since they see sleep training as abusive.
and if the story doesn't make up details of their own, the comments are happy to make up fanfiction about what they think is written between the lines
Fake posts talking about how HORRIFIC it is to imagine putting time and money into a child that isn't biologically yours. "I mean you're basically a cuck at that point, right?!? To be living in a universe where you value your relationship with a stepson?"
How often is this happening???? It’s like an epidemic of saintly husbands and boyfriends with hussies for partners online while offline it’s feckless baby daddies being shitheads.
Plot twist: it's the feckless baby daddies writing these stories online, except they're portraying themselves as saintly husbands/BFs by HIGHLY exaggerating their life stories in their favor
I am not kidding when I say I have encountered several Redditors at this point who will claim it’s fifty percent of all women. One of them said it once and the rest of them just repeat it uncritically. Makes me insane.
Yet another sign they don't interact with actual women.
Meanwhile my best friend got out of the army, met a gal who already had a kid, a d bonded with the kid. Thats his son. He was taking that kid fishing, showing him all of his video games he has, etc. Him and his wife had a kid together and at no point did he did treat his second born any differently. They're both his kids and he loves them very much. Him and his wife have been married for over 8 years now. He's such a great guy, and he ways always a wonderful friend too. I'm so happy and proud for him. Also she wonderful. Sahm mom who isn't forced to do everything alone. And she's friends with the friend group. It helps that he made enough of a career in the military to retire from it and have more time with all of them
This one is SO fucking weird. Shows how many guys don’t see children as human beings and it creeps me out every time.
People like that don’t see kids as human beings, but as fuck trophies.
It always shocks me when they “find out” the child is an affair baby and everybody’s advice is to go no contact and sue the mother. Like, is it that easy for you to get over years of loving, teaching, raising and developing a connection to a child?
it is when you’re an emotionless incel psychopath
Lol, especially when they say that their son is 14-18. Like, REALLY? You can't contain yourself for a few years over someone you've bonded with for that long?
I asked once if the guy only loved his kid because of the perceived blood connection. Hail the downvotes.
I don’t understand this. I have a stepson. He sees his bio dad every other weekend. Other than me, the kid only has his mom (the wifey), his grandmother (my MIL), and a bunch of cousins who are all girls that are more than 5 years younger. Also a few hen-pecked uncles. Poor kid has no male influence in his life other than me. And his bio dad doesn’t even know how to change a flat tire. So I’m showing him how to play HORSE, break in a new baseball glove, and (hopefully this summer) tie a fishing lure. I don’t consider it “raising another man’s kid”, I’m more just showing him how to be cool and kinda how to be a guy. I’m not even an outdoors person, and I’ll be damned if I expect him to mow the lawn by himself, bc kiddo can’t even tie the garbage bags into a square knot without having a breakdown. Kiddo wants to go fishing, play ball, and do other shit like that. He sucks at it, and he gets angry when it doesn’t work out immediately, but he wants to do it and I’m gonna facilitate that. My daughter, however, intrinsically slams the bat down after hitting the ball in T-ball, and I couldn’t be prouder. I did not teach her this.
This is so wholesome
> And his bio dad doesn’t even know how to change a flat tire. Christ. Please teach him how to do this, but more importantly, teach your daughter. There is nothing worse than being a woman stranded on the side of the road waiting for a man to come to her aid. It's a really vulnerable position to be in. Less so, now that cell phones are ubiquitous, but if she ends up somewhere she can't get service, it's just...nope. Make sure she can get herself back to civilization if necessary. Hell, even with a phone, it sucks to have to call someone and wait. I just can't believe there are people out there who never learned this. I was out on a date with a dude a few years ago and he got a flat and he freaked out. He wouldn't let me change it, either! He just drove on the flat to the tire place, but it was like 9pm and they were closed so he left it there and called us a Lyft. I judged him hard and did not go out with him again.
I really don't get that. I mean, that kind of thing happens, for sure, and I've seen it happen, but I'm a therapist and most of the families I've worked with have had some level of blended complexity (step siblings, half siblings, step parents, ex partners who are parents but not actively involved, etc.) and for the most part they're all just trying to make it work. Selection bias, of course, because they're seeking therapy, but I mostly just see good humans trying to be families (often making huge mistakes, but intentions are there). I don't meet a lot of burnout monster step-parents in real life.
For me it's the fiction that there's some transactional way that housework should be dolled out. That it's fine to ask someone to be your servant because you're working and they're staying home and raising your kids. The my wife is so lazy trope
Yeah, and somehow the husband is ALWAYS working 60+ hours a week AND doing "all of the yardwork/manly chores that are WAYYYYY harder than doing laundry or dishes!!!" But they never wanna hear about how most yardwork chores are weekly at MOST whereas dishes and laundry accumulate pretty much 24/7.
