Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.

[Tinuviel]

No, reasonably well-educated, middle-aged man that I work with. A visible bra strap is not a dress code violation. The only time it would be a violation would be if the person wearing the bra strap had also removed their shirt.

This is the third time that I've had to tell you this. Today. It's ten am. Teach your goddamn class.

ETA: In Australia, 99% of schools have a uniform. Mine included. It's a rather nice blouse that completely covers the shoulder and two thirds or so of the upper arm.

[surreality]

@Ganymede Theno pretty much nailed it. We're lifelong nightowls. 3AM to us may as well be 3PM to most folks.

Also, he's a pro at procrastination.

I am, too, but I've managed to gut cabinets of WTF IS THIS EVEN kitchen junk like a boss this week.

That moment when you wonder if your grandmother was secretly a Bond villain torturer sidekick in the off-hours, I've been having it for a while now.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Theno pretty much nailed it. We're lifelong nightowls. 3AM to us may as well be 3PM to most folks.

I love you, but --

-- this is how I feel about that.

[surreality]

@Ganymede I am technically only 'a morning person' because I'm typically... still up by then, and it's my evening.

Admittedly, my schedule flips around and rotates slowly over weeks. Which sucks in its own right. It will conform... for a while, until it nopes the shit out of that notion and springs back to:

Working from home means 'finish task quota' a lot. I have a workaholic streak and ADD hyperfocus. These things combine very, very weirdly.

Like, the struggle is real: "Oh, hey, when did the sun go down? ...and, hey, it's back! Huh, why are my folks calling and asking if I'd like to come by for dinner because they haven't heard from me in two days and are worried I'm not eating? It's morni--oh, dinner's in fifteen minutes? Uh, yeah... food is probably a good idea... How long have I been working? Er. What's today? Oh, shit. I thought it was Tuesday."

It was so much worse when I was doing 3D stuff, too. That was dead on accurate at least twice a week rather than twice a month like it is now.

In news that should surprise precisely no one, this is also why my metabolism is spectacularly fucked. (Half the reason I lose weight on a die+t is that I set an actual timer for when to eat and make sure I do/it reminds me that my body needs something other than coffee in it.)

[Thenomain]

@Ganymede

Dude, you use cat gifs. If you can't accept "noon is whenever I say it is" then you're not really a cat person.

[Tinuviel]

@Thenomain There's a difference between a cat person and a cat-person.

[Thenomain]

@Tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Thenomain There's a difference between a cat person and a cat-person.

I think @Ganymede is just catty.

[Ganymede]

@Thenomain said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I think @Ganymede is just catty.

Indeed.

[Aria]

So @insomniac7809 and I, after almost 11 years together, have finally decided to get hitched. Thus far we have:

-Picked a venue (not halfway in-between all our relatives, but at a place that reduces travel time by 3+ hours for all our relatives in the Midwest, and which ADDS 3+ hours of travel for.... the bride and groom and almost all our friends)

-Set a date (on a Saturday, near no major holidays or other people's celebrations!)

-Ordered a prospective wedding dress

And I already have family members complaining about things they don't like. How about you fuck off, Aunt Karen?

[Auspice]

@Aria

When I got married, that's how it was.

Number of friend complaints: 0
Number of family complaints: fucking. endless.

Friends make it great. Friends are who are there to help you through it and make it worthwhile. But I swear to god family decides to make it all about them. Esp. extended family. His aunt practically managed to single-handedly ruin the entire thing........and I never even met her UNTIL THAT DAY.

So yeah. I wish you all the luck in the world surviving them.

[Aria]

@Auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Aria

When I got married, that's how it was.

Number of friend complaints: 0
Number of family complaints: fucking. endless.

Friends make it great. Friends are who are there to help you through it and make it worthwhile. But I swear to god family decides to make it all about them. Esp. extended family. His aunt practically managed to single-handedly ruin the entire thing........and I never even met her UNTIL THAT DAY.

So yeah. I wish you all the luck in the world surviving them.

