Reddit user fuzziblanket asked:
"What is something considered to be ‘normal’ by society that you refuse to do?"
In my world, the "normal" thing I outright refused to do was straightening my hair. Growing up, my texture was considered "pelo malo" (bad hair) and I was expected to blow dry, flat iron, relax or otherwise straighten it.
I resisted that straightening my whole life, preferring my poofs, my frizz and my fluff.
Adult me ended up vindicated AF when I learned how to take care of my hair. Psh. Pelo malo where? My curls are dope.
Resistance may or may not work out awesomely for these people, but here's the stuff Reddit is passionately protesting and the arguments that ensued in the comments about it.
Wedding Woes
"Sacrifice a down payment on a house for a wedding."
- BlackLotus8888
"My wife and I had a very small wedding on a beach with only our parents there. Then, we drove to a mountain and hiked to the top with our photographer for our first dance."
"It was incredible and people keep telling us they wish they could’ve done something that simple but social pressures made them spend more."
"Now, we’ve just had to spend more than the entire cost of our wedding just to buy the plane tickets to attend my sister’s big wedding."
- Giygas
"I felt this way for a long time, but my partner is the youngest of 5 siblings and the family has never had a wedding or proper family function (outside of casual holidays). Even his parents eloped!"
"Our initial plan for a small backyard wedding kept growing and growing as logistics got more difficult: renting a tent, tables, chairs, tablecloths, place settings, port-o-potties, building a viable dance floor for the backyard."
"With 2 big families, our minimum headcount was higher than we'd like. Annnnd with a bigger headcount, you either pay for a venue or save a mere grand for the stress of building your own venue and dealing with thrice as many vendors 😅"
"We've still had a ton of reservations about the cost (wedding is in June), but recently learned that some family members on his side are in very poor health and not long for this world."
"Soon as we learned that, the cost didn't seem as important as having the first formal family reunion in 75 years."
"We've joked straight through that a wedding is not about the couple getting married, and it seems truer than ever. Humbled to provide the opportunity to celebrate with everyone and to get real family portraits."
"It definitely isn't the choice for everyone."
- dropsofzeus
GiphyCeleb Drama
"Give a shit about celebs."
"Sometimes they're fun to talk about for like 5 minutes but other than that? Aren't they just people? I don't get it."
- CoffeeAndPizzaRolls
"Before last weekend, I had no idea Will Smith and Will Smith’s wife had an open marriage.”
- good_god_lemon1
"Thank you for keeping his wife's name out your f*cking mouth."
- sneakywalrus69
"Yes. People are flabbergasted when I’m not informed on the latest celebrity news and honestly I just don’t see a reason to keep up with it."
- Appropriate_Lecture7
Forbidden Friendships
"Forbidding my (straight male) partner to spend time with female friends."
"He's a grown-ass man; he should know how to hold healthy boundaries. It shouldn't be on me to keep him from cheating. If he's really gonna fall into the pants of the first girl I leave him alone with, she can have him."
"Similarly, blaming someone else for my partner's failings, and/or trying to 'win back' someone who doesn't want me."
"He's a big boy who can make his own choices (even bad ones), and I want a partner who wants to be with me, not someone I had to talk into staying."
"For the record, my dudeman of 20 years is awesome, so this is working out pretty good for me so far."
- sasstoreth
Calm Down, Rihanna
"Work myself to death."
"Use your vacation days. Your sick days. Take your dog out. Hang out with the family."
"Even if you're alone like me - Go do something you like."
- Onautopilotsendhelp
"I've had more than one boss say, 'All yall want to do is come to work for a paycheck,' isn't that the point?"
- OutsidePrior2020
"My dad just scolded me because I was unwilling to put in 60+ hrs/week at a new salaried job by saying 'I've worked 70/hr since I was out of college!' "
"Yeah dad, that's probably why you missed every important life event and smoke a juul at age 57."
- AscendingAgain
"Two months ago, my dad died. He had cancer and had had it for like a year."
"I told my work over and over again that he was really sick. I work in an office and am on a computer all day. I have a company-supplied laptop. I have the ability to work from home, but I was not allowed to do so because I was an hourly employee.”
"I told them that his condition was worsening. I live five hours from my parents. They refused to accommodate me, even when I offered to work every day from my parents house, just so I could be with him."
