quote:

My brother [M26] and I [F21] have a silly inside joke that we use all the time. It started when we were in our teens and it's basically just one of us pointing at the other and saying "Et tu, Brute?" dramatically when one inconveniences the other. It's just silly, and it's devolved into something where even if we use it wrong (in terms of it's literary meaning), we know what the other means.

For example, I once caught him eating the last bag of crisps I was saving, so I said "Et tu, Brute?" to him. Or the other time our mother was nagging him about something and I jokingly piled on and he said the same to me.

The issue at hand is that my boyfriend [M23] works in publishing and studied English Literature. He told me that my inside joke is wildly offensive to him because it disrespects his work. I tried to explain to him that I mean nothing by it, and it's just a silly thing between two siblings that honestly really doesn't affect him.

But still, every time it happens, he gets super upset and has even physically left the room to "cool off" before. I'd hate to stop enjoying a fun and silly thing that makes me close to my brother, but I also feel like if my boyfriend is mad enough to leave a dinner where it happened, then it must be serious.

Please let me know your thoughts!

Scathach posted:

Is it too late for Big John to grace my weirdass collection of probes?

Smirking_Serpent posted:

AITA for giving my son's teacher a gift?

Captain Hygiene posted:

AITA for continuing an inside joke that my boyfriend finds disrespectful?

MY EXTREMELY SERIOUS LITERATURE DEGREE

Desert Bus posted:

English Literature! "Et tu, Brute?" is Latin, how does he even know it?

Desert Bus posted:

LOL that y'all think Shakespeare invented Julius Caesar. He was real, ask the Romans.

trickybiscuits posted:

You mean one per post? I can do that, it just feels like one big post is more efficient.

AITA for using my partner's DNA to create a provocative artwork without their consent, leading to a family scandal and strained relationships?

Batterypowered7 posted:

Do you spend a lot of time thinking about the Ancient Roman Empire?

Desert Bus posted:

Mostly their robots, tbh.

trickybiscuits posted:

WIBTA if I tried to find her and let her know her actions had horrible consequences?

quote:

I've been fed up with by boyfriend for not doing certain things for most of our relationship (texting me first, planning dates, complimenting me, etc.), and it wasn't uncommon for me to break down crying begging him to just send me a sweet message once a day, or plan a date, or give me a compliment more specific than "you're cute".

I always see men complain that women communicate poorly, so to avoid being that girl I'd always explain what I'm feeling, why i feel that way, and what I'd like to change going forward. I've been told in very articulate and an amazing communicator by my therapist, parents, friends, bosses, etc. so I know it wasn't a lack of conveying the right idea on my end. Sometimes he'd respond by shutting down completely and then I'd have to comfort him, reassuring him that I love him and I just need this one relatively minor thing to feel satisfied in our relationship. Other times he'd say he understands and wants to do better, but then nothing would ever change for more than a day or two.

One day I was feeling really sad and uncared for because he'd been spending every free hour he had playing final fantasy (over 100hrs in 2 weeks) for the past 2 weeks, but I didn't have the energy to have another rough conversion where I'm being very vulnerable, begging for a basic need, and then having him stonewall me. I decided I just wouldn't, so I texted him "can we go on a real date tomorrow?" He just said "yeah!" and planned us a really nice date.

I told my mom about this and she said that my dad was the same and she'd beg him to help with me and my sisters but he'd just shut down, or ignore her, or complain, until a friend of hers said "try making a to-do list." She wrote one and he did everything on it without complaining. After she started putting it on a list and asking without expressing any emotion, he did closer to his fair share.

On one hand, I'm hoping that realizing this will help me communicate better with my partner. On the other hand, if you love someone, wouldn't you be more motivated to do something if you know it's important to him?

Are men really just so simple minded? I don't know how to feel about this.

Breetai posted:

Has anyone noticed that their male partners respond better if you just ask for the thing you need with no context or explanation than they do if you explain why it's important to you and your relationship? It's almost like they don't care about what you're feeling, and just want a checklist.

