I seem to have offended another parent

[Anonymous]

I typically respond like that mom. I’m not upset and it’s nothing personal. I just hate texting and am busy with other things. It’s emotionally draining to always be upbeat and use emojis and LOLs in an effort to not offend anyone, when men get away with brief, to the point responses and no one cares. Like I doubt you would be posting here if you had texted with the dad and not the mom. I’d also be unhappy about needing to text with parents from my kids’ school, it feels like I’m always needing to hop on my phone for school stuff. Like a PP said, less effort for everyone if you just throw the art back in the backpack for your kid to take back to school.

[Anonymous]

I’ve said it in another thread and I’ll say it again here: I’ve found many people in DC just don’t do this kind of banter or even exchange pleasantries by email/text. OP just learn to let it go. You’re weird and overthinking this and I’m instantly endeared to you because I’m the same way. You are my people. But I’ve learned from living here: we are not everyone else’s people. And that’s totally ok too.

[Anonymous]

OP, you asked an essentially yes/no question, the other mom answered and you felt the need to keep the conversation going but they were busy. Time to move on. Pretty sure the other person has given zero thought to text or the artwork since then. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

[Anonymous]

She probably just didn’t feel like talking about it anymore so told you to have a nice day. Maybe she was trying to do something and didn’t want the notifications popping up that she had to reply to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough crowd here. OP, I totally get what you're saying. It's the curt "Have a good afternoon" that is weird. It reads as her shutting the conversation down when you were just trying to be friendly. I really don't think you approached it incorrectly and she sounds a bit unfriendly to me. Though, I agree with others that it is REALLY hard to read tone over text. I just wouldn't try to chat it up or joke with her over text again.

This. She isn't one of your "people". NBD.

OP here. This. This is it. It's the shutting down comment. Anytime another parent is being kind or friendly I am earnest and eager to respond back with friendliness. This Mom is not. She is not one of my people. I totally get that now. I saw her this morning. She might be a little socially awkward, in that she takes herself very seriously. I really misjudged her, and made assumptions of her partly because of her appearance. She comes across as a sort of non-traditional mom, with tattoos up her sleeves, and as a tattooed Mom myself, I guess I felt like she might be sort of an open-minded, fun and friendly person. She really is not. So, lesson learned. I move on now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough crowd here. OP, I totally get what you're saying. It's the curt "Have a good afternoon" that is weird. It reads as her shutting the conversation down when you were just trying to be friendly. I really don't think you approached it incorrectly and she sounds a bit unfriendly to me. Though, I agree with others that it is REALLY hard to read tone over text. I just wouldn't try to chat it up or joke with her over text again.

This. She isn't one of your "people". NBD.

OP here. This. This is it. It's the shutting down comment. Anytime another parent is being kind or friendly I am earnest and eager to respond back with friendliness. This Mom is not. She is not one of my people. I totally get that now. I saw her this morning. She might be a little socially awkward, in that she takes herself very seriously. I really misjudged her, and made assumptions of her partly because of her appearance. She comes across as a sort of non-traditional mom, with tattoos up her sleeves, and as a tattooed Mom myself, I guess I felt like she might be sort of an open-minded, fun and friendly person. She really is not. So, lesson learned. I move on now.

I'm a non-traditional, open-minded mom (with tattoos) and I also hate text banter. I try to remember to use exclamation points or smiley faces, but sometimes I forget. I love grabbing coffee or a drink, but when I see that texting could go on for a long time I do try to shut it down, even with close friends. Maybe I'm not one of your people but I wouldn't write her off based on a text.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough crowd here. OP, I totally get what you're saying. It's the curt "Have a good afternoon" that is weird. It reads as her shutting the conversation down when you were just trying to be friendly. I really don't think you approached it incorrectly and she sounds a bit unfriendly to me. Though, I agree with others that it is REALLY hard to read tone over text. I just wouldn't try to chat it up or joke with her over text again.

This. She isn't one of your "people". NBD.

OP here. This. This is it. It's the shutting down comment. Anytime another parent is being kind or friendly I am earnest and eager to respond back with friendliness. This Mom is not. She is not one of my people. I totally get that now. I saw her this morning. She might be a little socially awkward, in that she takes herself very seriously. I really misjudged her, and made assumptions of her partly because of her appearance. She comes across as a sort of non-traditional mom, with tattoos up her sleeves, and as a tattooed Mom myself, I guess I felt like she might be sort of an open-minded, fun and friendly person. She really is not. So, lesson learned. I move on now.

I'm a non-traditional, open-minded mom (with tattoos) and I also hate text banter. I try to remember to use exclamation points or smiley faces, but sometimes I forget. I love grabbing coffee or a drink, but when I see that texting could go on for a long time I do try to shut it down, even with close friends. Maybe I'm not one of your people but I wouldn't write her off based on a text.

