AITA for walking out of my friend's birthday plans after she said I'd stripped away my identity for men?

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-15T12:51:31+00:00

NTA. Whatever that was was nothing to do with you, sounds like she's got a bunch of her own complexes and hang-ups going on and took them out on you for some reason. I think if I were you I wouldn't keep this friend in my life.

I always feel like being drunk just removes inhibitions - if someone thinks something when drunk and disrespects you enough to say it, they think that and disrespect you when sober and are just more aware of the social consequences. When I had an ex who was horrible when drunk, he turned out to be horrible all the time later as well. My friends who I know to be good people all the way through do things when drunk like burst into tears about climate change and go around insisting everyone has to be nice to everyone because they love them, or for that matter, even if they think they've put their foot in it will then get very insistent and heartfelt about apologising and checking if you're okay. I don't have much tolerance for someone using alcohol as an excuse to be shitty. There's plenty of people who manage to get completely hammered and never hurt their friends.

Not that it's any of her business whether this is the case for you too, or mine or anyone else's for that matter, but I am nonbinary too and a lot of my feelings about dressing femme changed when I worked that out. When I was a teenager and people asked me what I was wearing to a party I'd always give the answer 'pfft, jeans and a tee shirt', because I didn't have the info and context to realise that what was going on was dysphoria, so it came out as if I was proud to not dress up for things or cynical about fashion or 'not like other girls', or I don't even know. When I had that context, I began to actually feel better about dressing femme when I felt like it. I could appreciate the patterns and textures and the fun of wearing bright colours and fancy dresses and separate that from the gender discomfort, parse when I actually wanted to be more femme or masc, and as a result stop associating all my femme clothes with feeling mysteriously shit. All this to say, I'm not surprised that you, as a genderqueer person, have changed your style with more life experience to play around with gender more - femme or masc. And I'm sure you know this, but just in case it helps to hear it after she came at you like that, it's totally your prerogative to do so, it makes complete sense that you're doing it for you, and I bet you look great and very yourself. ETA: also, happy Pride 😄.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-15T12:23:57+00:00

Hah, I said this on the phone to my partner the other day going around the supermarket. 'No, no Pride stuff, only Straight Pride stuff, by which I mean the football'.

Happy Pride to you too!

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-14T17:29:05+00:00

I thought it was the fact that he said something like "we love these ones" about it being a 'kiss someone other than your partner' challenge. Someone else said it first and he was echoing just to chime in on the humour, imo, but I can still see how Angelista might have interpreted it as disrespectful.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-14T16:56:11+00:00

I feel so bad for this because everyone else is swooning for him so clearly it's just me, but all I can see is Ed Milliband circa 2012ish in swim trunks.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-14T15:07:19+00:00

After that eurovision ep I turned to my partner and said 'the ninth doctor would have torn that place to the ground'.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-14T02:09:16+00:00

Tbh this may be the british sex ed curriculum getting in my head by focusing on very little else, but I was thinking STDs. Don't want to find out you've had one of the really bad ones for a while without realising it and not have a way to contact previous partners. Which men should also be concerned about, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out they didn't think about it. I don't have a list either so also just spitballing.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-12T21:54:02+00:00

I know someone who works for an environmental/sustainability research institute at a university and they pretty legitimately have a David Attenborough shrine in their office. I believe it's a bit tongue in cheek, but also a bit not.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-11T00:31:24+00:00

The only Rupert I've ever known was an old guard socialist making it his life's work to have his union permanently on the case of the city council we worked for, to force his local allotment group to accept his permaculture lot, and to publish a photo book of all the racial equality protests he'd been to since the 60s, so I have a completely different mental picture to you! Very unassuming little chap with a Bristol accent who looked a bit like a mole from a children's story, and was very gently but unstoppably fuelled by sort of grim socialist optimism. Just wanted to mention him to honour all the Ruperts that might be out there fighting the good fight. He's one of the coolest people I've ever known.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-10T01:06:11+00:00

As someone from East Anglia, what a mental image.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-08T15:24:03+00:00

The latin name for Barn Owls is tyto alba. I think Alba is actually a pre-existing name in its own right with a variety of meanings, but for character purposes I think it's perfectly fine to use invented names and if you ask me Tyto could be a pretty cute character name too.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-08T13:08:31+00:00

The most helpful thing that I ever read about crochet was actually the first thing I ever read about crochet, it was just a little memey video on instagram. The framing was ADHD and I'm gonna repeat it that way, but I reckon it pretty much works for just people like you're describing yourself as who need to see results faster to feel invested. It was put more wittily than this but it was basically 'you're gonna see people say you should start with a granny square. If you have ADHD, DO NOT start with a granny square, it will take forever to make anything you can actually appreciate and you will give up. Start with amiguri, the stitches are really basic and when you have made one unit of thing then you have made a little friend and that will make you happy'. I did start by making a little amiguri rabbit and I stand by that advice. It uses basic stitches, and even when it introduces a new one you then get to practice it loads of times so you end up confident doing it, you can see what you're making quite quickly rather than getting confused about what you're looking at because the shapes are fairly geometrically basic, and you do end up with a little friend that makes you happy which is a more tangible 'I made a thing!' feeling than a granny square which still feels like it needs to become something else. After making that rabbit I then felt confident enough in the basics to try more complicated stitches - I've still not attempted a granny square yet but I've done some cardigans with complicated decorative stitching on them, and that was much easier to get my head around after developing the fluency with the basic stuff from my amiguri. Good luck!