"They said 'well maybe when the situation gets more dire.' ”
"I tried to apply for FMLA (I think that’s the right acronym) and I wasn’t eligible because I was hourly and hadn’t been there for a year yet, despite the circumstances. A week before he died I told my boss that it was almost time and I might have to take off work."
"They were not concerned and told me as long as I got my work done and didn’t miss deadlines. I took the day he died off work—I just had a bad feeling, and was packing to go see him when he passed."
"I told my work and they don’t have bereavement leave. So I offered to work remotely during this period and again they refused. Again, I have a 'good job' working at a huge corporation, in an office; my job requires a degree."
"I was forced to use all of my sick time and some of my PTO so I could attend his funeral and help my mother with arrangements."
"And I'm stuck here because I can't afford to quit without something else lined up. I've been looking. They obviously don't see us as humans."
"You don’t owe your company anything. I would give anything to go back and time and quit, just to spend the last few weeks with my dad."
"Whatever company you work for doesn’t care about you, only about how much you make them. Don’t worry about screwing them over or anything because at the end of the day, you could die and they would consider it a small inconvenience."
- fathleen
GiphyToxic
"Talk to toxic family members."
- cellcube0618
"I seriously can't grasp this."
"Why do I need to keep someone who is toxic in my life? Because they're family? F*ck no."
- melindypants
"Been four years since I talked to anyone in my birth family except my older sister (who I talk to almost everything day). It’s been amazing."
- RTheD77
"This. So much this."
"I recently cut all toxic family members out of my life and I don't think my life's ever been this peaceful."
- ThatMuslimGamer
Charity(?)
"Recording yourself doing an act of charity or a good deed in general. Completely devalues it the second you hit post."
- yzmasmomi
"My main counter point to this is that it at least allows some form of positive news within a negatively saturated medium."
"It's a bit of a virtue signal, but it still has a positive impact on the individual and supports a trend of doing good, even if there's a bit of narcissism mixed in."
- Toiletchan
" 'A good deed bragged about is a selfish deed.' "
- SekMemoria
"I’m conflicted about this."
"It definitely feels gross when someone is just doing something charitable for likes on TikTok."
"But when you look at people like Bill and Melinda Gates, they do all of their charity work VERY publicly (and transparently.) I don’t think that devalues the act of saving hundreds of thousands of lives."
- thepixelpaint
"It doesn’t defeat the purpose to the person receiving the kindness."
- cleanyourkitchen
"They also don't consider how their public act of 'charity' might be humiliating for the recipient. Maybe the recipient doesn't want the whole world to know how poor they are."
- beatissima
"Actually studies show people are more likely to do good deeds after seeing others do them, so recording it and posting it actually adds value because it encourages more people to do good things."
"I don't see how it would devalue it in any case because whoever was helped by the charity isn't somehow less helped just because the helper got some kind of attention for it. The value is in the deed itself, not the inner motivations of whoever did it."
- DeseretRain
24/7
"The need to be available 24/7, i.e. always having your phone on you."
"I like going for long walks and leaving my phone at home. I don't feel guilty for missing texts or calls, it's just stressful being expected to be available all hours of the day."
- The_Fireblasted
"Oath. It's like some people think owning a phone means you signed a contract stating you will always answer or reply."
"B*tch please, this is just a tool, I will use it as I see fit."
- Shaboogan
"I feel that. But I also can’t shake the fear of getting injured or stranded somewhere with no way to get help."
"I guess that’s a holdover from the dim dark past (2005ish) when I would have a car break down and have to knock on a stranger’s door to ask to use the phone."
- twcsata
"I keep my phone on me wherever I go in case I drop dead suddenly anywhere other than my apartment."
"I turn off all notifications routinely for social media anyway. (I'll see your post/comments when I feel like it, dammit) Also, since I'm old, I'd need the phone to call for help if I fell & broke a hip or something 😅"
- Altruisticpoet3
"I'm puzzled that people aren't aware that you can silence the phone, or even turn it off if you're so inclined."
"Hell, put it into Airplane Mode!"
"Never know if you're going to need to call 911, or get that one in a million opportunity to snap a photo of that thing you like, or any other numbers of things phones can do that don't involve calls."
- Brew78_18
GiphyKids
"I don't understand why anyone gives people crap for not wanting kids."
"Some people already raised their siblings, or some people already know they won't be good parents."
