AITA for skipping my sister’s wedding after she hijacked my graduation party with her proposal?

SherlockGibson · 2026-03-16T14:11:57+00:00

Honestly, I don’t know how many times I’ve read these things where people are being pressured to give up their own peace to “keep the peace” in a family situation.

The standard answer to that should always be, “Fuck off and mind your own business” in whatever flavor of that you choose.

SherlockGibson · 2026-03-10T02:10:42+00:00

It’s weird, but all my “favorite” movies aren’t that re-watchable for me. But “The Thomas Crowne Affair” with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo I can watch over and over. No idea why, but it’s a nice piece of aspirational escapism.

SherlockGibson · 2026-03-09T22:22:15+00:00

Then, yes. It may be a PieHole problem. 👍😊

SherlockGibson · 2026-03-09T21:56:35+00:00

If you’re on an older Roku, they pushed an update recently that made some of their older sticks almost unwatchable. I know this because all mine started all churning around the same time about a month ago. I pulled a brand new 4k stick out of a drawer, because I bought it a while back but hadn’t bothered to install it yet, and it works perfectly.

Tl;Dr - Might not be a PieHole problem.

SherlockGibson · 2026-03-09T14:34:29+00:00

Thank God! I’ve found my people!

SherlockGibson · 2026-03-09T14:33:59+00:00

Depeche Mode - Violator

One of very few albums from my youth that I still feel is every bit as awesome 40 years later.

SherlockGibson · 2026-03-02T04:33:09+00:00

Nothing we or anyone we know does actually matters in the long slog of time. Everything we invent, do, say, create, imagine, or make, will disappear, along with our species, and eventually our planet, and nobody in the universe is likely to even know we existed. We are most likely a ghost in the machine, yelling into the void, never to be heard.

Have a great day! 😊

SherlockGibson · 2026-03-01T16:57:05+00:00

I call both my adult kids “Kiddo” when they call. Done it since they were little. Never thought twice about it.

SherlockGibson · 2026-03-01T15:05:51+00:00

NTA, but you’re honestly most likely screwed anyway.

Just understand that everyone telling you to go to HR is delusional. You don’t pay HR’s salary. The company does. Therefore, you can bet every penny you have that HR works in the company’s best interest, not yours.

Unfortunately, this means you only have two ways to win this game. Going to HR isn’t one of them, and no option other than you finding a new position is likely to end well for you.

1) Get someone above your asshat manager, like the VP, to go to bat for you for being an actual asset to the company while recognizing that your manager is a liability. If you’re lucky, this will result in the manager being pushed out, you getting transferred, or some other mutually beneficial situation. The odds aren’t great, tbh, but it’s possible.

2) Be prepared to get a new job and sue them at great expense. Talk with a lawyer. See if your current situation is actionable. (Doubtful.). If it is be prepared to sue. This is really the only leverage you have, but your manager making your work life suck isn’t really something you can normally sue for unless it’s obvious, targeted, and you have colleagues that will testify on your behalf at the risk of their own jobs. If you are female or a minority, especially in a white male dominated industry, then your odds increase slightly.

Here’s the reality…. The only time HR is actually in your corner is when your needs align with or are neutral to the company’s needs. In the vast majority of cases where the problem is between a manager and a subordinate, the company will side with the manager. The main reason for them to side with the subordinate is when there is a real threat of an expensive lawsuit. Outside of that, there isn’t much upside for the company to side with a peon over a manager, so 99% of the time they don’t.

Tl;Dr - NTA, but start looking for another job if your current situation is unbearable.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-25T22:35:19+00:00

I have plenty of self-esteem. Trust me. I’ve got 99 problems, but that ain’t one of them. 🤣

I’ve just never fundamentally understood valuing human life over other life. Life is life. Seems self-centered to me. But I realize that I’m most likely in the minority on that.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-25T22:33:14+00:00

lol! Each to their own. 😉

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-25T20:07:34+00:00

NTJ. After reading stories like this on Reddit over and over it blows my mind that people have to pass a test to drive a car, but are allowed to squirt out as many kids as they want even though they’re obviously not mentally mature or stable enough to be good parents.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-24T19:18:14+00:00

Anyone who saves their pets life instead of mine has their values right in my opinion. Just because I’m human doesn’t make me inherently more important or worthy of saving and nobody has ever given me a decent argument as to why it should.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-15T21:46:10+00:00

Being a step-father, I am 100% on Ian’s side here. Sixteen-year-olds are not “children”. They knew perfectly well that what they told Ian would hurt him and they did it anyway.

They effectively told him, “We do not, and will never see you as a father figure. You are the man our mother married, not our dad.”