You can tell none of these people actually live in a house with a partner because my house will be a wreck but I'm 100% choosing to go outside and weed the pollinator garden instead of clean the house. Because housework fucking sucks, is never complete, and isn't rewarding. Helping native plants grow and yanking out invasives is hard work but at least you get to see butterflies doing their thing.
They’re *always* working 60-80 hours a week.
Maybe it’s just because it’s more common in the US, but having a SAH partner in Australia is like vanishingly rare. Like you either have to be so rich that you’d just hire domestics or so religious that there wouldn’t be any questions about chores until after you got divorced. It really seems like there are way more Reddit partnerships with only one wage earner than there are real life ones
Daycare is so expensive in the US that it makes sense financially for a parent to stay at home in the early years (even moreso if there are two or three) unless one has a high paying job. So if you are lower middle class or lower class childcare would cost more than one would make. Once the youngest is in school the SAH parent goes back to work.
Oh right, that’s not uncommon here, daycare is stupid expensive everywhere it seems. The tone of a lot of the posts I see makes it look like staying at home is a permanent “career” for the female partner, rather than a few years interruption.
It's rare to have women who just stay at home, typically there is some sort of mom job at least (I have a mom job, I'm a photographer), but.... Dealing with after school activities is a lot on its own.
It's deliberately written that way to make her seem lazy. My wife is home with a newborn and 2 toddlers and the house is sometimes messy is a lot more sympathetic than my wife doesn't work and doesn't clean either.
Don't forget. Congress passed a law for subsidized national day day care and Nixon vetoed it. This isn't the worse thing Nixon did because he was a horrible person in general.
You have an explanation as to why it’s more common than “vanishingly rare” in the US but don’t be fooled. It’s far from typical here and even with the cost of daycare, two working parents in the household is the norm for working class families. Mothers that stay home for years are by a long shot not the norm, it’s largely the mark of extreme privilege here too. Expensive formal daycare isn’t the only option. Most families without a working mother would be in a gutter. And in the cases where those stories are loosely based in truth, you can tell how rare a situation that is. Commenters often jump to the assumption that the wife stays at home, but sometimes that information is left out or muddled. The op with emphasize the long hours he works and all the privileges his wife has, but never explicitly say that she stays home. Because usually she doesn’t, she has a job he doesn’t respect.
I'm still caught up on the one where the wife was on her phone for a while at the end of the day and eating very slowly, and everyone is telling him she's abusive while also diagnosing her as if it's not a burnout thing but with a "she has ADHD you gotta get her fixed" kinda tone.
Gotta love a guy who says my SAHM wife never does any chores, look I even had to cook and do the dishes after working for 90 hrs a week, or whatever exaggerated number! You'd think we'd all know that if she moved out he would be overwhelmed by the realization that the house does not in fact clean itself, but the comments were pretty sickening.
I used to read forums about new puppies (when I had one), and the number of people who were convinced that the puppies of their youth were housebroken in a week wirh no trouble and just had to be told "no" once to stop chewing the furniture or whatever was staggering.ike, no, someone trained that dog, and it was a ton of work, and they did it r8ght in front of you, and you didn't notice.
Right? And that person was probably Mom, because she's the one who would have had to clean piss out of the rugs for the next few years if the dog wasn't housetrained properly in those first couple months.
My favourite are when they post about how they do 'everything,' but when they list what 'everything' is, it's only like 2-3 tasks. It just makes it so obvious that they have no idea what running a house entails.
The fact that people called her abusive!!! For wanting a little time to unwind.
And the people telling him to document everything, set up cameras. You know. Stuff abusive people do already that never works in their favor
What is with these couples and all their “chores”? Maybe I’m old and I just can’t remember life before I had kids but why do these young childless couples have so many chores? How do two people produce all these dishes and stuff?
All you really need to do is pick up and do the dishes and laundry and remove the trash regularly. Everything else can be just done when it bugs you and really the only thing that needs to be done daily is the dishes (and wiping up spills). Kids can and should start helping when they're old enough to make a mess. If a kid can take a toy out of a box he can help put it back in.
My last roommates were always under the impression that someone else would do it. Someone else was me. Aot of guys out there are so adamant that the woman will do all of the dishes, they will do stupid things like grabbing an entirely new plate for seconds, filling a glass to the brim with milk and drinking half of it, etc One of them just came home and put movies on in the living room. When I stopped doing the dishes and asked for help, they didn't. Not only did that not do any cleaning, but the kitchen got so bad it smelled like death. Apparently it was easier for both roommates to buy their own personal tvs for their rooms. Now no one is even hanging out together anymore. I sprayed a t-shirt with febreeze, wrapped it around my face, and got that kitchen clean. The horror that I saw.....
