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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2565 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 8, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I'd say it's a mix of:

  1. Normal female social intelligence gathering. Gossip is a thing, and a female coded thing, because having knowledge of relationships is still necessary for survival in a woman's world.
  2. A bit of covert resistance from the mother. If mild goofy teasing causes you to back away from a would-be girlfriend, you weren't really committed in the first place. Mom wants to know if this is "for real."
  3. Social interaction ability decay. Everyone is "cool" in the teens, 20s, to early 30s relative to the stuffy olds in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. Then, one day, you're not cool anymore until the trends circle back around and you're in again. People who were born in the early 60s, and came of age in the 80s, are loving fashion and aesthetic life again right now. Nevertheless, I have a theory that people get "stuck" in a social interaction mode at some point in their life. It's case by case. Some people never make it past 16. A lot of PMC types top out at around 28 years old. For Moms, they may be genuinely trying to relate to their sons, but are doing it in using the social tools that they stopped sharpening years ago. So what used to have been actually allowed teasing and indirect probing has now devolved to a cringey and ham fisted embarrassment avalanche. TLDR; I'm not like a regular mom, I'm a cool mom

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