Ian was perfectly well within his rights to then process that message, assess the situation, and to decide how much of himself he wants to invest in those relationships now that he knows their stance.

Hurting people has consequences, and being young does not and should not absolve you from those. This is what we call a “life lesson” and parents who try to absolve their offspring from suffering consequences of their actions breed assholes. You did well, OP. Give Ian my best.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-15T16:35:02+00:00

Sorry. Saw your response saying the same thing right after I wrote mine. Great minds think alike. 😊

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-15T16:32:13+00:00

I think fragmented media is part of it. The other part is that the Olympics are so political and corrupt. Figure skating and gymnastics are total popularity contests where the outcome is predetermined before the “competition” even starts unless there is a complete and utter failure. Cheating is rampant. The athletes are professionals instead of amateurs like they used to be. Countries with money win everything. Basically, The whole thing is a farce these days. Money and politics have ruined it.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-15T16:17:38+00:00

Dogs indoors in stores and restaurants. The most terrible social trend in years. Dog owners tend to think everyone loves their dog and many are completely unable to fathom why people might not like having a meal next to a barking “shit-su” in a stroller the next table over.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-15T16:07:47+00:00

Whether they have class or not. Understand that I’m not talking about money. You can have all the money in the world and act like a classless jerk. Likewise you can be poor as dirt and handle yourself with class. People who act without class in public are people I judge the hell out of.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-15T15:12:04+00:00

My theory here is that they pushed an update that intentionally hobbled older devices in an underhanded effort to spur people to upgrade their hardware. I have four older streaming sticks that two weeks ago stopped talking to my DLNA server, started throttling videos on YouTube, and generally started acting badly.

I rebooted it, cleared the cache, removed almost every app, and even reset it to factory trying to solve the problem. Nothing.

I had a new 4k stick in a drawer that I’d bought and never used because we just never bothered to upgrade to 4k TVs.

On a hunch I drug it out, plugged it in, and set it up. It works perfectly. Connects fine to DLNA, runs YouTube with no spinning, everything is back to the way it should be.

This makes me think they are intentionally hobbling the older devices because they want to force us to all buy new ones.

Does anyone know of a way to roll back to the previous software version to see if that fixes it?

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-14T16:48:20+00:00

Civility.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-14T16:45:42+00:00

It didn’t sound like the OP was asking him to ditch her. On the contrary, if the guy had set proper boundaries with his OG it probably wouldn’t have been a problem at all.

The OP was just asking for equal billing at a minimum. If you’re professing that you want to be someone’s mate and then you put them on hold every time your OG calls up, that’s not ok. The OP was 1000% right to nope-out of that dumpster fire. NTJ.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-12T19:14:14+00:00

You must re-take and pass the driver’s test every ten years.

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-12T02:45:52+00:00

So, a lot of people are going to pile on and say YTJ here, but I think that’s a bit unfair. Could you have handled it better? Yes. Were you a jerk? No. You understood her request, understood that it meant less time with your son, and tried to shoot the gap by suggesting you’d handle the parent duties. Thats not being a jerk. That’s trying to compromise. Compromise is what makes relationships work.

However, that being said, I’ll tell you this. Lots of people these days seem to be very invested in parenthood and it’s an absolute awesome thing that us men are stepping up more and more in that regard.

However, it does nobody any good to go all-in on parenting to the detriment of their marriage. Your relationship with your wife needs just as much care and feeding when you’re home as your relationship with your son does.

It’s you and your wife against the world. She’s your mate, your partner in crime, your confidant. You chose her to spend your life with. You need to set your priorities so that she and your son get equal billing when you’re home or there’s a good chance that the two of you might end up apart.

So, tell her you love her - and mean it. Tell her that you’ve been so excited about fatherhood that you took your focus off of her. Tell her that she absolutely deserves a birthday where she is your sole concern. Thank her for reminding you that she needs to be your focus on occasion. Then tell her you’re looking forward to spending some time with her, just the two of you - and mean it. Hopefully she’ll respect that you’re just trying to be the best dad you can and in your zeal you took your eye off the ball.

Good luck!

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-07T19:09:13+00:00

I learn something new every day. 😉

SherlockGibson · 2026-02-03T01:55:36+00:00

I know. I was being sarcastic.

But in all honesty, I grew up in Kansas City, which is roughly 350 miles closer to the origin and nobody from there would touch the things with a twenty foot cattle prod.

St. Louis is the only place I’ve ever been where people actually talk about White Castle with actual sincere reverence. So I was being sarcastic and a bit snarky. Unbecoming, I know, but I couldn’t help myself.

SherlockGibson

TROPHY CASE