Mustang posted:

Because of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

quote:

I was at this coffee shop and the cashier was really pretty. She had a cool anime tattoo also. I was gonna get some coffee and a doughnut and I said “hey I like your tattoo. What’s your favorite character from that anime?” She kept a straight face and she just said “how can I help you?”

I then said “I really like anime too and I just wanted to see what shows and characters you liked.” She still showed no emotions and was like “sir do you want anything?”

I just said “actually I did, but you made me change my mind. Bye” and I walked away. I didn’t want coffee anymore after that. I was trying to be nice and get to know her and she was acting like that.

Breetai posted:

Has anyone noticed that their male partners respond better if you just ask for the thing you need with no context or explanation than they do if you explain why it's important to you and your relationship? It's almost like they don't care about what you're feeling, and just want a checklist.

Breetai posted:

Has anyone noticed that their male partners respond better if you just ask for the thing you need with no context or explanation than they do if you explain why it's important to you and your relationship?

quote:

I've been told in very articulate and an amazing communicator by my therapist, parents, friends, bosses, etc.

FMguru posted:

LOL that post by the guy who noped out of paying 1100 Euros for dinner for his GF's friends is now up over 10000 comments.

trickybiscuits posted:

AITA for using my partner's DNA to create a provocative artwork without their consent, leading to a family scandal and strained relationships?

quote:

My (F26) grandmother passed away eight months ago. Her name was Charlotte, but she was known by everyone as Nana Lottie. Her loss has devestated our family beyond words.

In honour of Nana Lottie, my sister (F19) wanted to name her newborn baby girl (1 week) something which could have the nickname Lottie. She did not like Charlotte, so there has been lots of brainstorming for different names which could still have Lottie as a nickname.

In her third trimester, my sister came to me and told me that she had decided on Harlot. This is because it is easy to say, easy to spell, and has the nickname Lottie. I told her this was the bad idea to end all bad ideas, and asked if she had Googled the word. She said that she had, but "no one would make the connection" because it is such an uncommon word in day-to-day life. I recommended choosing something else but she was firm, and got so upset about me not liking the name that she stopped talking to me for about a week. So, I left it alone.

Now, baby Harlot was born and an announcement went up on Facebook. She specifically said, "In honour of Nana Lottie, I am pleased to introduce Baby Harlot (nickname Lottie)." To say the family lost their minds would be an understatement. People were so upset that Nana Lottie was now being associated with the word "Harlot", and a lot of the extended family have said that they will not meet this child because they couldn't face the situation.

My sister reached out to me to cry, but when I said that I had tried to warn her, she got really upset and said that I hadn't warned her enough. I should have kept trying in different ways, and I should have "forced [her] to listen." I don't really know what that means, but now my mom (F56) is on her side as well saying that hormones lead to bad decisions, and it is up to family to steer our loved ones in the right direction. She said that I should have known a teenager's decision to name a baby Harlot would end in tears, and I should have done more.

*For clarification, my mom did not know the name in advance as my sister wanted to surprise everyone with a touching tribute to Nana Lottie.

I feel quite upset now that so many people who were grieving already are now having to deal with this association, and I maybe could have done more to talk her around. Was I the AH?

Ghost Leviathan posted:

I looked up that one and wow, the comments. A lot of people are apparently very offended by the idea of 'if you want someone to do a thing, ask them to do the thing' for some reason?

quote:

I always see men complain that women communicate poorly, so to avoid being that girl I'd always explain what I'm feeling, why i feel that way, and what I'd like to change going forward.

quote:

it wasn't uncommon for me to break down crying begging him to just send me a sweet message once a day, or plan a date, or give me a compliment more specific than "you're cute".

Breetai posted:

I mean, there's a good chance given he's played a game for 50 hours a week for the last couple of weeks that he is a Gamer Boyfriend^tm and doesn't actually listen to her/is genuinely uncommunicative/doesn't listen so she's at her wit's end, but the lines



kinda suggest to me that there's also a chance that she can't make a simple request without turning it into a production and coaches extremely simple requests that only warrant a 'hey couldja do this' -> 'sure thing honey' in the most convoluted and exhausting way possible.