Ohhh, I knew it was coming. Completely knew it was coming, but wasn't expecting it quite this quickly. And it especially irritates me coming from that aunt, because.... 95% of the time, she's one of my favorite relatives and definitely my favorite aunt. The other 5% of the time, she is SUPER JUDGY MC-JUDGERPANTS SNOTTY and makes a lot of incredibly unwelcome comments about my life. I mean, I'm sure I'd find those sorts of comments irritating regardless of who they came from, but in her case.....

She has four kids. Here's the rundown of how their respective marriages went:

• Her oldest son got married less than a year out of high school to a woman who immediately quit her job the day after the wedding to be a "stay-at-home mom". I should note that they had no children, and when they did have children, visits to her house involved her thrusting her children at me to watch so she could go play World of Warcraft, despite the fact that we were visiting from 700+ miles away and I told her that I was great with kids 3+, but had no idea how to care for infants. She once dyed her son's hair black because she was home that day and decided she was bored. He was four. My cousin insisted on sharing custody with this woman when they got divorced -- against the advice of the judge and social services. He pursued her for another two years.
• Her second son married a stripper he got pregnant. After he passed away, she proceeded to have her third kid by a third father who had a horrible drug problem, drop out of nursing school to go back to stripping, and at one point had all of her children taken away by the state. She eventually got them back, cancelled 90% of her daughter's state mandated mental health visits, and unsurprisingly (but heart-breakingly, horrifically) said cousin's daughter ended up committing suicide. At 12.
• Her third son married his fourth? fifth? fiancee (I stopped keeping track of the ridiculous Facebook announcements for girls he broke up with 3-6 months later) after he knocked that one up. This is the cousin I mentioned earlier in this thread who named his kid after a Pokemon, for fuck's sake. He also got fired from his job at Tim Horton's for making gross sex comments at one of his female co-workers.
• Her daughter, who much to my shock and horror, looks up to me. But given her elder siblings, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that she seems to think I'm a Responsible Adult with My Shit Together. She's a national merit scholar and the only one of those kids worth a damn. Still in college, she is way too young to be married, and I have been telling her since she was 12 that regardless of how much her mom tells her she just looooooooooves grandbabies, I expect her to graduate.

Looking at that trainwreck, I really feel like the new rule here should be, "Nope. Sorry. You don't get to judge my life choices."

[surreality]

@Aria said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Looking at that trainwreck, I really feel like the new rule here should be, "Nope. Sorry. You don't get to judge my life choices."

^ This. Absolutely this.

This was my head voice when my husband's cousin -- who started popping out kids when she was 16, and has three now while still being barely old enough to vote and too young to drink -- looked at us in shock and horror when it was mentioned we had no plans to have kids.

(In fairness, she thought I was far younger than I actually am, and that there was a big gap in my husband's age and mine, not just 'I'm two years younger'. She apparently thought it was more like... fifteen or so. Which also speaks volumes.)

[Sparks]

@Aria said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

So @insomniac7809 and I, after almost 11 years together, have finally decided to get hitched. Thus far we have:

First off, congratulations!

And I already have family members complaining about things they don't like. How about you fuck off, Aunt Karen?

There is a tradition in my family that has been kept alive for literally generations: everyone just elopes. My maternal great-great-grandparents eloped, but my maternal great-grandmother was the one who deliberately turned it into a tradition (which isn't really surprising, as she's also the one who got deported from Germany for stealing a ferry and is in fact the source of approximately 90% of all family anecdotes that start with "so, you won't believe this, but..."). My maternal grandparents eloped, as did my great-uncle. My parents eloped. And my brother eloped (though he later got divorced; the marriage didn't really survive his military deployment).

It works surprisingly well.

So in a pinch, remind Aunt Karen that if she doesn't like the way you're planning things, you could always just elope?

[Tinuviel]

@Aria said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

So @insomniac7809 and I, after almost 11 years together, have finally decided to get hitched.

Well that's your first error.

