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Tuesday's Most Active Threads

by Jeff Steele last modified Aug 17, 2023 04:50 AM

The topics with the most engagement yesterday included an immature adult son, professional women not taking their husbands' names, Israel-Palestine on campus, and West Virginia University's cuts.

The most active thread yesterday was the thread about the lastest indictment of former President Donald Trump. But, since I've already discussed that thread, I'll start with the next most active which was titled, "Is there any way to convince a young man to step it up because he will never do better?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. There is an argument to be made that this thread would be more appropriate for the "Adult Children" forum, but I'll leave it where it is for now. The original poster says that her 25-year-old son has been dating his 25-year-old girlfriend for 5 years. The original poster likes everything about the woman and believes that her son would — in her words — "never do better". However, she describes her son as immature and failing to grow up. His girlfriend has confided in the original poster that she is losing patience with the situation and the original poster is concerned that the girlfriend will break up with her son and he will regret it for the rest of his life. To be sure, there are posters who sympathize with the original poster and urge her to have an open and honest talk with her son to make him understand what he risks losing. But, for the most part, those responding are not very supportive of the original poster. For some, this is just a matter of the son simply not being ready and, as such, he should not be pressured. Many of these posters argue that men can wait longer for marriage than women and 25 is too young. Others, are downright antagonistic towards the original poster, thinking she is way too involved in her son's affairs. Moreover, these posters suggest that the original parent has probably "over-parented" her son all along, leading to his current immaturity. These posters urge the original poster to butt out. Along these lines, several posters suggest that the original poster's son must be allowed to make his own mistakes and, hopefully, learn from them. In a follow-up post, the original poster emphasizes that marriage is not the only milestone for which her son is failing to prepare. She lists things like exploring career opportunities, regions to which to move, or buying a house in which he could take his girlfriend into consideration. She repeatedly comes back to her fear that her son will always regret losing this girlfriend. While some posters do think it is appropriate to have this fear, most of those responding aren't as sure that her son couldn't do better or don't think that really matters if he is not ready.

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