Verdict: sentence both of them to a lifetime of each other. *bangs gavel*

Mx. posted:

AITA for not warning my sister "enough" about her choice of baby name?

Hughlander posted:

AITA for dumping my Gf after she expected me to pay for EVRYONE on her birthday.


Looks like she might be able to reel him back in and net a clear thousand!

Cloacamazing! posted:

How did that name even get allowed? Is it still possible to rename the poor kid to Pnurtina "Lottie" Lastname?

Shanghaied posted:

Naming my child Streetwalker (nickname Walker). I know what it means, but it's such an obscure word in day-to-day life, no one would make the connection. Nobody who's not the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford has even heard of the word.

Mx. posted:

AITA for not warning my sister "enough" about her choice of baby name?

Shanghaied posted:

Yes well, but this way the sister will learn from her stupid mistakes, for once.

quote:

My girl loves peanut butter so much, she has a tub of it next to the bed. And on the coffee table. And in her office. None of these tubs have lids, they are always open with a spoon in it.

I'm concerned that the peanut butter might spoil/ go bad, but she says she eats a whole container every 2 weeks? I still love her like crazy though.

Desert Bus posted:

LOL that y'all think Shakespeare invented Julius Caesar. He was real, ask the Romans.

Mx. posted:

AITA for not warning my sister "enough" about her choice of baby name?

quote:

My cousin Stephanie and I are really more friends than relatives. An important note is that she's not really online much, so can be out of the loop on certain memes and jokes in internet culture, and tbh, doesn't really understand the concept of viral internet references or how they work.

Stephanie is pregnant and just found out it's going to be a girl. About a week ago, she told a gathering of her best girlfriends that she's going to name her daughter Karen. The room instantly went cold, but after an awkward silence, everyone else politely said it was lovely. I couldn't bring myself to respond at all. Later in the evening, when Stephanie was out of the room, everyone was immediately like, "OMG, that poor kid," and "why would she pick Karen of all names?!" I was uncomfortable with this conversation, given that everyone had been so positive about the name to her face.

I thought more about it over the next couple of days, and just felt really weird about the whole thing. The name is really loaded, to the point it could be detrimental to the baby, and Stephanie had no idea of the connotations to make an informed decision.

So a couple of days later, I tentatively brought it up. I told her I was so excited for the baby, and just wanted her to have all available information when picking a name. I then started to explain that Karen has some negative connotations and has become sort of an internet joke to describe a specific kind of entitled middle aged woman. Stephanie instantly was furious and started talking over me, saying, "why are you saying this?! This is so mean!!" I was really surprised by her reaction (it felt very, very out of character), so I immediately stopped and said, "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I just wanted to tell you something I thought you might not know."

She replied, "That's the name I picked for my daughter. And you think I picked it as some kind of joke?! I don't understand why you'd say something so hurtful." When she said that, I felt like it signaled that she didn't really understand what I was trying to tell her, so after agonizing for a second about whether to press the issue even though she was so angry, I felt like in for a penny, in for a pound, and since she was already mad, I wanted her to at least understand what I was trying to explain to her. I googled "Karen know your meme" on my phone and tried to show her the screen of results while saying, "look, I'm just saying that there's more meaning to the name than you may realize."

She stood up, pushed my phone away, and shouted, "Wow!!" She then stormed out of my home and drove away. My aunt and mom have been berating me all week, because Stephanie told them that I made fun of her baby name. Stephanie has not spoken to me or responded to my texts since.

I can take a hint, and I'm not going to broach a topic again that caused so much distress, but I keep going back and forth on whether I was TA here by bringing it up in the first place.

Note: In the original post, OOP was overwhelmingly given a YTA judgment in response to this post.