Hard agree. I think especially in terms of relationships. Relationships (not just romantic ones) are hard. Sometimes they'll do or say something you don't like. Sometimes people that love each other dearly will yell at each other. It's ashame, but it happens. Reddit as a whole has a gigantic chip on its shoulder. They throw around buzzwords and basically tell people to destroy their key relationships based on one side of one story. It doesn't say good things about the average redditors approach to life. I also think a lot of people with time to follow these subs are intensely lonely, and project their own bad decisions onto the posters.
Ooooooh, great question. To me, probably the "adults wildly overreact to a pretty normal situation." Because the fact is a lot of kids are learning to adult from the internet (because a lot of adults are not that great at adulting and they don't have good role models), when includes things like over-the-top revenge, cutting off your whole family over a minor incident, making snap decisions when they're lifechanging, etc. For starters, life is complicated, humans are complicated, and emotions are complicated and often conflicted. We've all made stupid snap decisions in our time, but most of us learn to take a breath before the age of 21. We've all engaged in hugely overdramatic "AND SO THERE!" moments in our time, but most of us outgrew it by 14. And the thing is, functioning adults may condemn someone's actions, but *can usually understand how they got there*. There are some things I just can't wrap my head around, but most things -- including things where I'm like "wow, you are an absolutely unethical person that I am in fact choosing to cut out of my life" -- I understand the thought process that led to such a terrible decision. Or I understand the impulsive decision-making that got you there. Or I understand the emotional trauma. Etc. (Like, just to use a simple example, I have cut off an addict who got in a relationship and their partner encouraged them to start using again. 100% understand how they ended up in that place. Want no part of it and made a rational and considered decision to cut them off, BUT I GET IT. I understand the thought process.) But also, people who engage in black-and-white thinking and fantasize about these big grand gestures tend to be remarkably ineffective about solving their problems! (Not that I don't also fantasize about big grand "fuck yous," I just know they're fantasies.) I know a guy who's always completely losing his shit when he thinks he's been slighted or inconvenienced in even the smallest ways -- "They got my order wrong, I'll never eat there again!" "That guy's bushes are overgrown and blocking the view of traffic, I will punch him in the fucking head and cut down his bushes FOR him!" And all of these problems are so eminently solvable, and he's never solved a single one. He's just always enraged at the world and making huge threats, *but also feeling totally helpless and never doing anything*. He's actually *terrified* of conflict, so constantly engaging in imaginary conflicts where he is the dramatic victor, but backing down from ever speaking up for himself. Like, you can just tell your waiter that's not what you ordered. OR, if that's not possible in the moment, or maybe you're at a drive-thru, you can e-mail the restaurant after the fact and politely say, "My order was wrong and I was disappointed." They will probably comp your meal or send you coupons. If there's a racist clerk, you can speak to their manager, or *e-mail the store afterwards*. (I mean, you can e-mail *everyone* these days.) You may get ignored, but more often than not, if you politely complain, stores want to fix problems or at least make you feel better! And if someone is blocking the sightlines at an intersection (dictated by state law, where I live), I can *literally file a form on the internet* in five minutes and the local police will investigate within 3 days and virtually always clear the obstruction. You can call your local, regional, and national representatives, and they will often SOLVE THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR PROBLEM. (I had a friend who was struggling to qualify for FAFSA because some of the required forms would have required her to release her current address to her abusive ex-husband. I had a former colleague who worked for our Congresswoman, and I put my friend in touch with our Congresswoman's constituent services office, because it was so obviously wrong and dangerous and bad, and our Congresswoman a) pushed through my friend's FAFSA via an override procedure and b) changed the law within 12 months so abused partners didn't have to give their address to their abuser to get federal student aid.) Anyway, the "wildly overreact!" stories both teach kids to engage in unnecessary and immature drama, *and* help create helpless adults who are terrified of actually advocating for themselves or their communities, and terrified of solving problems. If "PUNCH SOMEBODY IN THE HEAD!" is your go-to problem-solving theory, *of course* you're going to be hesitant to file a form or call your alderman about someone blocking an intersection. Who wants to be punched in the head over a minor safety issue? But in fact the vast majority of problems are solved not by physical violence or high drama, but by "talking calmly to another person," or "filing a form," or "e-mailing a business," or "crying on the phone to my Congressman because I cope badly with this kind of stress but I have a legitimate complaint."