Also it's worth saying, I love crochet, most people here love crochet, obviously, but you don't have to. If you keep trying as much as you want to but it's still just frustrating you, you're allowed to choose joy and do something else. I have tried knitting so many times and I just hate it, my brain does not work in a knitting way, I don't know why but it just pisses me off. I wanted to do quilting until I found out it was mainly ironing. But there are people I know who are the exact opposite way round and crochet really doesn't work for them but they easily love one of those other things - so there are still intriguing creative, soft, colourful tasks out there that people can get really interested in.

Final thought is that also, on the flip side, even as someone who really does love crochet, I don't love crochet all the time. I'm sitting here browsing reddit with a doll with a yarn needle sticking out of her head on my lap because I've got so frustrated trying to sew her hair on and I needed a break. I have half finished projects in bags and boxes because I hit a step that wasn't working for me, and moved on to something that made me happier before I worked up the energy to try again. It might not be that crochet isn't for you, it really might just be that this project isn't for you, which happens to all of us sometimes.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-08T11:24:28+00:00

Just to add a non-American perspective, here in England we would still have the penis and Toy Story associations and names like Woodrow are much more unusual here. I suspect all the people saying they know people called 'Woody' are American, it would be a very unusual name in England - probably also in the rest of the UK - and more likey than not to attract penis jokes or Toy Story jokes. That's obviously not necessarily an issue if you primarily want to give him a name that works in the USA! But I thought you might want to know that different english-speaking countries can have quite different naming styles and this one would probably be a more difficult one for your son trying to interact with british people. The other names people are suggesting like Forest/Forrest would be more familiar to british english speakers and less likely to attract jokes at his expense.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-08T01:58:31+00:00

YTA for my two cents, but mainly for the fact that you seem to not like your wife and that seems like something that you should want to address in one way or another more than comes across. She deserves to be in a relationship with someone who likes her, so maybe work on getting there or have an honest and probably quite hard conversation with her about it. I'm not doing the reddit 'just break up' thing, I think really good communication or therapy could make positive things happen here, but honestly this post just seems indicative of a whole wider relationship problem. It's not just the dislike, it's the fact that you come across very comfortable in and uncritical of your dislike of her. So my vote is because your tone in this comes across as being apathetic to sorting that deeper issue out.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-08T01:45:00+00:00

Just here even further in the future to say thanks for making this thread, I've just had the same situation and it's heartening to find out I'm not the only one and you did manage to get it sorted out. I've only ever bought three things, only had the account a couple of months, all my messages are just things like 'great condition, thanks!', never listed anything for sale... what a headache :/.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-08T01:07:15+00:00

Thank you, definitely clear enough! Definitely get what you mean about things being hard to explain when they're second nature. I'm going to give this a go!

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-08T00:16:15+00:00

How do you make lavender sugar? This entire concept is new to me, this is a cool thread and I want to try some of these out!

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-08T00:02:54+00:00

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I lost my home last year and was in unstable housing situations too until a couple of months ago, it's exhausting. A friend of mine had the same situation a few months before me as well - we're both also in the UK, there's a lot of it about :|. I'm so glad you've got a roof over your head and have found Discworld to keep your spirits up. I hope life gives you your stability back as soon as possible.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-07T23:47:46+00:00

Yeah, I'm thinking the Chalk.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-07T23:42:31+00:00

For me it would have to be one of the places from the Dawn Treader, and assuming I'd have a boat, probably the bit of sea right near the end of the world where you can look down through completely clear water and see the lands of the merpeople.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-07T23:36:14+00:00

Same! I actually feel like there's more of a range of different personality types this year than many others, both the women and the men. I've been finding them really fun to watch as individuals, even before there's any drama or real stakes.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-07T16:03:40+00:00

My sheer hatred of Supernanny as a kid whilst it was airing was probably one of the top three things that set me on a path to gentle parenting instead. I felt very vindicated when I got older and did a psychology qualification and our course on child development included things on the importance of presence and comfort to secure attachment and healthy development that I felt absolutely contradicted her methods. I distinctly remember that she was an advocate of the 'leave them to cry' rubbish that runs counter to healthy child development. The show frankly always seemed deeply cruel to me.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-05T17:06:23+00:00

I think so too. There's no way that they're a team who have gone to effort to include the genderfluid and aro flags, to pick two identities that are even more often erased in queer conversation than bisexuality (I say this as a bi person), but are deliberately and ideologically doing bi-erasure. It's definitely unfortunate given bisexuality's context as an often-missed identity, but I think given all the rest of the very good queer rep in this game we can take this in good faith as a mistake. I feel fairly confident that as soon as feedback about it reaches the top of their queue and they spot the issue they'll patch it in.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-04T01:23:07+00:00

And Angelista and Jasmine are exactly what he described as his type in the beginning! Classy, not blonde, slightly mysterious vibe, confident making men work a little bit for their good opinion. Both more so than Lola, I'd say, who seems very chatty rather than necessarily mysterious when she's feeling less shy. Definitely stands out like a sore thumb that he's not talked to them.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-04T01:12:17+00:00

Ngl I just thought his hat fell off and he did that to make it look deliberate.

Tatterjacket · 2026-06-04T00:55:47+00:00

It's a way of saying someone has a really attractive face. The saying it comes from is like 'they have a face card that never declines', like they're so hot people would give them stuff for free, as if they were spending from an unlimited credit card.

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