"It takes a lot of self-reflection and inner work to be a good parent; especially if you didn't have a great upbringing yourself. And those who just want to live their lives 'selfishly' who cares?"
"They wouldn't be good parents either.. making the kid always feel like a burden because they held them back. So if you don't want kids.. you're better off not having them anyway."
"I'm a mom and I'm all for letting people do whatever they want with their lives. And it's none of our business why they choose it."
- TraumaQueen37
"Thank you for understanding. Telling someone(especially a parent) that I dont want to have kids is like asking to get shot at."
"I just never understood why people want to be respected for their choice to have kids but these are the same people who cant give the same amount of respect to someone who doesn't want kids."
"People like you are so rare who actually are respectful of people's choices of not wanting kids."
- Objective_Magazine_3
"My thought has always been that it shouldn't be that having kids is the default and choosing not to is the lesser option."
"You should have reasons TO want kids. People should have to defend their reasoning for wanting to bring more people into the world, to put that responsibility on themselves for the rest of their lives."
"It shouldn't be an easier decision than what kind of car you buy. If it was 'don't have kids unless you really want them' vs 'everybody should have kids unless you really don't want to and even then you probably should' we'd have a lot fewer kids in foster care, in abusive homes, on the streets, in jail, etc. etc."
- nobleland_mermaid
Mundane Moments
"Bore other people with photos of everyday stuff they see all the time anyway. For example, the meal I am going to eat, the shoes I bought, the place I am at."
- Stendhal-Syndrome
" 'I must remember to tell everyone about this banana.' *snap "
- Shanda_Lear
"Yup, this is the kinda stuff that makes social media largely a meaningless void."
- Available_Job1288
The Big City
"Live in a city."
"I was born in a large city, lived there until I was 11. Then moved to the woods. I’ve lived in the woods since then and although I have visited cities since, I could never live there."
"Too many people, too much noise and I just don’t feel comfortable. I feel more comfortable taking walks at night in the woods than I would in a city."
- BuffaloInCahoots
"Funnily enough, I'm the opposite."
"I grew up in the woods and now live adjacent to a city (suburbs. housing prices...). I can't imagine moving back to the middle of nowhere after living in a place where things actually exist and I don't need to drive 30 minutes to get to the grocery store."
- bassguy129
"I grew up in the suburbs and I will never live there."
"Endless stretch of soulless subdivisions. Cookie cutter houses. Parking lots twice as big as the building they serve. Every time I visit my parents, I swear I die inside."
"I live in the city now. I can walk nearly everywhere. The reason most cities are so loud is the cars suburbanites drive around in the city. Where I live, it's peaceful at night."
- AscendingAgain
"I was born and raised in LA. Then at 16, my parents moved us to Tahoe."
"It took me five years to escape and I still have nightmares about mountain people, and being snowed in away from society."
"I feel safest in a city full of people that come from all walks of life as opposed to a few who live in isolation their entire lives."
- Bitingtoys
"I'll never understand why people want to sit in traffic or live in cramped housings that is stupidly expensive."
"I live an hour and a half from the city it's close enough to visit for events and hospitals and the like, but it's also completely unappealing to live there."
"Bless the people that do like. It keeps where I live empty."
- Relevant_Poet_7670
GiphyRather be anonymous
"Upload pictures of yourself online"
- DCJustSomeone
"I never understood that level of exposure to strangers on the internet becoming a norm."
"It's okay to just be a name or username on the internet, you don't owe it to anyone to use a selfie as a profile picture etc. Anonymity is one of the perks of being online."
"Not to mention in the case of minors for example, being allowed to post pictures of themselves on social media invites a whole different kind of trouble."
"Nah. I'm happy being a little crazy avatar or a picture of my favourite game/anime character anywhere I go online."
- Shi-Rokku
Shush
"Hang out in a social setting where the music is so gawdam loud that you have to scream at the person next to you to communicate."
- Capnreid
"I've now reached the age where if I'm going out in the evening, one of my first criteria for selecting the venue is how much drapery, napery and carpeting they have to absorb ambient noise so I can actually hear what my goddamned friends are saying."
- purrcthrowa
"I hate loud music and I honestly don't understand how people can tolerate it and enjoy it. It is like the soundwaves are assaulting your ears."
- Cute_little_person
"There is a bar in Manhattan called Burp Castle. It’s styled after Trappist monks. If you talk too loud the staff and everyone else shushes you. It’s amazing!"