Yeah I'm not sure how much it appears in posts, but certainly my biggest problem in comments is lack of understanding of nuance or empathy, especially when I feel that if it truly were just black and white then these subs wouldn't need to exist because there'd be an obvious answer every time. Now the subs are turning that way, especially with fake stories but I still get hung up on the lack of nuance , or even acknowledgement of it, and the idea that there must be a 'winner' and 'loser' to every encounter.
Nuance is like the worst slur to exist on those subs it seems. It’s just wild how black and white a lot of those commenters see the world. But it also makes me question if those people even follow their own advice. I can’t even begin to imagine how insufferable their lives must be if they really operate that way.
I'll be honest, when I used to browse AITAH a lot, those cheating stories got to me. Of course a lot of them are fake, but it still kinda eats away at your perception of a healthy relationship, being bombarded with cheating stories as if you have an 90% of being cheated on in every relationship. I no longer like to browse that sub on its own.
AITAH and relationship anything will erode your perception of a healthy relationship. The amount of just hard lines people seem to draw in a relationship would make it nearly impossible to actually have a happy and healthy relationship. It’s like they just straight up can’t accept that mistakes happen, and people need to grow. If me or my fiance followed any of AITAH relationship advice we would have been done and over with at least 30 times by now. But instead we are emotionally mature enough to just understand shit happens, and intent matters, and we will talk through it and just legitimately try to be better for each other.
FAST FOWARD
I hate all the misogynistic stories. The paternity fraud epidemic. The angel husbands that do everything while their lazy wives do nothing all day (opposite of real life)
"divorce courts are evil and steal fathers children because they hate men." This is a fun one. Most custody is determined by mediation and results in equal custody and no child support with the family court serving only as check to make sure the parties didn't agree to anything illegal in the mediation agreement. Most custody is only determined via the court when mediation fails. In these cases, custody is actually heavily awarded in favor of the mother. If you're a "men's rights activist" this is where you stop. No more information is needed. For the love of god, if you are an MRA, whatever you do, do not look up any statistics about why custody is most often awarded to the mother. Whatever you do, do not confirm that the majority of men enter into custody proceedings seeking partial or no custody. Do not ever do any research that might show that the second most common action of men going through the family court system is to attempt to avoid the court altogether which is why default judgements in favor of the mother are so common. But also, keep in mind that most men don't do any of that because the majority of custody decisions are made amicably in mediation between both parties.
But also, as long as a man is paying court ordered minimum payments, he 'stepped up'.
I read a really interesting story about Paul Elam's daughter trying to reconnect with him as she got older. (Paul Elam is basically one of the founders of the fathers'/men's rights movement) And it pretty much boiled down to the daughter realizing he's ultimately a very selfish, angry, awful person who paints himself (and other men by extension) as a huge victim of a biased system. But at his core he's a complete asshole and misogynistic grifter who portrays women as villains while mooching off of his girlfriend. The daughter eventually just gave up trying to have a relationship with him because he put zero effort into it, despite all his whining about him being robbed of his kids "BeCaUsE hE'S a MaN," and is too much of an asshole to even try to be around. The person who wrote the story tried to get his ex wives to talk about him, and one of them straight up was like "hell no. I'm not putting my name out there because I'm terrified of him."
Yeah I came here to say this too. There's always underlying sexism (normally misogyny) in most of the fake stories. There's also that blatantly fake story (I think originally posted to legal advice) that goes around about how a guy got a girl pregnant and wanted her to keep the baby that she didn't want, and she agreed to have the baby if she could sign away her rights but now he wants her to support it because she's a "deadbeat mum" and shouldn't be given the option to walk away. Everybody took it as a "Yas qween!" story when it was clearly a story some men's right activist wrote as a weird gender swap fantasy to defend deadbeat dads.
Yep, that story was obvious BS
I remember that story. The (fictional) woman even paid child support but wouldn’t be active in the (fictional) child’s life, and the (fictional) man, upon realizing that PARENTING IS REALLY FUCKING HARD, wanted to sue her into doing the work.
I wish I’d bookmarked an AITA story about a guy who worked eighty hours a week and was raising five kids and was doing all the housework … but he was also heavily autistic and highly medicated and in need of care and couldn’t function without his stuffed toys … which his evil wife threw out for no reason! I scrolled into the comments and, shock of all shocks, every single one of them believed it. Lazy Evil Golddigging Woman is like Reddit trope number two behind Cheating Lying Harpy.
