Monday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Dates and paying bill" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that she is 29-years-old is dating a man who is 41. While he is not wealthy, he does make about three times as much as the original poster. The original poster explains that she has picked up some of the expenses on dates, but she is bothered by a recent incident involving paying for dinner. On that occasion, her date had invited her out and chosen the restaurant. They ordered the same things. At the end, the guy grabbed the check and the original poster assumed that he would pay it. She offered to pay the tip, but he responded, "only the tip?". He then suggested that she pay for the drinks, which she did, but felt uneasy about the entire situation. The original poster added that the guy has only had a single relationship that lasted any length of time, that being 8 months. So, she wonders if he is unaware of social norms. But, to some extent, what this thread highlights is the lack of true social norms in this regard. Those responding explain a range of practices. Several think that whoever initiates the date should cover the expenses. Since that is most frequently the man, they end up paying more often. But, women can contribute by arranging dates in response. Others suggest that it is okay for the woman to contribute to a date, but think that using Venmo to transfer a portion of the bill is not the way to go about it. Rather, these posters suggest that the original poster should not have offered to pay anything at dinner, but then suggested to treat for  dessert or another round of drinks elsewhere. Some posters have made paying for dates almost a science. For instance, arguing that the man pay entirely for the early dates, but then contributions are made relative to income. A few male posters weighed in to complain that women want equality except when it comes to paying for dates. This provoked a few posters to respond that such posts reflected poorly on the manhood of those writing them. Other women posters claimed that this is simply a dating preference. If a man wants to split costs with a woman, he should date women who also like to split costs. Maybe this should be included on dating profiles? Many of the responses didn't address the meal paying issue at all. Rather, posters deduced that given the man's lack of long term dating experience, other women must have quickly realized that he was a loser. The original poster was repeatedly advised to move on and not waste time with this guy. Towards the end of the thread, it appeared that the original poster was ready to do this.

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. Titled, "For those of you who don't have family help...", the original poster explained that her parents and her in-laws are older and are not able to care for her child for any length of time. She says that both sets of grandparents are lovely and loving, but a variety of health issues prevents them from being more involved. The original poster has friends who are able to simply drop off their kids with grandparents and go away for a weekend. This is not something she and her husband are able to do and she wonders what can be done on an emotional level so that she doesn't feel resentment either toward the grandparents or her friends who have that luxury. On a practical level, she wonders what solutions there are that might allow her and her husband to be able to get away by themselves. Many posters describe themselves as being or having been in situations similar to that of the original poster. Most of them simply resigned themselves to not being able to have weekends away from their children and suggested that the original poster adopt that mindset as well. Others said that they prioritized finding families with children of similar ages with whom they could develop trusting relationships. Then they could leave their children with those families occasionally. Some posters described flying in extended relatives for specific occasions. Others paid for childcare. Another popular solution, which the original poster had said she was already considering, was to take off a day from work while the child is in daycare and have a day alone with her husband. Some of those who did receive help from their parents said that this assistance was not always as great as it was cracked up to be. There are both good and bad parts of having your parents around all of the time. Many of those responding were quite unsympathetic to the original poster and provided somewhat hostile responses. One poster who described herself as a "61 year old grandmother" weighed into say that she and her husband had cared for all of their grandchildren and the problem was women waiting to late in life to have children. This post was not only completely unhelpful to the discussion, it basically caused the thread to be hijacked as posters responded to her.

The third most active thread was titled "MCPS elementary school principals signed an internal memo expressing concerns about LGBTQ curriculum last November" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. It seems that I am constantly writing about LGBTQ+ threads and that new threads on such topics are being created daily. They all seem to rocket to the top of the most active list. That would be great, except there is rarely anything new in the posts and they are filled with hateful posts that I have to remove. This thread was started in response to an announcement that a press conference will be held today by opponents of the policy of Montgomery County Public Schools to include "inclusive" books that describe LGBTQ+ children and families among books read by or to elementary school children. The opponents are demanding the right to opt-out of exposure to such books. During the press conference, they plan to release a memo by school principals that criticized the MCPS policy that prohibits opting out. My biggest frustration with threads on this topic is that posters simply seize them as a chance to spout off about LGBTQ+ issues in general. In that regard, as I mentioned, they generally do little more than repeat things that have been posted numerous times already. For instance, the very first responder in this thread ignored the school book policy, ignored the press conference, ignored the alleged memo, but complained about school assemblies and said that her kids don't like being "hit over the head" with — well, something — exactly what is not quite clear. The third post argues that "progressives in MoCo are pushing more people to the right". It is amazing to me that posters like this one believe that there is a lack of agency among individuals. According to this line of thinking, people are not responsible for their own political beliefs, but helpless victims of someone else's actions that forced them to be come anti-gay and anti-trans right-wingers. This thread eventually devolved to several pages of arguments about drag queens. When I discovered that, I locked the thread.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. Titled, "Why are young people old?", the original poster describes meeting with younger employees and advising them to take actions that could advance their careers. The employees had not responded positively because they felt the actions the original poster suggested involved too much effort and they all planned to retire early. The original poster — who apparently considers a lack of career ambition to be a sign of "getting old" — wonders how young people got so old. Several posters attempted to explain the mindset of these younger employees and several posters even admitted to thinking similarly. There seems to be a distinct difference in attitudes about commitment to a job with many not feeling a strong interest in working any longer or harder than necessary. As with any thread dealing with people's ages, posters soon began criticizing "boomers" who are apparently responsible for all of the world's evils. I've noted several times that I hate generational labels which I consider all but useless in explaining anything, so of course I enjoyed these posts. Several posters thought that the original poster was a troll. I was not sure why and could find nothing to suggest that the original poster is a troll. Of course, I can be fooled, but given that many posters identified similarly to the employees described in the original post, I am not sure why the original post is not believable. This tendency to disrupt threads with accusations that the original poster is a troll is really getting out of hand. Yes, DCUM has a lot of trolls. Yes, troll threads may be more common or maybe they are just getting exposed more. But, there is barely a thread these days in which posters don't accuse the original poster of being a troll. These posts are actually more disruptive than the actual troll posts. If you think that a poster is trolling and you are lazy, simply go on to another thread. Don't waste your time on a thread that you believe is not authentic. If you think that a poster is a troll and you are not lazy, please click the "report" link and let me know. I'll look into it. In the meantime, go on to another thread. But, please do not disrupt threads with accusations that are pure speculation on your part accusing a poster of being a troll. And, if you see posters posting troll accusations, report those to me so that I can remove them. There are a number of DCUM posters who are incredibly skilled at identifying trolls and sockpuppets. I am always impressed by their abilities. But, there are a larger number who think that they are good at this, but just aren't. By disrupting thread after thread calling others trolls, they are actually being trolls themselves.