Edit: Thanks, everyone! I have been properly schooled, and I accept my judgement that I was TA here. Stephanie and I have a history of being extremely open and honest with each other (I was the maid of honor in her wedding, which we planned on being the case from a young age, and we always joked as teenagers that part of my duties would include talking her out of the marriage if the groom she picked sucked), and so maybe I was too flippant with approaching this topic due to our history, and was unempathetic in underestimating how much she was already invested in the name she chose for her future daughter. I admit I'm a bit frustrated that Stephanie still doesn't understand what I was trying to tell her (she still thinks I was making some kind of weird, cruel joke accusing her of picking the name as a joke), but I have messaged her a sincere apology that she accepted, and I will never speak of this again, to Stephanie or Baby Karen. I'll also stand up for Stephanie if her other friends poo poo talk the name around me again. If they're not willing to voice their thoughts to Stephanie directly, they need to not say the kinds of things they were saying behind her back.

Edit 2: One more thing: I definitely was not trying to tell Stephanie to not name her daughter Karen. I just wanted her to make the decision either way knowing the connotations, since I'd want someone to do the same for me if I picked a baby name with cultural baggage I wasn't aware of. I realize now I handled it poorly and was hurtful to Stephanie in the process, but I just wanted to be clear that I wasn't actively trying to talk her out of the name. I just didn't want her to be blindsided if it came up later.

quote:

My post last summer wasn't the most exciting or dramatic on AITA, but I wanted to provide an update if anyone is interested.

Baby Karen was born healthy and happy back in October. She's an absolute sweetheart of a baby, and I'm totally in love with her. Between March and May, I didn't get to see her at all in person, but I was doing regular FaceTime/House Party calls with Stephanie and Karen, and over the last few weeks, I've been going over to Stephanie's house to sit in her backyard and chat with Stephanie/coo at Karen from a lengthy distance.

I have two reasons for updating. First, I've realized since Karen's birth that her name has taken on new meaning to me. When I'm with her, Karen just means her, and I don't think about the other connotations. In other words, you guys were right!

That said, though, my second reason for updating is that Stephanie got back into her years-unused Facebook at the beginning of the pandemic to keep in touch with people. She's been on it pretty regularly lately for the first time in years (historically, she's not really been into social media). Most people in our area/social circle have been posting really heavily about BLM and the protests happening right now, as well as racial justice issues more generally. As a result, Stephanie has now come into contact with a deluge of Karen memes for the first time, and found them confusing and horrifying, especially the use of "Karen" as shorthand for a racist. I've basically just declined to talk about it with Stephanie, because it went so poorly last time, but both my mother and her mother have hounded me about it because it's upsetting to Stephanie, and said things like, "Is this what you were talking about before? Why didn't you say so? Why didn't you explain it better?! You should have told Stephanie!!"

And Jesus wept!! You really can't win.

Thanks again for all your feedback on my last post! It was very helpful in giving me some Zen about the situation.

Edit: Wow, I've been super overwhelmed by the flood of very kind, heartfelt PMs (and just one or two not so kind ones) as well as the comments on my other post. Thank you, everyone! It continually amazes me how many nice and empathetic people frequent a sub devoted to assholes.

quote:

Hi all, I've gotten a few PMs over the last couple years asking for updates, and since we just celebrated Karen's third birthday, I wanted to circle back to anyone following this story.

First of all, Baby Karen (not so much a baby anymore!) is doing amazingly on her developmental milestones! She's a very bright child, sharp as the sharpest tack, and extremely tuned into her environment. Some of what she says is already fully in complete sentences, which just makes me want to cry when I hear it, because it seems like Stephanie was giving birth just yesterday. Karen loves books already, and will intently study the pictures in them for huge stretches of time and claim to be "reading." And you would not believe the uncomfortably incisive questions she's already asking. I am fully convinced this child is going to grow up to be an actual genius.