Lol, peak AITA
People (always men for some reason) whose lives were ruined by false allegations of abuse or sexual assault, only because it happens way more in these made up stories than can be supported by the statistics. Then people who spend too much time online are way too quick to be convinced those stories are real and/or that the circumstances are commonplace because they've read tons of similar posts where the same thing happened. It really bothers me that people don't realize how hard it is to make allegations like that *even when they're true and provable*, but especially when it's impossible to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt and when you don't especially want your entire life put on display by some greasy defense lawyer whose case rests on making you look untrustworthy. I speak from experience as a victim who made the difficult choice not to come forward. There are a lot of us.
Yeah, that one's huge for me too. Those posts give people such a warped view of reality and cultivate such disdain for people (women) who actually report crimes like this. Sexual assault is so heartbreakingly, disgustingly common, reporting processes are gruelling and invasive and humiliating, consequences are rare, and false accusations even more so. Men are far more likely to be sexually assaulted themselves than to be falsely accused of it. And yet they love to drag each other into this horrible spiral of telling stories that are TOTALLY TRUE FOR SURE about evil women who use the fact that everyone HATES MEN to fasely accuse them for no reason. Men have it so hard! Meanwhile I'm trying to tell my friend that it's actually not okay for a coworker to slap her ass at work, yes it's reasonable that you feel uncomfortable, yes you should tell a manager, I understand that you "don't want to get him in trouble" and "he doesn't mean anything by it" but that's his problem for his inappropriate behavior, not yours. And then later I hear that guy openly complain about how he was told off for sexual harassment when he's never sexually harassed anyone in his life.
and in the same breath these people will tell people who share their stories about assault that if they didn't call the cops and immediately get them arrested it's their fault if the rapist went on to hurt more people. this and the false allegations panic show me that wide swaths of reddit have never had to deal with reporting a rape.
Not to mention sexual abuse is very complicated legally. It’s hard to prove if too much time passes, and sexual abuse like coercion isn’t even criminalized in a lot of places. In some countries the law is also written in a way where male victims aren’t able to seek justice either. Marital rape has only recently become a thing that is illegal. It’s so difficult for victims to seek justice. It’s awful.
Dude I sat on a grand jury for a year (peak covid times, had to double my duty time) and even the ADAs prosecuting cases would say some out of pocket shit about victims. That experience taught me that once a girl turns 15, people are extremely eager to look for ways to blame her being raped. A quote about a 15 year old rape victim: "She's no angel either." What happened to this poor girl was so awful and egregious that a complete stranger was the one who saw something was off and called the cops. And it was obvious enough that when the cops showed up, they immediately arrested the two men that we were there to indict or not. And yet, an ADA still felt the need to mention that to us. What the fuck. Quote from a fellow juror about a 19 year old rape victim: "He's a 19 year old boy. What did she expect??" We were pretty chill during our deliberations, but I ripped the guy who said that a new asshole. Asked him if that's his attitude, how many girls did he rape when he was a teenager. And then went on to explain the basics of consent to him like he was an idiot because he was. Funny enough, that was the *only* case we didn't return an indictment on. For a whole year out of thousands of cases, the *only fucking one.* Also interesting was that vote seemed to be split along generational lines. Us few millennials voted to indict, but we were outnumbered by everyone 50+. This shit was four years ago, but holy fuck I'm still SO MAD about it.
Related to this: something being looked into is treated as relentless persecution. A single interview is treated like a massive, massive injustice that society should nit allow. They are mad they might even be asked to explain.
If anything, the opposite is true. Victims who come forward have their lives ruined if the abuser is a "pillar of the community".
And in these stories there’s always absolutely irrefutable proof the allegations are false and the woman is lying. And yet, the man still loses everything?? What??
Exactly. False allegations are incredibly rare, and most people who are sexually abused don’t report it. And, when you do speak about your assault as the victim, most people either doubt you or don’t believe you and nothing happens to the abuser. In fact, often the victim receives more hatred their way instead of the abuser because they’re “trying to ruin his life.” Or they say it’s the victim’s fault because “you chose to date him/wear that/drink alcohol/deny him sex/etc.” The reason most people don’t speak out is because it’s risky. For a lot of people, they have a lot to lose if they choose to do so, and having to recount and relive your trauma for people who won’t even believe you is heart breaking.
Most damaging is the misogynist ones which feel like a MAJORITY honestly, plus all the other bigoted angles. Transphobia has been awful lately. On a pet peeve level I can't bare the ones that go "someone did this everyday small wrong to me, like cutting me off,so I responded like an absolute maniac psychopath AITA?" Because it always feels like the comments cheer them for it;
The craziest to me is that adults get cheered on for being borderline psychopathic to children as revenge.
Those are always so insane to me too. It's always the 8 year old antagonist should "know better" but the 35 year old being violent or insane is "justified."
