Wednesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Prince Harry to attend coronation without Meghan" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. I locked this thread less than 6 hours after it was posted because it was basically nothing more than 18 pages of Meghan bashing, much of it quite bizarre. I am no longer surprised that threads involving Meghan turn out like this, but I still find the fanaticism regarding her to be very strange. Both her haters and her supporters are way too obsessed. The numbers speak for themselves. In the few hours this thread was open, it reached 18 pages of posts, becoming the most active thread of the day. At least 11 posters managed to post in the double digits before I locked it. All of this because it was announced that Harry would attend the coronation of King Charles without his family. The irony is if the announcement had been that Meghan would be joining him, the thread would have been equally long and equality acrimonious. All that is required is a mention of Meghan. It doesn't matter what she does or doesn't do. All of this on DCUM where most of those involved know that I am hostile to these threads and will likely lock or delete them. Can you imagine the sort of traffic that sites that welcome such discussion must be observing? Their servers were probably melting down. If due to some incredible and extremely unlikely series of events Meghan ever manages to become Queen, I will convert DCUM to the DC Urban Meghan Forum. I would never read the forum, but no descendent of mine would ever have to work a day in their life thanks to the ad revenue that would produce.

The second most active thread was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum and titled "Husband’s Announcement". Just to provide added perspective to the Meghan thread, this thread was created just over 24 hours ago and has produced exactly half the number of replies as the Meghan thread received in the less than 6 hours it was open. The original poster of this thread says that her husband has been asking for the past year to move to a new state. The family has two school-aged children and the original poster has a job that she likes. She enjoys their life where they are now and doesn't want to move. Moreover, they might not have good job opportunities elsewhere. Despite this, the original poster's husband announced that he plans to move by himself and get established. After that, the original poster and the kids can follow. The original poster asks whether this might constitute abandonment and since this might lead to divorce, asks how she should prepare. Posters don't offer much advice other than telling the original poster to talk to a lawyer. The original poster followed-up to say that her husband wanted to move to a more conservative state because he was worried about the influence of this area on their kids. She told him that if he gets a job that pays as much as their current salaries combined, she would move but she is not going to quit her job without something established. Most of the discussion in the thread involves whether her husband is being reasonable, with most posters feeling he is not. Some suggest he may be experiencing a mid-life crisis or possibly having an affair in the area to which he wants to move. The original poster doubts an affair, but gives some credence to the mid-life crisis possibility. Other posters argue that politics has become a more divisive issue in relationships and that her husband's political motivations should not be discounted. There are many comments suggesting that conservative men expect their wives to be subservient and, therefore, her husband's behavior is not out of character. A conservative man objects to this, saying that neither he nor his conservative friends expect their wives to be subservient. But, the very next poster says the original poster should move because it is in her marriage vows. Another poster claims that expecting fathers to provide child support is a violation of the 13th Amendment and is wage slavery. I stopped reading the thread when it turned to ideas for compromise such as living in a blue city located in a red state and posters started recommending and debating suggestions for potential destinations. The original poster had asked how to prepare for divorce and these posters are providing real estate advice.

Third was a thread titled, "Would you say something to this parent?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster describes riding her bike when, while passing a mother and an approximately 5 year old boy sitting at a bus stop, the boy pointed a stick at her and made shooting noises. The same thing happened the next day and the original poster would like to stop and say something about it if it happens again. Responses are about what you would expect. Some posters say ignore it. Some posters say that they would say something. A few posters even suggest playing along with it. The "ignore it" crowd seems to have strong feelings about disciplining other's children or telling parents how to handled their kids. They also argue that pretend shooting at strangers is totally normal behavior for young boys. One poster makes assumptions about both the original poster and the mother and child which turn out to be wrong. Despite being wrong, the poster spends a good portion of the rest of the thread attacking the original poster. There is also quite a bit of discussion about toy guns and their appropriateness. Later in the thread it turns into a big pile on by posters telling the original poster to mind her own business and otherwise criticizing her. Despite this being a pretty mundane topic, tempers ran high at times. I removed several posts that were reported yesterday due to some posters resorting to profane insults.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum and titled, "My friend moved without telling me". The original poster says that she has had a friend for the last five years with whom she texts a few times a week and gets together a couple of times a month with and without their husbands. Their kids play together. Recently the original poster's daughter mentioned that school was lonely without the friend's daughter being there. The original poster asked if the girl was sick and her daughter say "no, they moved to Wisconsin". The original poster's friend had not said anything about the move. As far as the original poster knows, they were on good terms and had even gotten together a week and a half ago and discussed summer plans. As such, the original poster is completely shocked and not sure how to respond. Those replying find the friend's behavior to be very strange but suggest various explanations. Making things even weirder, the original poster later followed up to say that she had texted her friend to say that she heard that they moved and asking for her new address so that she could send a housewarming gift. The friend replied simply saying, "yeah, lol". Those responding suggest everything from the friend ghosting the original poster to having entered the witness protection program. A number of posters describe having been forced to move suddenly themselves and being so overwhelmed that they didn't feel capable of discussing it with others. A number of different suggestions were offered about how to follow-up, or not to follow-up at all. It is fairly common in DCUM threads for those responding to find some way of blaming the original poster for whatever problem they are discussing. In this thread, when a couple of posters tried doing that, they were roundly rebuked by other posters. This is one of the few threads I remember in which the original poster received such strong support.