- isocor
Be Quiet Tim And Eric GIFGiphyAvoid a car payment
"Going in debt $30k-$70k for a vehicle."
- So_Gnaar
"I completely agree. I make nearly $200k a year and drive a jeep that I bought for $9k 4 years ago."
"Car payments have a huge opportunity cost and can really hold you back on the path to wealth."
- narutard6
"I got my 02 rav4 for $2500 tax tag title right before pandemic. My previous car was a 04 Scion XA I paid 8.5k for and drove for 10 years."
"A car is just a way to get from A to B. I never understood concept of having to drive to a work so you could pay off your car..."
- TheRatsMeow
Being sober
"I don’t drink or do illicit drugs. Alcohol messes with my medication, and pot gives me anxiety. I am a sober person and people often give me shit about it and call me boring."
- TheShining02
"The fact that getting shi*tfaced is more accepted than choosing to be sober is really disturbing."
- rslashdepressedteen
"You’ll find as you get older that’ll disappear. I used to get shit in my early 20s about this constantly."
"Hit 30 and when the topic comes up all I get is surprised murmurs followed by obligatory respect (fake or not, it’s better than the shit people would say when I was younger). Plus EVERYONE loves a sober driver after a long night"
- victory-or-death
"The fact that not putting drugs and alcohol in your system is seen as boring legit scares me."
- krylten
This Is Me Sober Tyra Banks GIF by America's Next Top ModelGiphySo many dishes
"Buy copious amounts of dishes, Why the fuck do you need 27 plates for the two people in your household. Im looking at you mom."
- Pine-Space
"I always thought the same, until someone explained the dish-to-dishwasher capacity ratio to me."
- sebiimaxx
"27 plates means 27 plates you can use before you have to wash plates again. No use wasting a dishwasher load if it isn't full."
- PizzaPapaPepperon
"I have one 4 piece dish set and I’ve been debating buying a fun/fancy one from a thrift store. This comment put me right in my place so thank you."
- liisathorir
"We have like 800 plates some of them came from 14 years ago and we only use the same 4 plates every day"
- YeetusFoeTeaToes
No boss status over here
"Climb up the ladder and be the boss. I could but why."
- WinnieVinegarBottle
"Completely agree. I've moved up in companies and taken supervisor type positions. It always comes with a lot more fuckin headache with not near enough pay or benefit."
"I work for a small company now and the owner/boss is married to the job and I'm just like, no thank you. I'm cool just maintaining my role as just another spoke in the wheel."
- Matdav4bama
"Last month I had this epiphany. I can have an amazing career right where I am at. I don’t have to go to management just because I’m good at what I do. I can be happy as an IC."
- kpidhayny
Excited Season 9 GIF by The OfficeGiphyAvoiding debt
"Credit card debt… like… why?!?!"
"Nah, just kidding, I’m American, I have cc debt"
- NameIsJohn
"I worked really hard to eliminate my credit card debt but the sad fact is I’m one emergency away from going back into debt."
- hairballcouture
"I am 34 and have never owned a credit card. I know that I would immediately go into unmanageable debt and for what, a couple of months of spending without thinking"
- SerMickeyoftheVale
Ahh yes sportsball
"Don't follow sports"
- Natural-Compote477
"My sport loving friends can't understand how I know so little about sports. 'You retain so much knowledge about d&d! How can't you just pick a team?'."
"Because then I'll forget my hard studied lore lmao"
- robotred12
"I am excluded from about 97% of manly man small talk for this reason. But tbh, the older I get, the more I realize idc anyways and I'm glad I'm not talking about it haha"
- waterlogged_ballet
"Man fkn samee"
- Solidsnekdangernodle
"What’s funny about this to me is that I play sports but don’t watch them. While most men I know watch sports but don’t play them. Still get left out of the small talk tho…"
- spirit_noodles
Sarcastic It Crowd GIFGiphyLike literally this
"Use literally when I mean figuratively."
- dgl6y7
"This metaphorically spoke to me on a spiritual level."
- Aegis_et_Vanir
"Or use Ironic when I mean Coincidence"
- Newone1255
Okay, now you've gotten to watch Reddit argue over all the normal things they will and won't be doing. It's your turn to get in the ring.
Is there something considered "normal" that is a hard no for you? Or something that's a no for someone on this list but is absolutely a thing in your world?
Let's keep the argument going in the comments!
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