Regarding the name: unfortunately, when Karen started daycare earlier this year, she started getting grief for her name pretty quickly from the older kids. The daycare she attends mixes the ages together at a couple of different points throughout the day, and while there fortunately wasn't much direct bullying, two of the age-5s must have heard and internalized the derogatory connotations of the name Karen at home. As a result, they found her name absolutely hysterical, and they kind of spread the idea to the other kids that there was something funny/wrong about her name. Karen was too little to understand what was happening, but found the other kids' behavior toward her generally upsetting. The daycare staff made every effort to shut it down, and let Stephanie and her husband know right away. After about a month of this, where the daycare wasn't having much success putting the kibosh on this behavior, and the kids weren't dropping it, Stephanie and her husband made the decision that Karen would be going by "Karrie" from now on, which was already an established nickname that a lot of family and friends were already using, and that Karen already recognized as referring to herself.

Stephanie and I never really fully revisited what happened during her pregnancy, but when she was telling me about what was happening in daycare, she apologized to me. I immediately felt terrible and reassured her there was no reason to apologize, emotions are complicated when you're pregnant, and that I thought having Karen go by Karrie was a great solution. (Though changing what you're used to calling someone is loving hard, I've found, and I'm still directly addressing her on manual mode, every single time.)

A lot of the responses I got to my last post were gleeful and leaned into the schadenfreude of the situation, and I have to say those responses really bummed me out. I would much, much rather live in a world where I was wrong about the impact Karen's name would have on her. I cannot emphasize enough what a sweet-dispositioned, smart, curious, loving little girl Karrie is, and how much she deserves every good thing in life.

Also: a lot of people didn't like Stephanie in my last post, but I need you to understand that this is a tiny snapshot of a very emotionally high-strung time in her life, and overall, Stephanie is a wonderful lifelong friend. She has gotten me through so many personal crises over the years, and she will never fail to show up for the people she cares about. Being pregnant and having a strong emotional attachment to the name you've picked out for your daughter is completely understandable, and her pregnancy was pretty rough on her moods. (She once wept uncontrollably at a cat food commercial when she was about seven months pregnant.) I also think my approach for trying to explain the name issue those years ago was very clumsy, and I could have done a better job of bringing it up. That said, with the distance of time, I am really glad I did broach the topic. I feel like I owed Stephanie that information, and I can feel good about giving it to her. If I'd chosen not to bring it up at the time, I think I'd have a lot of regrets now. The only thing I'd change now, looking back, is that I would try to bring it up more gently somehow with Stephanie so I could have had the chance to explain.

In summary: all is well! We've run into a little bump in the road with other kids' reactions to Karrie's name, but in some ways, it's better to get this out of the way now, when Karrie doesn't really understand what's happening, than have this happen in kindergarten or elementary school down the road, when full-on bullying could be a risk. She's adjusting really well to going by her nickname full-time, and Stephanie and her husband are planning on enrolling her with "Karrie" as her preferred name in all future schooling. And since schools around here go by preferred name rather than legal name in things like classroom roll-calls, it's possible she can get through K-12 without it ever really being widely known among her peers that her legal name is Karen. (And I really hope this common usage of the name Karen dies down in the next few years!)

Edit: Really disappointed to be getting hate messages directed at Karrie, wishing that terrible things befall her and calling her the c-word. Please remember she's an innocent child.

Edit 2: Point of clarification: the boys at daycare apparently didn't know that Karen was a name. The way they'd heard it used at home made them think it was just a term used to insult people, and that it might be a "bad word." That's why they found it so funny, because, in their worldview, it was like meeting someone named "fart face" or "rear end in a top hat." The daycare staff explained to them that Karen is a real name, and that lots of people are named Karen, and of course they tried their best to curtail the mockery, but nothing really helped until the name change and a little bit of time had passed. Things at the daycare are now back to normal, the other kids are calling her Karrie, and everyone has (fortunately) moved on.

Edit 3: Please don't harass Redditors who gave a YTA judgement on my first post. They gave their honest judgment at the time in an online space specifically set up for that purpose. I didn't post on an advice sub, I posted on a judgment sub, and there's no reason to call people to the mat for judgments I asked for, made in good faith, from three years ago.

quote:

For those of you who have contacted me asking for an update, I wanted to circle back and close the book on the Baby Karen/Karrie chapter.