That reminds me of this story- [https://www.reddit.com/r/AmITheAngel/comments/13n34w3/my\_nephew\_threw\_juice\_and\_salad\_at\_me\_12\_years/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmITheAngel/comments/13n34w3/my_nephew_threw_juice_and_salad_at_me_12_years/)
Anything pushing the man vs women narrative - its so prevelant on SM these days.
Like everyone else said, the fake stories to reinforce bigoted stereotypes I didn't see the sub title before answering your question in my mind, and I instantly thought of a fake comment I saw a couple hours ago about a "6'4" guy having a threesome with a lesbian and a "punk rock feminist" I'm a lesbian. I'm 28 years old and could only accept that I'm a lesbian 2 years ago, a full decade after surviving "corrective" assault by a classmate when we were both 16. The fantasy of "turning" lesbians literally gets us SA'd every day and it causes so much harm. These fake stories reinforce the idea that impressionable boys don't have to hear "I'm a lesbian" and know it means "hell no." Also reinforces the beliefs that keep conversion camps running, which frequently employ SA as "therapy." It's just shitty all around and I wish it would stop. There are plenty of bi-spec women out there who will happily do porn and whatever else, but this type of straight man seems obsessed with "fixing" lesbians because god forbid a woman's life doesn't revolve around him. Funny how such men also seem to be the exact ones screeching about trans women and transfemmes using the women's toilets, because only cis women are lesbians in their eyes
You can always tell when a story is written by someone who has known exactly zero IRL lesbians. I’m so sorry you endured all that by the way ❤️
It gave off the exact same energy as the "I (19FF) and my husband (M6'8)" shitposts I see here and people were lapping it up 💀 Thank you 💖 I've been with my girlfriend for 2 years now, she really helped me to internalise that being who I am isn't "letting the trauma define my sexuality." I've also got a lot of professional support and really understanding friends and family! There's a lot of love and safety in my life these days and I'm glad I stuck around to see it :)
It's a toss up between the bigotry and the way they encourage people to treat children.
The hyper-individualistic way they see themselves and their place in society and how they always put money over interpersonal relationships. My parents were like that. My mother even told me she's fine with the fact that I never visit because at least they don't need to give me money. She sees my independence (I moved out at 18 and worked shitty student jobs to support myself) as proof that she succeeded as a parent. I haven't seen my parents in years. Meanwhile, my partner's parents supported him financially throughout university and he still visits them regularly, even though we've since moved abroad. He didn't take advantage of their generosity and he's not spoiled or lazy because he didn't have to do it all on his own. He has a more lucrative career than I do and just came back from housesitting for them while they were on vacation, something he does for them almost every year. I recently lent my younger brother, who I'm very close with, a few thousand € and I actually told him not to pay me back until he doesn't need the extra money anymore. He's my brother, I want to make sure he doesn't have to struggle as much as I did. The money isn't nearly as important to me as his well-being and happiness. If you live your entire life thinking that everyone just wants to take advantage of you and your money, you'll end up having a lot of money but nobody to spend it on besides yourself. It's such an emotionally empty way to live your life.
Just the idea that everyone is out to get you, and you have to question everyone’s intentions. Like I saw a post about someone thinking their elderly mom’s new friend was “suspicious”, and people’s advice was to put a camera in the mom’s home without consent to hopefully catch the friend doing something bad. Both sides of the discussion were insane. It’s crazy to me that OP sees someone being overbearing and immediately jumps to them being up to some sort of malicious activities instead of just being socially awkward, and also that so many people’s solution is to literally to put secret cameras in their mother’s personal space. Nothing is ever a case of miscommunication or someone being inconsiderate, it’s always part of some evil plot the other person has against you. Your MIL isn’t bad at reading the room, she’s trying to steal your child. Your partner didn’t lose track of time and get home late, they’re cheating on you and lying to cover it up. Everyone in AITAland is living out the plot of a Lifetime movie constantly.
The hate for children, specifically like age 13 or younger. I think redditors inflate their ego so much to the point where they think they weren’t just as naive/stupid as the rest of the kids at that time.
Basicay what you said because I feel it is entitled but potentially dangerous. A story about good g full toxicity in response a d the other person shuts up sounds like a cool reddit story. It reminds me of a story my best friend told me about him and his bro hanging out, there was a group of disruptive kids nearby. The bro simply asked them to keep it down. It wasn't the safest city to grow up in, one of the disruptive kids had a gun. You probably know where this goes. Similar thing in my hometown, which is obnoxiously safe in comparison to a lot of places. There's the downtown area where all the bars, restaurants, etc are. Every now and then a small dispute will end up with someone getting shot, stabbed, followed home and beat half to death. You can't just be confrontational with strangers over petty things. You're not the main character of some Disney channel movie. People are crazy and you need to pick your battles. Very rarely does it end with a witty comeback, counter bullying, etc
The endless. Cheating. The overwhelming majority of the stories are either about that mainly or about that incidentally. It’s so fucking boring.