This isn't it though. I realize she shares things all the time in the WhatsApp group. Dumb things like memes from GOT and links to Facebook which is awkward because those of us who don't have Facebook can't open the link and we have no idea what it is she is sharing.
I realize she is just not friendly. In texts or in person. I realized that this morning when I saw her at drop off. It's nothing personal to me and I won't take the time to interact with her anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough crowd here. OP, I totally get what you're saying. It's the curt "Have a good afternoon" that is weird. It reads as her shutting the conversation down when you were just trying to be friendly. I really don't think you approached it incorrectly and she sounds a bit unfriendly to me. Though, I agree with others that it is REALLY hard to read tone over text. I just wouldn't try to chat it up or joke with her over text again.

This. She isn't one of your "people". NBD.

OP here. This. This is it. It's the shutting down comment. Anytime another parent is being kind or friendly I am earnest and eager to respond back with friendliness. This Mom is not. She is not one of my people. I totally get that now. I saw her this morning. She might be a little socially awkward, in that she takes herself very seriously. I really misjudged her, and made assumptions of her partly because of her appearance. She comes across as a sort of non-traditional mom, with tattoos up her sleeves, and as a tattooed Mom myself, I guess I felt like she might be sort of an open-minded, fun and friendly person. She really is not. So, lesson learned. I move on now.

I'm a non-traditional, open-minded mom (with tattoos) and I also hate text banter. I try to remember to use exclamation points or smiley faces, but sometimes I forget. I love grabbing coffee or a drink, but when I see that texting could go on for a long time I do try to shut it down, even with close friends. Maybe I'm not one of your people but I wouldn't write her off based on a text.

This isn't it though. I realize she shares things all the time in the WhatsApp group. Dumb things like memes from GOT and links to Facebook which is awkward because those of us who don't have Facebook can't open the link and we have no idea what it is she is sharing.
I realize she is just not friendly. In texts or in person. I realized that this morning when I saw her at drop off. It's nothing personal to me and I won't take the time to interact with her anymore.

Good lord you all need some social skills. You feel awkward for not being able to open a link? I don’t have FB and it’s NBD if someone sends me a link. I just say “sorry, don’t have FB. What are you trying to share?”

Also the tattoo fixation is weird. You think people with tattoos should be more Suzy Sunshine…..well I think people with tattoos should be tougher and not get upset over a text like a dang middle schooler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough crowd here. OP, I totally get what you're saying. It's the curt "Have a good afternoon" that is weird. It reads as her shutting the conversation down when you were just trying to be friendly. I really don't think you approached it incorrectly and she sounds a bit unfriendly to me. Though, I agree with others that it is REALLY hard to read tone over text. I just wouldn't try to chat it up or joke with her over text again.

This. She isn't one of your "people". NBD.

OP here. This. This is it. It's the shutting down comment. Anytime another parent is being kind or friendly I am earnest and eager to respond back with friendliness. This Mom is not. She is not one of my people. I totally get that now. I saw her this morning. She might be a little socially awkward, in that she takes herself very seriously. I really misjudged her, and made assumptions of her partly because of her appearance. She comes across as a sort of non-traditional mom, with tattoos up her sleeves, and as a tattooed Mom myself, I guess I felt like she might be sort of an open-minded, fun and friendly person. She really is not. So, lesson learned. I move on now.

You sound overly invested here, truly. There is no need to dissect this that much. And yeah it seems like you were dragging out what should have been a very brief exchange and she just didn’t have time to continue on and on.

[Anonymous]

You could have avoided all of this. This has happened to me before. I just took it back to school and put in the other child's cubby or you could have given back to the teacher. It's not a big deal and I'm sure she wasn't offended. My kid is 12 now and that art was thrown out after we selected a few pieces for framing.

[Anonymous]

I would be annoyed if another mom said I was a “bad mom”. I also do not keep everything made at preschool and I hardly think this makes me a bad mother. Also you seem very needy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I was the other Mom I would have been completely irritated by you.
What would have been so hard about giving the art work to the teacher when you brought your kid in tomorrow and saying oops theses were not meant for me? Or tell the Mom I’m sending them back tomorrow? End of story

Same.
Why did OP offered to throw it away? WTF? It’s not yours to throw it away and to assume that this mom doesn’t want it. You don’t know her story, maybe she likes to keep everything, why not. Kid might still be proud of the artwork, why are you making fun of it? Your poor kids, I guess anything they make is not up to your standards, so to trash it goes. Next time send it back with a not, it’s not ours, it belongs to another kid. You don’t even need to contact the mom over it.

[Anonymous]

reading this thread it's like we're all on different planets! OP, I hear you and I also would have felt a little miffed. But I also hear the others who are coming at it from a variety of other places, ranging from "you're weird, I'd be annoyed if I got your text" to "I'm usually too busy, don't read too much into anything I say on text". I have friendly "banter" type chats with parents all the time in real life and often over text. I like that style of communication. But it's a helpful reality check to see that many other people just aren't into it and there's nothing to take personally there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you talk too much.
You should have just texted her the pictures of the art and said "I'll bring them to you tomorrow".
She would have said "thanks" and then you would have handed them over the next day.
End of story.

This. Asking if you should throw them away was weird. You could have waited for her to suggest that on her own.

[Anonymous]

OP, she got tired of all the conversation. That's all.