As of last month, Karrie is now legally Caroline [Lastname], and she has even been issued a new birth certificate with her new legal name. The daycare bullying issues had already died down since Stephanie and her husband switched to calling her Karrie, but this legal name change now means that the "Karen" issue won't crop up again when she starts school. There were also some other minor incidents that pushed Stephanie and her husband to make that decision around a legal name change. They were getting to the point where, almost any time they were having to provide Karen's legal name to get a service, they were getting an immediate reaction, even from adults. It was usually just a meaningful look, but barbed comments were not unusual.

The final straw was when they were at the airport getting ready to fly to visit Stephanie's in-laws with Karrie. The TSA agent at security made a snarky comment, and then later when they needed to ask the gate agent about their seats, the gate agent rudely laughed at seeing Karrie's ticket, then showed the gate agent standing next to her, who just shook her head and said, "poor kid" to her co-worker while fully ignoring Stephanie and her husband. (And they had this interaction in front of Karrie.) Something about that day in the airport was a turning point for Stephanie and her husband, and they started the name change process as soon as they got home. It was much easier than they were expecting, and cost a grand total of $30!

Karrie is a joyful, sociable little girl, and while it's impossible to know right now if these negative experiences caused any lasting damage (and I sincerely hope they did not!), I'm happy to see that she continues to be a very outgoing, confident child.

The conversation with Stephanie I mentioned in my October update was awkward and brief, but we've actually gotten back into it a few times since. Stephanie has apologized profusely for her initial reaction when we first talked, I've apologized for approaching things so poorly, and not telling her right away about what our friends were saying behind her back, and in those conversations, we mainly ended up focusing on the resulting spiraling of my mom and aunt and what a mess that turned into. Together we've started to unpack some of the intergenerational poo poo around our family issues.

To provide some of that context, our maternal grandparents were a nightmare. Our grandfather was an authoritarian revivalist preacher who was physically abusive and referred to himself as the "spiritual leader" and ultimate authority of the family. Our grandmother was a manipulative narcissist who psychologically tormented my mom and aunt for their entire childhoods. As a result, my mom and aunt trauma bonded considerably during their childhood, and grew into extremely anxious and reactive adults. Any whiff of conflict sends them into panic mode, and in our family, we have these well-worn grooves of behavioral habits with my mom and aunt overreacting to anything that feels like discord, and scrambling to clumsily "smooth" things over.

As a result, Stephanie and I have both been working hard to build better boundaries with our moms' generation, and have agreed to be really cautious about what information we give them, especially anything that is highly emotional. I've been in therapy for a couple of years now, and Stephanie also started therapy late last year. We've been talking about the ways that my grandparents traumatizing our moms caused intergenerational issues that impacted us, and Stephanie is determined that the cycle ends with her, and that these issues will not go on to touch Karrie.

Thank you, everyone, for your kind words, both here on my profile posts and on the best-of-updates reposts, which I've also been reading. I've gotten some incredibly thoughtful and kind messages, which have meant a lot to me, even if I haven't had the chance to respond to all of them.

For those who may still want to be critical of Stephanie, I again want to emphasize how out of character her initial reaction was, and how much physical, hormonal, and emotional upheaval she was in at the time. These posts are a teeny-tiny window into just one aspect of the dynamic, funny, kind, caring full human being that is my cousin and best friend. Stephanie has been my most loyal and trusted friend for pretty much my entire life, and she has fully earned some grace for reacting less than perfectly to my [extremely clumsy] approach when she was sleep deprived, hormonally wrecked, and brain fogged. Stephanie has read these posts now as well, along with most of your comments, and (after I explained to her what Reddit is) they were helpful to both of us in our talks about our weird family dynamic.

I can't imagine I'll have any more updates down the line, but thanks for following along the last few years.

Vim Fuego posted: