Have you noticed that a large number of people that start threads in IMHO or MPSIMS about relationships that they have problems with start them and then never return or maybe only make a simple turse response and never provide any follow-up to their situation.
Look, the teeming millions are a very voyeuristic bunch. Don’t tease us with the salacious details of your suspected spouses infidelity, your impending divorce, or your threesome gone wrong, and then never come back to the thread after we have provided you 2 pages worth of advice, albeit much of it conflicting, but none-the-less advice we have vested ourselves in.
Damn it, you owe us a response and tell us which path you took so we can see whose advice you took.
And by all means let us know what happened next. If you took the time to open a doorway into your world for us to see and seek our input, you at least owe us the courtesy of not shutting that door in our faces.
I wouldn’t call this a complaint about the board, more about the users. If all such threads belonged in ATMB the Pit would be a little more empty and a lot less fun.
It seems especially weird if the first post ever by this person was the OP- then it’s that they specifically came to this board for the advice that they will then just ignore and never come back to. Leaving our community in shatters, with the members then left to pick up the pieces, never to be the same again… or just slightly irked from not having any closure.
I’ve done that before. I remember starting a thread about whether it’s okay or tacky to propose to someone without a ring, but I don’t think I ever followed up on what happened. I figured nobody was really invested or cared too much either way and, since he turned me down, I wasn’t exactly up for coming back to talk about it.
It wasn’t a juicy thread, but I can understand not wanting to return to an advice thread after taking action.
Yeah, I hate that also. People need to be more like me. When I post threads about relationships, they turn into 3-9 page train-wrecks! It’s so much more satisfying… (rocks his head, crying gently.)
I think with a lot of people they have issues they want help with but a message board is a poor place to get information and assistance. I have had occasional issues I wanted to talk about but I know that within the first dozen responses I will be told to leave my SO at least 2 or 3 times and be told that [problem] means he doesn’t respect me, etc. People will take one issue and blow it so out of proportion that their help ceases to be helpful. I know this because I have seen dozens upon dozens of threads that ended up that way. I’m willing to bet a lot of people who asked those questions saw those threads spinning out of control and said, “Screw you guys, I’m going home!” and never came back because they just couldn’t spend the next 10 days defending their relationship to the people they had hoped would provide a bit of insight to their dilemma.
I know the kind of thread you’re talking about, pbbth, where people get hung up on one fairly innocuous bit of information and start ignoring the actual issue - I understand why people don’t come back to those ones. Not all of the orphaned threads go like that, though. I suppose enough of them say things that the OP really doesn’t want to hear, though, and they end up with their fingers in their ears going, “lalalala I can’t hear you.” I guess we just have to content ourselves with knowing we planted the seeds of knowledge in the person asking the questions, and it will have to be enough.
What about a thread that asks, “What would you do in this hypothetical situation? Yes, I have a real reason for asking, and I’ll reveal all later” which then gets abandoned by its OP?
What if that very thread went on for 5 pages and was about Hitler??
That’s worse for me than not knowing if someone ever got his or her boyfriend to put the damn toilet seat down.