[sahin]

@Aria

[Auspice]

@Sparks said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

So in a pinch, remind Aunt Karen that if she doesn't like the way you're planning things, you could always just elope?

Seriously. I wish I had.

My first mistake back when I got married was telling family I was getting married. I wanted to just go and see a judge. And I told them this. So 'Well, shouldn't your parents at least be there?' became 'But what about your siblings?' and '...you grandparents?' and eventually every extended relative under the sun.

Just always remind yourself: this is for you two. And be more than willing (and loop in your most vehement, rockstar of a 'willing to back your ass up friend' if you can) to remind family of this, too. It's your day. If they want it to be about them, they can foot the bill and put down the non-refundable deposits.

[Ganymede]

@Aria

Congratulations on your choice to get married. Be advised that your wedding day will be the subject of the complaints of the ignorant and the jealous. I can say that, without equivocation, no one who attended my wedding who complained remain in my life, so I look at the event as a tremendously successful weeding-out test.

The struggle will be deep and real between the two of you, but the adage will hold true: as long as you have each other, there will be no end to strife. But those trials and tribulations will ultimately make you both stronger, fitter, and more appreciative of one another.

I have many complaints of my partner, but none of them come close to the threshold of my patience. I hope you will find the same with one another. In my mind, that is what will distinguish the anecdotes from wisdom, and your love from false narratives.

[Tinuviel]

The most important thing I can recall from my own wedding day was thusly:

It is indeed the happiest day of your life. Bar none. I can't remember anything in the week leading up to or after that day. So even though the tiniest decisions can be incredibly stressful and irritating at the time, you won't remember them after. So, focus on the things that bring you joy about the occasion, as those will be the source of memory for the future.

Also it's your day, so if anyone grumps at you just punch them in the kidneys.

[Aria]

@Auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Sparks said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

So in a pinch, remind Aunt Karen that if she doesn't like the way you're planning things, you could always just elope?

Seriously. I wish I had.

My first mistake back when I got married was telling family I was getting married. I wanted to just go and see a judge. And I told them this. So 'Well, shouldn't your parents at least be there?' became 'But what about your siblings?' and '...you grandparents?' and eventually every extended relative under the sun.

^ We sooooooooort of are? This is what she's complaining about. We're going to City Hall and getting married by a judge. The building is gorgeous, but old, so the rooms are small. You're only allowed eight guests in chambers. So that's my parents, his parents, his brother, and his brother's long-term partner. Probably also my two closest friends, who are practically like sisters. City Hall here only does weddings on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I assumed that outside of his immediate family, none of our Midwest/Rust Belt relatives would want to take three days off of work to drive 9-12 hours to come to a 15 minutes ceremony on some random Thursday afternoon and go to dinner after.

I also assumed that this would likely be disappointing for our extended families, so agreed to let his parents throw us a big semi-catered, semi-potluck, low-key bash in their backyard six months later. Everyone gets to see us in our fancy clothes (which I feel less stupid spending money if I get to wear more than once), get drunk on someone else's dime, eat cake, have some photos snapped, and generally celebrate with the added bonus of the two introverts not having to stand in front of ~200 people being stared at while they talk about their feelings.

UNACCEPTABLE.

Apparently I'm now supposed to explain to her what sort of place I'm getting married in that has such a policy and why and, after peppering me with questions, she wants to 'take it to private chat' so we can discuss it.

Be glad we're doing anything for extended family at all. I live in a state where you don't even need to have an officiant if you pay an extra $10, so we could've just filed the paperwork and never even told anyone except the IRS if I'd been able to convince the boy.

Also, thank you for the well wishes and (sincere) marriage advice. Keep 'em coming. I'm going to need them to make it through October without murdering any relatives. The Knot really should add a section for "bride and groom's coping booze" in the budgeting tool.

[insomniac7809]

@Sparks said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

First off, congratulations!

Thank you!

...elopement came up. But I think I'd die of my mother's silent not-angry-just-hurt.

(My dad would probably be p cool with it tho)