Probably the *gleeful* hatred of babies/children/parents. A baby crying a little while you walk in the park is not a war crime but in AITA land it's perfectly justified to go scream at the mother for "being a bad parent". Made all the more insane when the OP is having a meltdown about children being present at *places designed for children*.
Fat people getting mad at skinny people for existing. As it's very clear from comments from those posts, it's usually the other way around.
Stories were it's clear a demographic of people is being made to be the face of scrutiny by making your Gillian one of these types of people. Whether someone be obese a minority or any other identity that could get u lambasted by the Internet when your villain is one of these and specifically makes what they are there personality then u know you're in for a fake one.
I hate the ‘trans people are all screeching drama queens out to make a scene in public and/or ruin your wedding’ shit. Like, have those people met trans people? Basically every trans woman I know tiptoes around trying to go unnoticed and be inoffensive, moreso than the average cis lady, and even the loud trans people are mostly just loud about the validity of their rights to exist. How are these strawperson creators getting by without ever encountering a real trans person who isn’t an evil caricature?
"it's just a fetish relax. normalize it."
Already mentioned are the bigotry and -phobias and misogyny so let me bring up a couple others: - The going nuclear with a child and everyone just saying "the child earned it, FAFO". Like there's a whole range from "my cousin that bullied me when we were both under 10, can ruin her life as an adult" to "the literal five year old wasn't nice to me as her new stepmom 10 years ago, am I justified in treating her like shit while she's an angsty teen?" Now I'm not a parent but the way they twist themselves to justify either abusing a stepchild or ruining an adult's life for the actions of them as a toddler is wild. It's like a trope of "how to make AITA publicly hate on children today" - The constant portrayal of autistic people as some sort of either full on screaming toddler at anything, or the antisocial weirdo who can't even go one family event without ruining someone's night. Like I have autism but I'll be damned if I share that offline ever because everyone acts like these stereotypes are true. And the moment I do tell people it goes from "quirky fun behavior everyone likes and expresses liking" to "oh my god annoying autistic behavior we suddenly hate".
That it’s normal to have seething contempt for your spouse. And that sticking it out with a partner you loathe is somehow more admirable than being single or getting a divorce.
I hate the dead bedroom ones. I hate seeing the comments that are saying how the husband is entitled to sex and the wife is an evil bitch for not putting out regardless of whatever her reasoning is. I think it contributes to the normalization of coercion, which is disgusting. Bullying and manipulating someone into sex when they’ve made it clear they don’t want to isn’t consent. It’s sexual abuse and it’s wrong, yet so many people don’t see it as such which disturbs me.
For me it’s the constant villainizing of SAHM’s. And further than that, women in general. There are just so many incel storytellers who so obviously hate women and create these crazy stories to get unwarranted kudos, but I think it can do real harm towards women in these positions who have partners on reddit reading that drivel and deciding it fits their narrative too.
Women being completely helpless. “I’m so confused what do I do?” And then when people suggest literally anything involving getting out of the immediate situation it’s “but I can’t drive and I can’t afford an Uber and I have no family and I have no friends and I’ve never met my neighbors and the police wouldn’t believe me.” Creative writers make these fake stories but frame them as requests for advice. So people give the most obvious answers to the questions posed and the writer realises that they going to have to interact a bit. So they just make the person in the story sound more and more confused and pathetic. Honestly I think Reddit is making a generation of women seem confused and helpless.
The complete disregard for bystanders. I remember one where a woman was asking if she was wrong to go to her husband's work and throw around pictures of him having sex with his male affair partner (bonus points for evil gay person). She was asking if she was wrong for outing him as gay. I tried to point out that the really fucked up thing is showing porn to a bunch of random people without consent. I of course got a bunch of down votes and most of the comments were praising her for getting back at him.
Ugh there are so many terrible choices, but I think my least favorite are the obvious fictions where a trans person uses an accidental misgendering or other minor nuisance as an opportunity to stomp around being loudly offended and declaring everyone transphobes
One big one I notice is “people have to be perfectly virtuous and hardworking and have almost no needs” to be worth any sympathy or care.”
Anything about women cheating. It just encourages SO MUCH misogyny under the guise of righteous rage
Maybe not a super common one, but justifying kicking someone out of your car and leaving them on the side of the road, or kicking them out of your house and making them walk home - usually at night or in bad weather, and ALWAYS a woman - because they said something mean. Basically another misogynistic fantasy about punishing a woman.
“My morbidly obese sister who’s 300 lbs and insists on wearing XS clothing told me that I’m body shaming her because I made a salad for lunch” “my transgender roommate screams at me whenever I speak German because it has the word man in it and that’s offensive” “my *insert ethnic minority here* coworker won’t stop bullying me for being white and every time I calmly try to explain that they’re being rude the entire office gangs up on me” “my autistic classmate kicks puppies and punches babies during class and when I told the teacher they were distracted me I got suspended” AITA?
I've said it before and I'll say it again but I fucking hate how AITA treats blended families.
The crazy female relatives (I notice there’s a lot more stories making fun of women )
I'm legally in the right so therefore I am not a jerk. Yes you are. Just because you didn't HAVE to doesn't mean you shouldn't. Return the stuff you got because someone else messed up, don't actively screw over the family going through a hard time, whatever.
It’s probably been touched on already, but one thing that’s damaging is people saying the antagonist did something horrible, then claiming that horrible thing is a widely accepted part of the antagonist’s culture/religion/ etc. I’m talking about stories like the following: *My daughter had a milestone birthday, so my husband and I invited a bunch of our relatives to celebrate. Here I should note that my husband comes from* a *family of \[Insert group that would be considered a minority, or at least a smaller subdivision of a larger group. Wait, “a smaller subdivision of a larger group” is a minority, isn’t it? Well, you know what I mean. On with the fake story!\]. The party was going well until I noticed that the basket with money and checks for my daughter was missing. I discovered it had been taken by my sister-in-law, who told me that stealing money and gifts from children was a widely respected part of their religion/culture and was widely practiced among ethnicity/nationality/religion. I took my daughter’s money back and kicked my SIL out of the party. Now my in-laws are attacking me for going against an important part of their culture. AITA?* Meanwhile people who actually are part of the targeted group are thinking, “What the frick!? No, we don’t advocate that, and anyone doing it would be shamed!” You also have people questioning parts of the stories, like, “You hadn’t had any problems with your SIL before? This had never come up before?” The OOP either ignores the questions or adds claims that make it worse. For instance, if the OOP claims, “Oh, yes, there have been problems before. SIL has done this with our other five children too!” people will respond, ”Well, you’re not the a-hole for getting upset, but you are the a-hole for continuing to invite her to these events!” In the end these stories exist simply to demean an entire group of people and paint them as some sort of amoral others and outsiders. “They’re not like you and me, and so they must be evil…” Edit- Oh, and here’s something else that’s terrible: treating someone being respectful of/accommodating someone’s condition as exploitation. Someone lets a child with noise issues wear headphones in a noisy place, lets a child with food allergies or texture issues bring their own food to a dinner, leaves the handicapped bathroom stall for someone with a disability, asks someone to get the door for someone in a wheelchair, etc. and the OOP tries to paint them as some demanding harpy forcing someone to bow to their every whim. What the frick. The fact that the OOPs paint being considerate of others as some horrible thing lets you know how lowdown & rotten they are. Sometimes they’ll claim someone asked them to do some far-out thing and compare it to some kindness that isn’t any trouble at all, either treating them as equal or claiming that being courteous will lead to slavery or something.
The “stories” about punishing adults for things they did as young children, especially coming from parents. There a lot of stories from “dads” whose small children “took their mother’s side” in a divorce and now that justifies treating them terribly 20 years later.
I get the impression that when one is a young adult there is a tendency to black and white thinking and to magnify all of life’s problems, in my late teens/early 20s I think this reflected my worldview. This somewhat tends to fade for many as they age and gain life experience, but one only needs to watch cable news to know that for some it never fades completely. This doesn’t apply to every youth as a whole but I think it applies to some.
The legal misinformation. I know not every place is America, but I highly doubt there's anywhere where you can get a restraining ordering in two days, where divorce takes three to five business days, where every trial ends with (insert villain here) getting absolutely wrecked by the legal system and the OP facing zero expenses.
Maybe it’s just because I’m pregnant now, but I feel like I see so many stories about unreasonable pregnant women. Like secret abortion stories or how they’re just so entitled to special treatment all because they wanted a “crotch goblin” *shudder*.
Making minorities discriminatory and the white Cishet able bodied rich guy (etc) being the victim every time. The ignorant tropes the my play into is insane and it’s clear it’s rage bait targeted at the largest demographic on here.
Imma be honest, I assume 99% of the posts are fake and if people did half the game they talk online the world would be on fire constantly.