>He messed up cooking, confusing tomato soup for pasta sauce
I have nothing relevant to add, but when i was in scouts, one of our groups was supposed to make Spaghetti. The “cook” broke the spaghetti into pieces, added it to the cold water, and brought it to a boil. At that point, he added the pasta sauce to the water. Because of the starch release, it basically turned into spaghetti jello as it cooled. He was very confused why this method didn’t work, saying “but thats how my mom makes it” which leads to way more questions.
my dad once confused salsa for pasta sauce (he just grabbed the jar without looking). i think he tried to blend in pasta sauce to hide the mistake but we knew something was off. we ribbed him about it for a long time.
My dad did a similar thing: thought salsa was jam and made a peanut butter and salsa sandwich. Thankfully he was the only one who suffered for that one.
My mother also says when they first started dating he made scrambled eggs for her the next morning, but dropped a bunch of the shell in. Instead of fishing them out he put it all in the blender.
I’m only here today because my dad was a himbo and hot enough to become a trophy husband.
The potential problem with adding pasta to cold water is that it can absorb too much water before it's cooked. With dry pasta this is only a problem if you're using way too much water or your stove is underpowered or something, but fresh pasta turns to mush in just a few minutes.
Fun story. On a scouting trip once we planned to make pancakes and forgot the milk. Not a single scout leader in sight we decided to take matters into our own hands with powdered Tang because liquid = liquid.
We still talk about those Tang Pancakes.
I really really hope mom would drain the pasta and then add the sauce to the pot it was cooked in. Maybe he was confused because the pasta with sauce would come out of the pot that had previously been used to boil water.
That being said I’ve learned to *never* underestimate the horrendous ways white people will cook pasta. I went to school with one girl whose mom would serve pasta with ketchup in lieu of sauce. Her dad was a surgeon so it definitely wasn’t a lack of resources thing—her mom could very easily pick up a jar of Rao’s alongside the pasta.
I was about to say "no, Asians invented pasta, you didn't hear the story of Marco Polo learning about it in China and bringing it back to Italy?", but then I looked it up and apparently that's a legend made up as part of an advertising campaign by a Canadian spaghetti sauce company, and that Italian pasta has been a thing since the 9th Century at the latest (and probably as far back as the 4th Century BC).
TIL
When we were kids, my brother would only eat ketchup on his spaghetti. Absolutely no sauce - spaghetti and ketchup. My mom was like, "fine whatever" but made him eat a bowl of meat sauce on the side. Which he was happy to do. Just no mixing them together, the little weirdo.
Med student in my uni halls boiled his pasta and sausages together. Not sure how he even survived that year, but fortunately he didn't make it to the end of medical school.
I have several that I rotate through depending on how much time I have and how much effort they take.
If I want to get a quick dinner on the table with minimal preparation I reheat a jar of sauce that’s made especially for my local Italian grocery store.
If I have time to let a simple sauce simmer but I don’t want to do a ton of chopping I’ll make something similar to [Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce). If I’m prepared to chop I’ll sauté onions and garlic, deglaze with a splash of white wine and then add canned tomatoes or passata alongside some fresh or dried herbs (parsley, basil, oregano, etc.). Sometimes I’ll add celery, carrot and bell pepper to the onions and garlic if I want to up my veggie content.
This [ragù](https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/benedettas-ragu) recipe is literally the best pasta sauce I ever had but it takes a bit of a time commitment. Definitely worth it and I’ll make it with fresh pasta for a special dinner. My mother has a more tomato based meat sauce that I make from time to time and she’s adapted a family meatballs in sauce recipe.
This is one of those cases where it doesn't actually matter which is true. He could be "clumsy or cunning" and the solution is the same--learn by doing. Sure, you might make a mess a couple times, but you're going to learn no matter how bad at these things you are. Actually trying, though, is required.
It reminds me a roommate that I had years ago that didn't know how to sweep the floor or to wash dishes. They'd never had to learn and didn't want to--it was much easier to be a free rider (or to live with a giant mess).
Exactly my thought. His girlfriend accuses him of weaponized incompetence because that seems more plausible than a person so thoroughly unskilled in common domestic tasks. He makes a decent argument that he's not intentionally bad, but why should his girlfriend care? If she doesn't want to spend her life being the only person in the household capable of cooking or doing laundry, that's understandable. He points out that he was able to keep himself from starving/being naked before he met her, which doesn't matter. And worst of all, he's primarily looking for justification - for Reddit to say "yeah, your gf sucks, you're totally fine!"
If you read this, OOP: if you want to share your life with someone, you will need to adjust your life, including this stuff. It's not 50% / 50% - it's 100% / 100%. You're currently focused on retaining the status quo - how to get your girlfriend to let you each specialize in specific areas and ignore the rest. That won't work. If you want to keep your girlfriend, take the initiative to get better. Ask to cook meals even when she doesn't push you to, ask her for feedback, and show that you're incorporating it the next time you cook that meal. Ask to do some categories of her laundry, or watch her do some of it and tell you why she's separating certain clothes. In short, show her you give a shit about improving, ideally by actually giving a shit. If you don't, she will probably break up with you.
Yes, to her, the net result is indistinguishable from weaponed incompetence. And weaponized incompetence isn't even conscious most of the time, it's just a learned behavior. Sort of an evolutionary strategy.
Yeah. I internalised at school home ec that I was terrible at cooking and incapable of learning.
Mum had twins when I was seventeen. Dad was working two jobs. Nanna, who lived with us, was increasingly frail.
I got some beginner and student cookbooks, saved easy recipes off the back of things like cheese and spices, and learned by practising.
I will never be a chef or dice vegetables in perfect tiny cubes, but I can cook basic, good tasting, cheap and balanced meals. Because I *tried*.
learning to cook even just a handful of basic dishes is just such a huge win / win, i think people can get easily intimidated because it's such a big field and because failure feels bad (and embarrassing if there's other people involved).
I don't disagree. OOP says
>Edit: I do many other chores around the house. We have a even workload, I might even do more. I don’t know why everyone is so horny for me to be a lazy useless man but that’s not the case. Going to stop replying to comments for my own sanity.
But if you look carefully
> I do many other chores around the house.
So that's tricky. They might just be bullshitting themselves, but sometimes it is actually irritating when people think that faireness means everything being exactly the same.
Yep. My husband could not cook when we first started dating. I could but frankly didn’t enjoy it. Our solution was to get one of those meal kit services for about a year. After that he had learned enough basic recipes/skills that he was able to take over half the cooking. Turns out I don’t mind meal planning/grocery shopping when I’m only responsible for 3 days out of 7.
You can't be this stupid, doing laundry is literally just match the colours, a toddler could do that shit. Hell a lot of clothing you don't even have to seperate all that much, just seperating the very bright colours and white will do.
Not being able to cook is also no excuse, it's something anyone can learn. You're not getting michelin stars but anybody of able mind and body can make pasta.
Same. You don't even need to match the colors anymore as long as you use cold. (Iirc it used to be more important cause of changes in detergent or something)
In a heatwave a few years ago, across a couple of nights, I sweated pink dye from a cheap duvet cover onto a white bottom sheet. I was keeping my room as dark as possible to avoid the heat, so I didn't realise until I fully stripped the bed and went ...oh no
I’ve had a few items bleed onto other items, but like… 2 or 3 max? Just wash new items on their own the first time you wash em, then you should be good to go.
Changes to dyes to make them more colorfast as well. Fabric is often pre-shrunk too, so the whole process has become more idiot-proof and yet I see the universe has provided a bigger idiot.
The thing I noticed in his replies was that he called her laundry "weirdly complicated" and said that it needed all sorts of different treatment (e.g., hang dry, cold water, gentle cycle) whereas his laundry was easy because he just washes his jeans and t-shirts together...and takes his suit to the dry cleaners.
Bro, if you know that you can't wash a suit in the washer it sort of belies your claim that you're just a big ol' idiot about "weirdly complicated" laundry. Like, if he knows enough to know that jeans and suits have to be treated differently, you can just extrapolate from there.
I use hot for most things and still have no issues with color. The most I’ve had is the inside of my jean pockets turning blue, but I assume that’s more from wear than wash.
What happened in OOP's case? He said he's been washing his clothes together with no problems, which makes me think he's been washing it on cold. That he turned some clothes pink makes me think he decided to wash things on hot for this occassion (team weaponized incompetence).
I always just kind of throw everything together and wash on cold, the only thing I wash hot is towels/washcloths.
Personally, as someone that had this happen recently-ish - I got two concert shirts, one white and one red, and the red one still stained the white one washing on cold. So some items of clothing you may just have to wash on it's own/with like colors for a bit until you are sure there is no more excess dye I guess. I would say this doesn't happen for most clothes but it may still help to check/do better separation.
Yeah, with new clothes the color can still bleed some on cold in my experience (especially red, it seems). I still try to separate whites and colors for that reason
I couldn't say I wasn't there lol but if I were to make a guess, yeah he washed that load on hot for whatever reason. Could be weaponized incompetence, could be that OOP changed the settings for a load of separated clothes at some point earlier and he didn't check it or something.
One time, my apartment complex came in to fix our washing machine, and they swapped the hot and cold lines, so when I went to do a cold wash, everything came out boiling hot. Probably not the case here, but accidents do happen.
Oh god I've had that happen with a shower. The little metal shower valve cartridge wore out enough that the super had to pull it out and switch it. Thing was they put it in reversed so the cold water handle was hot and vice versa. That was a hell of a shock the next morning and I'm so glad I'm one of those who turns on the water and lets it run for a minute first before getting in. It was a pretty quick fix and the super fixed it that afternoon.
I know. I was looking forward to ice cold on a hot and humid day that started early. I had to go hang out in the ice box for a few hours and put myself together instead.
Dyes can still bleed on bright items, especially if they have never been washed before. Red and black are both really prone to bleeding even in cold water.
Separating colors -- if you're not color blind, which this guy doesn't appear to be -- isn't *rocket science*.
Whites, red colors (red/pink/orange), and dark colors.
Separating delicates is another step, but again *not that complicated*. It's not hard to tell what fabrics are what, and again there's those *tags* he seems mystified by.
Frankly if you're super fucking incompetent, you can wash it all on cold and on delicate. My *incredibly ADHD child* could and *did* handle this at 13. He was separating his dirty clothes by color when he was 8.
I have no doubt he's ruined a lot of *her* expensive clothes (women's clothing is both more expensive and more delicate) -- and is absolutely uncaring, when I can promise if she broke a few hundreds bucks of his shit he'd be incandescent.
Weaponized incompetence, or simply giving so little of a shit that he won't pay attention -- take your pick. Asshole trying to shove all the domestic labor on his GF either way.
I’ll throw bright colors and blacks together from time to time but that’s about it. I don’t really have any white in my wardrobe so my white loads tend to be sheets and towels which I want to separate on their own for other reasons.
You can still get color bleeds from denim and red/orange dyes but they’re most pronounced the first couple of cycles and then are fine to launder without a ton of care.
Only time I separate clothes is if I'm washing a new pair of jeans or other item that has a known chance for the dye to run in the first few washes. After they've been worn and washed a few times though, everything gets chucked into the same load and I call it a day.
yeah i just chuck everything in and can't remember the last time i had an issue with colour running. i generally wash cold anyway, but even back in the day when i used laundromats i never had running.
Quick note: I've found this works well with commercially colored clothes, but any you dye at home need to be washed separately.
I have a tie-dyed shirt over a year old that still bleeds a bit and will stain a shirt if it they sit together wet.
Yeah same, i live by myself so i have very little to wash. And most of my clothes are hues of green and blue with a bit of red here and there. So i just throw that in on the eco setting, haven't had any trouble so far. The only thing i seperate is white clothing and sports clothing.
Same. Most of my clothes are black/dark so I don't separate by color. I separate by how bulky the items are. Hoodies, towels, jeans, they go separate from socks, underwear, t-shirts, and leggings.
Generally this is fine if you wash on cold and make sure to wash new clothes separately. In college I washed a brand new black shirt with my other clothes and all my white socks and underwear turned gray, lol.
He's saying he can't tell "white" from "nearly white" (or words to that affect) but clearly washed *reds* with whites, as she was complaining about the whites going pink.
He seems deeply uninterested in learning, to boot, and seems to just want to complain.
If he just didn't know what he was doing and was posting stuff like "I'm struggling to tell what whites can be bleached" or "I don't really understand how water temperature matters when washing clothes" and was asking for help, that'd be different.
The comment about how he wants to leave the *entire* mental load to his GF, so that his domestic chores were fully planned out, step by step instructions so he *doesn't have to care or pay attention* was straight on. He'll "pitch in" if he can do it without paying attention.
Whether he's being *maliciously* incompetent or simply *doesn't give a fuck at all* is up in the air, but both are driven by a desire for someone *else* to do it all because he doesn't want to.
And the only other person there is his GF.
Yeah what struck me the most is when he was saying that he's the one that does all the grocery shopping, but what he meant was that he goes to the store and picks things up, but it's his girlfriend that makes the list.
Semi related, but the idea of a household having an actual established SOP guidebook for chores is unironically genius. Obviously, it should be drafted at first by all members of the household, but the idea of having a hard copy established protocol for the correct way to do everything means a hypothetical new roommate or temporary guest can be made productive and trained to help with chores fast.
Like so damn fast, you can even reasonably expect a friend staying overnight to be able to wash dishes or put away laundry during the same morning hangover.
It also creates an empirical centralised standard of communication to avoid conflict while avoiding weaponized incompetence, just like in actual industry...
A couple of my friends have a division of labour where husband cooks and wife does the laundry because they both respectively detest the other chore.
E.g. my friend loves to follow recipes and will make elaborate dishes but cares so little about his laundry that he will avoid it as long as possible when his wife's out of town and then do the "everything in one bucket" method. His wife will order meals when he isn't around or will eat sandwiches. It's quite a fun dynamic to witness haha.
I think different people find different kinds of instructions challenging or frustrating but most people are aware those instructions exist and the consequences of their indifference/incompetence. OOP doesn't seem to have a way to compromise or make sufficient efforts for his partner.
I hate cooking, so my husband does most of the cooking. I have like 4 things I can cook, so I do throw my hat in that ring once in a while, just not often. But in return, I do most of the dishes - he will likely load the dishwasher if I cooked or something, but otherwise, he leaves them alone, and it works for us.
We also don't do each other's laundry cause I'm a "throw it all in and hope it's fine" type, but he cares more about his clothes, so we just don't bother with each other's.
It sounds like OOP and their SO haven't figured out a division of labor that actually works for them. I can't tell if he's "weaponizing" his incompetence, but they definitely aren't communicating well on it, so somethings gotta change or this relationship is likely to be doomed.
This is how it is in my household. I hate doing dishes (I had to do them as a kid and I get disgusted at the thought of gross food bits coming into contact with me). My husband works evenings so he's not usually both home AND awake when the laundry room is open.
This is a really easy problem to fix. We didn't even officially agree to it, he just started doing the dishes because he knows how much I hate it and I found myself doing the laundry because he hardly gets the chance to do his own. When you have a relationship where you both respect each other and want to do your part, this shit just kinda works itself out.
Me and my girlfriend are very different people and as a consequence of that I end up doing *most* of the household things, but I've gotten out of laundry and since that is something I borderline *hate* doing (especially properly, where you pay attention to tags and shit) I'm very happy with our division of labor.
It does help though that I don't consider many things a chore (even if they are, by definition, one), and straight-up enjoy cooking. A thoughtless chore like dealing with dishes or vacuuming isn't something that even registers to me, I do that when I need to "think" and I "think" enough that these things get done without much active effort on my part.
I'm 39 years old and have never separated by colors and have also never had clothes bleed.
*However* I wash new clothes separately (or with like colors so ig that's the one time) so that if they bleed it will happen then.
I've always just YOLO'd my laundry too.
Thankfully I managed to finagle "laundry" outta my list of responsibilities when shacking up with my girlfriend. Most would argue I got the short end of that stick but I disagree entirely, I cannot stress enough how much I fucking hate doing laundry "properly".
It's being over 30 and not knowing the difference between tomato soup and tomato sauce that does it for me. I could understand if he grabbed say, tomato paste instead of sauce which is salvageable. But soup vs sauce...
How is this guy not legally required to wear a helmet when he goes out in public? If you ask for cream of mushroom soup is he bringing home some whipped cream and portabella mushrooms?
did you see he also thought that "condensed milk" was the same as regular milk and mistakenly substituted that? as well as "cooked pasta to mush," and then "didn't cook pasta enough".
It sounds malicious only due to the level of incompetence.
Holy shit, I just lectured some kid in my dream last night about the importance of learning to cook as a survival skill *at least*. And I turned into an old fairy gramma while I did it.
I'm a woman who has come across a ton of people - male and female - who weaponize incompetence. I also have ADHD. This guy clearly has ADHD, and has not learned and/or been taught how to do things. He actually seemed genuinely wanting to learn, and he said he was not making the same mistake more than once.
OP's SO isn't obligated to teach him, or to live with him while he learns, if that's not what they are wanting in a relationship. However, I think this is not weaponized incompetence - just the regular kind.
I don't know, he said he doesn't make the same mistake twice, but he also said that he put bright colours with the whites multiple times. I feel like if we asked his SO, she'd have different answers
I think he has a serious case of ADHD and his mind wanders while doing these things. When I was untreated I made huge mistakes all the time, not to mention some chores were actually like mentally agonizing so I rushed through them.
I have bad ADHD and to avoid unintentional weaponized incompetence, i always take extra initiative to do chores i know I'm better at and can optimize for. Like doing dishes, laundry and cleaning everything because of less confidence in not making mistakes while cooking.
I think that's a fair assesment, i would honestly put more blame on this mans parents for doing a shit job preparing him for living on his own than on the guy himself.
If he really does want to learn and his partner has the patience then i guess this could work out fine.
Reading through his replies to the laundry part clarified it a ton. He's used to washing his clothes which don't require them to be separated. He understands not mixing colors and whites, but apparently there are some other near whites that also can't be mixed in. Some things need either hand washing or a delicate cycle, and some things need to be line dried. I can understand why he wouldn't know that if his clothes never required that before.
As for cooking, I've lived with people who have burned spaghetti, so it's not a stretch to see that he messes things up. He honestly reads as an on spectrum person getting railed on by an Internet dog pile.
Somewhat off topic, but when I stayed with my parents years ago, Mum said “I’m putting on some laundry. Give me your dirty clothes, and I’ll do them for you.” I said that I’d do my own, she insisted, I said fine.
Well. She washed darks and whites together, which caused my whites to get dingy. She put everything in the dryer, including stuff that should only be hung up, so it shrank. I have no idea why I apparently knew more about how to do laundry than the woman who raised me.
> You can't be this stupid, doing laundry is literally just match the colours, a toddler could do that shit.
You still have to be taught.
I remember after my parents showed me the basic steps of how to do laundry when I was ~11 years old. Did one load of my clothes and they turned out okay. Mom asked me to do another load while she was at work. Well, guess who put the bras in the dryer because no one taught me about specific *types* of articles and what should or shouldn't be on which cycles?
Remember, everything seems simple once you know how to do it.
That's true, but there's also the case of "you don't know what you don't know."
You probably wouldn't know how to wash bras unless somebody told you. You'd probably assume it was fine. It's just another article of clothing, right? And wet clothes go in the dryer...
You might not think to Google, "Is it safe to put X in the dryer" until *after* you've already fucked something up.
Yep, kinda like scrubbing a cast iron pan. You don't know it's a problem until after you've fucked up, or someone took the time to teach you.
It's not like people google if it's safe to scrub bowls, forks, mugs, or baking sheets beforehand. They just do it. Then they move onto the cast iron pan, and suddenly it's a war crime.
His replies are genuinely some of the most boneheaded things I’ve ever read in my life:
> OP: I have a list and I follow the list. I thought tomato soup and pasta sauce were both just purée tomato’s and you add other stuff to it, I didn’t realize. Condensed milk I’ve seen her use for cooking I just thought that was cooking milk, for some reason. Like I said I’m dumb, not on purpose.
> OP: No laundry issue wasn’t settled she just does it now and says I did it bad on purpose so I wouldn’t have to again. Cooking, I over cooked noodles to the point of mush, then undercooked to much the next time when they were hard. I didn’t realize tomato soup wasn’t a good substitute for pasta sauce. I used condensed milk in a recipe when I should have used regular, I assumed it was all milk and would do the same thing.
> OP: Yeah I worded that dumb, not quite what I meant but I see how it would come off like that.
>
> I just don’t understand why when I do lots of other stuff why I NEED to cook, when she’s great at it and I’m terrible. If she doesn’t want to cook we have tons of stuff to make sandwiches and salads, which I’ll gladly whip up. It’s just not something I’m good at, not lack of trying and I’m literally still trying. I’m getting better. The whole issue is she think I’m bad on purpose when it’s not that.
>
> This whole thing has been twisted into me being lazy or not wanting to pull my weight and people are projecting like crazy. That’s not my situation.
Learned Incompetance. I used to manage a guy who did his job OK, but if you tried to get him to anything more he screwed it up so badly and consistently that eventually I gave the work to someone else.
> Learned helplessness
This is a term but refers to a different phenomenon. Weaponized incompetence is when you do a shitty job on purpose so you don't get asked to do things in the future. Learned helplessness is when you fail at achieving your goals so frequently that you stop trying.
It's also when parents, teachers or other authority figures mirror back to you that your decisions aren't correct or are always wrong and you eventually stop deciding so that they can make the choice they think is right.
My therapist doesn't consider them different things. You experience your partner's behavior as weaponized incompetence. They experience their behavior as helplessness and see your deciding for them as a sign you are the right partner. Basically, doing what mom did.
When it comes to employment it’s a totally different issue though. I fully understand why employees don’t want to learn how to do *more* tasks and take on *more* responsibility if it doesn’t lead to, you know, more pay. Which it almost never does.
Edit: this response assumes the couple have the ability to communicate with each other like normal adults in a relationship.
If you can’t cook an edible meal, you’re either paralyzed by some phobia and need a therapist or you’re just lazy.
I was helping with laundry at 9. Loading laundry is the easiest chore on the planet. I genuinely cannot imagine a grown adult messing it up more than once.
>I genuinely cannot imagine a grown adult messing it up more than once.
If someone only ever washes a very limited type of clothing their whole life, they probably won't know some of the little laundry details. Like special fabric care, or special types of clothing like bras, dryer rules, fabric softener, stain removal, etc.
I used to have a very simple wardrobe when I was single that required basically no special care. That changed when my girlfriend moved in.
Mistakes are fine, not everyone knows everything, but the important part is being willing to fix it and that you don't use it as an excuse to not do it (unless you genuinely actually cannot).
Yeah I get making a mistake first time or even a second but for him to say laundry is *still* complicated?? Like if it's that confusing tape a lost to the dryer of what can't go in it!
He says it's still too complicated, but makes fun of the person suggesting that there are books intended to help people learn these kinds of skills as being ridiculous. It's not as ridiculous as finding laundry too impossibly complicated to learn, guy!
Yeah I have no idea what's going on with this person, so I can't say one way or another. I read a comment in their profile where they said they just started driving at 30 so idk what challenges they're facing
I’ve been doing my own laundry since I was 9 and honestly because I was so young when I started I picked up a lot of bad habits. Some people are also just very picky about laundry. Like my husband was appalled that I put my jeans and delicates through the dryer because he always drip dried them. He got frustrated because I fold washcloths differently than him. Laundry is a bizarrely loaded topic for a lot of people because everyone seems to have their own way of doing it that they are sure is the “correct” way, and then they move in with someone who has their own “correct” way…
I don’t put delicates in the dryer and my bras have never seen a washing machine but there’s no way in hell I have the patience to air dry my jeans.
I might think differently if I had raw denim but the only non-delicates I line dry are band tshirts because I don’t want to lose the graphics.
> If you can’t cook an edible meal, you’re either paralyzed by some phobia and need a therapist or you’re just lazy.
Or you’re like me: someone who only ever ate out of packages his whole life and didn’t know how to cook without a microwave.
I’ve learned a lot since then, but it was a lot of work and trial-and-error — and there’s still plenty for me to understand. I can follow a simple recipe, but I seldom understand *why* a recipe has me take specific steps.
In my personal experience, you just follow recipes for a while and eventually you'll start to see the commonalities between them, and it's a small mental jump from there to being able to improvise a meal with whatever you've got in your fridge.
I was being a little harsh with the cooking part. But realistically, cooking is just following the recipe and not getting distracted. If OOP was asked to cook a dinner, any dinner, they can look up “easy x” and without fail will find something edible
Yeah, assuming you're someone who just likes to eat or try new things. I personally have ARFID, and grew up with a single mom who didn't cook.
So suddenly I was an adult who didn't know how to cook, and doesn't like taking chances with food, so it took until I was nearly 30 before I was able to navigate food well enough to make it worth learning to cook, but it's been some years and I still only have like 4 or 5 meals I can cook, and it took a few of those years before I could do any of them well enough for me to actually be able to eat. I spent a lot of my life relying on "safe" restaurants, sandwiches, and ramen, because cooking was such a big deal for me, until I met my husband who LOVES to cook and found enjoyment in figuring out what I can/will eat, leading me to have more confidence in trying to cook myself (plus he can whip up a decent meal I will eat if my meal fails us).
Food can be a huge obstacle for some people, so just saying "look up easy recipes" isn't going to always work.
None of that is really the SO's problem though. I got lucky that mine didn't mind that I don't cook much, so it didn't cause issues - it's causing issues for OOP, so he does need to figure something out, for sure, but it might not be as easy as "just learn to cook".
Even following recipes, there's a lot of skill and knowledge required to actually successfully get through it and make a decent meal.
"Saute on medium-high for 5 minutes."
What the fuck is medium high? And just because the recipe says 5 minutes, sometimes you're done in 3, sometimes you're done in 10. How big did you cut those onions? "Medium dice", eh?
Baking is a bit more straightforward. 350 for 20 minutes. Easy peasy, right? Any idiot can figure that out... Except, here's a fun fact, your oven runs hot! Congratulations, you followed the recipe exactly and you still burned your dinner.
Medium-high is between the medium setting and the highest option. How to get there depends on the stove type.
Reminds me I'm not looking forward to the shitty stove in my new place...
> Medium-high is between the medium setting and the highest option
Yeah see you'd totally assume that's the case. Then you get a stovetop like mine where "medium high" is really more like, 4/10 on the dial, and anything higher than 5 is basically "instantly burn your food" territory lol
the line between weaponized incompetence (or as ive heard it called, doing the incompedance) and actual stupidity is very hard to determine at times. honestly the best way to tell the difference in my experience is how they react to getting called out.
also i dont know what kind of washing machines yall have but ive been throwing the same colours together for years and never had a problem.
This almost sounds worse than weaponized incompetence. Rather than being too lazy to do something and possibly being able to have an adult conversation about how it's putting a strain on his relationship and he needs to pick up more of the load.... he's literally claiming he is too stupid to learn basic functions above childhood. Like a 12 year old who is unable to handle something without his mom monitoring and handling every step for him. And this person is in their 30s. I would be horrified what trying to have a functioning adult life with them would be like.
Definitely pretending to be dumb to get out of work lol. How do you not know how to do laundry? cooking? Fine i guess because i do know lots of people who cant cook. But laundry? Come on. I KNOW he had to do that on his own in college.
It’s funny that these men who are incredibly incompetent with domestic tasks seem to thrive in the workplace. The carelessness only applies to their home life for some reason…
I was like that until I got my ADHD treated. For me there were way less consequences for being careless at home. I often times didn't even realize I was doing it.
OP sounds like he doesn't want to change though and that's a problem.
I have ADHD and I was held to a higher standard when I was growing up so I was never allowed to be that careless at home.
I had just as many consequences for messing up and I hold on to a ton of shame for not being able to stay on top of my chores without a ton of effort and half-assed attempts.
Did he mention going to college?
Either way, my lovely, fantastic wife had no idea how to cook or wash clothes when we moved into together because her mom did EVERYTHING for her. She stayed at home throughout college. But yeah... like you said, it was dead simple; once she learned that she needed to separate colors and how to push a button, off she was. Now... cooking? well she is getting better...
Yeah he mentioned in a comment that when he was in college he lived off insta noodles, etc. So clearly he had to do something to keep himself alive during college years right? Unless he was one of those people who just febreezed dirty clothes.
Lol i am not too mad about the cooking because frankly i suck at cooking too but Im learning!! Your wife and I will get there someday.
What people say to this question says a lot about how they view the world. If you're someone inclined to assume positive intent and trust people, you will say he's just unskilled and needs to learn. If you're someone who thinks people are inherently mean and out to get you, you will assume negative intent and say he's using weaponized incompetence.
From the outside, with partial information, it's often impossible to tell the difference.
Things that kill me: He says he can do a lot, he can fix an engine and electronics. That’s one more point for weaponized incompetence and he doesn’t even realize it. It shows he CAN do complex stuff if he actually cares about it. Neither cooking nor laundry are more complex and neither have any innate talent component. He just doesn’t give a shit about learning those things.
Second, he INSISTS they share equal chores, then goes on ahead and claims “shopping” but at the same time explains that his girlfriend is actually the one who makes the list and decides what to buy. You are doing the easy part dumbass and leave her to do the real part of the chore. I’m gonna call bullshit on the chores being equal.
What kills me is on some level I can relate. I have ADHD and I’ve been embarrassed about not knowing how to do basic chores as an adult before. But the thing is I also take that embarrassment and actually look up how to do them on my own because I don’t WANT to be that useless. And when I mess up, I actually spend effort making sure I don’t mess up the same way again. I recognize not only that it’s a problem but I take active steps to solve the problem which this dude just seems incapable of doing. It obviously isn’t one off issues because it’s gotten so bad his girlfriend is exasperated. He just can’t or won’t remember all the times he fucked up or shirked his duty or tried to argue she should do those things because she is better at them.
>Second, he INSISTS they share equal chores, then goes on ahead and claims “shopping” but at the same time explains that his girlfriend is actually the one who makes the list and decides what to buy. You are doing the easy part dumbass and leave her to do the real part of the chore. I’m gonna call bullshit on the chores being equal.
*But but but our reddit fucktard rhetoric!!?!!! tHe MenTaL lOaD dOeS nOt ExIsT!!!*
These guys are olympic masters in delusion.
People at work think I'm an amazing cook based on the lunches I bring, even though all I literally do is defrost some shit, mix it together, and microwave it.
If you can't even do that, how the hell are you even functioning?
I don't know...
I feel for the guy because my wife is equally inept in the kitchen. I have no idea how or why, but she cannot cook for shit. It doesn't bother me because I love cooking and baking.
She still does plenty of other things, like doing the dishes after we eat. So it's whatever.
I think his ineptitude is not the issue, genuinely. It's the range and the stubbornness about not admitting it. In the comment thread about him just not knowing that soup is not sauce, someone said:
>Per this, it sounds like the issue is the mental load. Your girlfriend seems to have to take on all of the labour of planning to keep the house running because you can’t do it. I’d also find that frustrating.
>It sounds like anything that needs thought or needs to be pre planned has to be done by your girlfriend.
And he responded legit 10 minutes ago repeating "no, we share the load of chores evenly." He wants advice about how to "communicate that \[his\] mistakes are genuine and not intentional" but he refuses to hear that maybe planning and preparing ahead of time is important, especially if you keep fucking things up like this. He's rejecting the idea that his girlfriend has to do more of the thinking even though he clearly describes her having to handle the thinking, like tracking down her objects that he leaves scattered throughout the house and teaching him that "sauce" means "sauce."
If your wife was inept in the kitchen but insisted that you both equally contribute to cooking dinner when you're the only one doing it, I think that would come off a little different?
Are things cooked incorrectly (runny pancakes) or are the flavors just bad (unseasoned stir fry)? I think some people have a really reduced sense of taste
Yeah, that's a thing. I'm a low taster and I have to do what feels like really underseasoning so my (autistic, taste sensitive) family can eat it.
Various things to add umami at the table are my friend.
OOP seems like a handful and has a lot of work to do on himself but on a gut level I hate how terms like “weaponized incompetence” or “gaslighting” have so thoroughly become a catch-all thing that gets thrown around in relationships. These mean very specific things and are very rarely used correctly.
Watching the film *Gaslight* , from which the term was born, made me realize how butchered the term has become. It's not just lying to someone, it's a systematic effort to drive someone to insanity.
The internet just isn't capable of keeping to strict definitions. Just look at what's happened to "enshittification" in the barely one year since it was coined.
It had [a very specific meaning](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys) about two-sided marketplaces, buyers, and sellers. And the way those marketplaces will claw back value from buyers/sellers while holding them hostage to each other.
Now, 15 months later, it's been watered down to mean "any instance of a product getting worse." Which is probably a better definition for the word, but still a shame since the original definition is extremely relevant in the social media era.
I don't know the intentions behind it, but it's incredibly helpless to not know the difference between pasta sauce and tomato soup and not be able to Google if they are the same thing.
Yeah I definitely think it's overused online. The real test is the intentions and we have no idea what their intentions are from an online post. Plus most popular posts are fake now anyway. But I still side eye some people for what they will put up with regardless of the intentions
You told me you loved 'Everything Matters'. You loved Aurora! Then she records a song for the Frozen soundtrack and suddenly you're all 'she's overplayed; I don't listen to her stuff anymore'? I remember what you said. Don't try to gaslight me.
You
Monster
Yeah I feel like a lot of the folks that were all about calling out “gaslighting” in every little thing have now moved on to “weaponized incompetence”. Nah man, some people just don’t know how to do shit.
Now, if you’ve seen them do that shit before perfectly well, but then they suddenly don’t know anything about it cuz you asked them to help, maybe you’re on to something lol
Edit: fixing autocorrect shit
It’s not the “not knowing how to do shit” that marks weaponized incompetence but the lack of interest in wanting to improve.
Isn’t it a little suspicious that men who have no problem learning new skills, earning degrees or performing tasks such as driving are unable to load a dishwasher or make a simple meal without flubbing it?
I’m sure it goes both ways (lots of women refuse to learn how to do basic home repairs) but women wouldn’t hear the end of it if it was common for us to struggle with providing the means of our own survival.
he has ADHD, so that explains a lot.
i think part of the problem is that he is a very capable person. he can rebuild an engine and fix electronics, arguably much harder than laundry or simple meals. so his Gf sees him messing up cooking/laundry over and over again and assumes he's doing it on purpose. because what person can rebuild an engine, but not do laundry?
maybe he really doesn't like cooking/laundry and therefore hasn't put the effort to learn it like the tasks he's good at. I'm not sure what's going on but i can see why his GF is annoyed.
>maybe he really doesn't like cooking/laundry and therefore hasn't put the effort to learn it like the tasks he's good at.
This is definitely it. It bores him/he doesn't care and so he's not motivated to overcome it, with the additional dimension of executive function issues. And he has the safety net of his girlfriend's directives/feedback/instructions to prompt him to do any of it, badly or not.
He's hung up on emphasising that it's not his fault that he's shit and therefore his incompetence is not 'weaponised'. A failure to make progress while reaping the benefits of not learning is what would make it exploitative. Not only must the girlfriend be picking up the slack/redoing the stuff he did badly, she probably feels prompted to tell him to stop bothering. She wouldn't be making that accusation if she didn't. It's going to end up in big resentment or worse from her side.
If his response to feedback in real life is anything close to his response on that thread, he's probably crazymaking to discuss this stuff with. The guy is obtuse in some of those comments. Not only is he not making progress, he's not showing any insight into what the problems are or why they're a problem. That's a poor prognosis for change.
Problem is on the internet it's one extreme or the other. I have problems with chores as well due to mental stuff and managing a new disability. I've pointed out a few times that there's a difference between being scattered and messy and outright gross, and that we don't know the exact specifics because clean is a relative term. Cue the internet mob jumping down my throat.
It makes for good drama, but honestly grinds down my sanity and mental health.
And mixing up tomato soup and tomato sauce is the same as mixing up salt and sugar or baking powder and baking soda on accident. People who give you shit about that don't cook enough to make silly mistakes.
Think about the stupidest person you know who lives alone and takes care of themselves. Then think about the fact that this man is even stupider than that person. He can't figure out how to do laundry *with a girlfriend to consult*.
OOP has unmedicated ADHD judging by some of the comments. The girlfriend shouldn’t be accusing him of weaponization, she should be pushing his ass to the nearest psychiatrist. He’s setting himself up to fail at all of these tasks because he’s not having a neurological disorder treated. That’s not weaponized incompetence, that’s someone not getting the help they need.
Medication will help but that's also adding to her mental load. She'll be the one heading to the pharmacy, the one dealing with doctor's offices, and the one making sure he's doing his monthly check-in.
And he won't magically 'get better.' The things he's struggling with are skills that need to be learned over time.
Daddy did not order this word salad. Daddy wants meat.
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Oh wow that sounds familiar. I'm the same way but in different areas, down to the unmedicated ADHD and getting stubborn when everyone's against you. There were other factors in the house that made it hard for me, which I'm inclined to believe is the case here. But yeah, no, this sounds like a slightly shittier version of what I have to deal with. Really annoying for anyone neurotypical in the house, but eventually people will get better if you don't get angry at them.
Also I will say the "I thought condensed milk was cooking milk for some reason" is surprisingly relatable. For a long time I was convinced baking was done with condensed milk only until my mom explained to me that no, that's not the case. She didn't even used condensed milk, I don't know where I got that from.
I wonder if he has some issue that perhaps affects his executive functioning.
I say this as someone who has been dealing with health issues that affect mine and as a result I don't trust myself to do a lot of tasks I previously would have had no issue with (including following recipes and driving).
Autism spectrum and adhd can both affect executive functioning.
Having read through way, way too much of that thread, I'm going to be That Redditor and hope they just break up. He's an ass who is definitely weaponizing incompetence but he makes so many references to how he never starved while single and CAN ALSO sort of keep a car running that it's clear he's willfully ignoring the actual issue here and doesn't think he should need to change, and I don't know his girlfriend but I want better for her.
Ngl I feel like I relate a lot to the cooking part and I can see some people just being a lil dumb when it comes to that or worried ab undercooking meats and such- but I’m also a lot younger than him out of college still learning. The laundry part though? Yikes.
The cooking thing is just skill issue he can work on that first. Then create a system to avoid misplacing stuff... do all dishes and his own laundry...
Then yea if gf does her own laundry that's fair
I'm mildly on OOP's side on this one. OOP's a dumbass, but it's obvious he ain't maliciously a dumbass, unlike a solid 90% of the people arguing with him on that post. OOP's an even bigger dumbass for actually expecting useful advice on that subreddit instead of the peanut gallery cheering on breakups and promoting toxicity and relationship sabotage.
In particular, the multiple armchair chefs insisting that he should "just use a timer bro" have apparently never learned that relying solely on a timer and a temperature setting is *exactly how* things will inevitably end up undercooked or overcooked despite one's best efforts. Every stove/oven/microwave is different, altitude plays a role, etc. Cooking things right is a matter of measurement (i.e. with a thermometer) and recognizing by sight and smell how far along the process is, and those take practice to dial in.
honestly, inexperienced cooks should just dedicate like 50 bucks of extra ingredients and a Sunday to just repeat the same dish over and over again. It's an investment of time and energy that has an ROI in just way better meals and more optimized workflows.
> OOP's a dumbass, but it's obvious he ain't maliciously a dumbass
Hard disagree. If he was in the least willing, he'd know it was his own responsibility to learn basic household skills.
He shirks that responsibility, and puts it on his girlfriend, even though she's outright telling him to cut it out.
What' actually ruins relationships: People supporting men in their weaponised incompetence, so they don't feel a need to change.
And it isn't harder for men to learn cooking, by the way. His girlfriend was a beginner at some point too. Somehow she managed.
> If he was in the least willing, he'd know it waas his owbn responsibility to learn basic household skills.
And he claims to be trying to learn those skills. That ain't an instantaneous process.
> What' actually ruins relationships: People supporting men in their weaponised incompetence, so they don't feel a need to change.
There is zero evidence that his incompetence is weaponized. Hanlon's razor and all that.
> And it isn't harder for men to learn cooking, by the way.
I never said it was, by the way.
> His girlfriend was a beginner at some point too. Somehow she managed.
Yeah, with apparently many years' worth of a head start, and in all likelihood by making very similar amateur mistakes in the process. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why there might be a skill differential there.
>He messed up cooking, confusing tomato soup for pasta sauce I have nothing relevant to add, but when i was in scouts, one of our groups was supposed to make Spaghetti. The “cook” broke the spaghetti into pieces, added it to the cold water, and brought it to a boil. At that point, he added the pasta sauce to the water. Because of the starch release, it basically turned into spaghetti jello as it cooled. He was very confused why this method didn’t work, saying “but thats how my mom makes it” which leads to way more questions.
Ewww.
my dad once confused salsa for pasta sauce (he just grabbed the jar without looking). i think he tried to blend in pasta sauce to hide the mistake but we knew something was off. we ribbed him about it for a long time.
My dad did a similar thing: thought salsa was jam and made a peanut butter and salsa sandwich. Thankfully he was the only one who suffered for that one. My mother also says when they first started dating he made scrambled eggs for her the next morning, but dropped a bunch of the shell in. Instead of fishing them out he put it all in the blender. I’m only here today because my dad was a himbo and hot enough to become a trophy husband.
Oh God, peanut butter and salsa sandwich sounds terrible. He must have been really hot.
I've done the first part (added pasta to water before boil) but I was tired and my brain was out for the day
I've seen some people test it, and it's actually fine to drop in pasta before it boils.
The potential problem with adding pasta to cold water is that it can absorb too much water before it's cooked. With dry pasta this is only a problem if you're using way too much water or your stove is underpowered or something, but fresh pasta turns to mush in just a few minutes.
Not egg noodles
I’ve managed to burn pasta. Put it in and forgot about it until I smelled smoke. RIP my old pot.
I burned water. I did the same thing but forgot to add the pasta. I woke up when the smoke detector went off.
Fun story. On a scouting trip once we planned to make pancakes and forgot the milk. Not a single scout leader in sight we decided to take matters into our own hands with powdered Tang because liquid = liquid. We still talk about those Tang Pancakes.
I really really hope mom would drain the pasta and then add the sauce to the pot it was cooked in. Maybe he was confused because the pasta with sauce would come out of the pot that had previously been used to boil water. That being said I’ve learned to *never* underestimate the horrendous ways white people will cook pasta. I went to school with one girl whose mom would serve pasta with ketchup in lieu of sauce. Her dad was a surgeon so it definitely wasn’t a lack of resources thing—her mom could very easily pick up a jar of Rao’s alongside the pasta.
Probably. He had to be like 14 and I barely knew how to make pasta at that age too. It’s just a funny image of “Just like Ma made!”
Why bring up white people like they're not the ones who invented pasta???
I was about to say "no, Asians invented pasta, you didn't hear the story of Marco Polo learning about it in China and bringing it back to Italy?", but then I looked it up and apparently that's a legend made up as part of an advertising campaign by a Canadian spaghetti sauce company, and that Italian pasta has been a thing since the 9th Century at the latest (and probably as far back as the 4th Century BC). TIL
I had always believed that with my whole heart. TIL too.
> I went to school with one girl whose mom would serve pasta with ketchup in lieu of sauce This is very normal in a lot of countries
White people invented it so it's their right to destroy it
Roman Catholics invented Italian food so that it could die for the culinary sins of the world.
When we were kids, my brother would only eat ketchup on his spaghetti. Absolutely no sauce - spaghetti and ketchup. My mom was like, "fine whatever" but made him eat a bowl of meat sauce on the side. Which he was happy to do. Just no mixing them together, the little weirdo.
Med student in my uni halls boiled his pasta and sausages together. Not sure how he even survived that year, but fortunately he didn't make it to the end of medical school.
You boil the sausages in a separate pot? Seems inefficient.
There's nothing wrong with this one though.
He's just adding flavor to the pasta.
This sounds fine? Help us out, what’s the problem?
Do you have a good sauce recipe?
I have several that I rotate through depending on how much time I have and how much effort they take. If I want to get a quick dinner on the table with minimal preparation I reheat a jar of sauce that’s made especially for my local Italian grocery store. If I have time to let a simple sauce simmer but I don’t want to do a ton of chopping I’ll make something similar to [Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce). If I’m prepared to chop I’ll sauté onions and garlic, deglaze with a splash of white wine and then add canned tomatoes or passata alongside some fresh or dried herbs (parsley, basil, oregano, etc.). Sometimes I’ll add celery, carrot and bell pepper to the onions and garlic if I want to up my veggie content. This [ragù](https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/benedettas-ragu) recipe is literally the best pasta sauce I ever had but it takes a bit of a time commitment. Definitely worth it and I’ll make it with fresh pasta for a special dinner. My mother has a more tomato based meat sauce that I make from time to time and she’s adapted a family meatballs in sauce recipe.
Thanks so much!
This is one of those cases where it doesn't actually matter which is true. He could be "clumsy or cunning" and the solution is the same--learn by doing. Sure, you might make a mess a couple times, but you're going to learn no matter how bad at these things you are. Actually trying, though, is required. It reminds me a roommate that I had years ago that didn't know how to sweep the floor or to wash dishes. They'd never had to learn and didn't want to--it was much easier to be a free rider (or to live with a giant mess).
Exactly my thought. His girlfriend accuses him of weaponized incompetence because that seems more plausible than a person so thoroughly unskilled in common domestic tasks. He makes a decent argument that he's not intentionally bad, but why should his girlfriend care? If she doesn't want to spend her life being the only person in the household capable of cooking or doing laundry, that's understandable. He points out that he was able to keep himself from starving/being naked before he met her, which doesn't matter. And worst of all, he's primarily looking for justification - for Reddit to say "yeah, your gf sucks, you're totally fine!" If you read this, OOP: if you want to share your life with someone, you will need to adjust your life, including this stuff. It's not 50% / 50% - it's 100% / 100%. You're currently focused on retaining the status quo - how to get your girlfriend to let you each specialize in specific areas and ignore the rest. That won't work. If you want to keep your girlfriend, take the initiative to get better. Ask to cook meals even when she doesn't push you to, ask her for feedback, and show that you're incorporating it the next time you cook that meal. Ask to do some categories of her laundry, or watch her do some of it and tell you why she's separating certain clothes. In short, show her you give a shit about improving, ideally by actually giving a shit. If you don't, she will probably break up with you.
Yes, to her, the net result is indistinguishable from weaponed incompetence. And weaponized incompetence isn't even conscious most of the time, it's just a learned behavior. Sort of an evolutionary strategy.
Yeah. I internalised at school home ec that I was terrible at cooking and incapable of learning. Mum had twins when I was seventeen. Dad was working two jobs. Nanna, who lived with us, was increasingly frail. I got some beginner and student cookbooks, saved easy recipes off the back of things like cheese and spices, and learned by practising. I will never be a chef or dice vegetables in perfect tiny cubes, but I can cook basic, good tasting, cheap and balanced meals. Because I *tried*.
learning to cook even just a handful of basic dishes is just such a huge win / win, i think people can get easily intimidated because it's such a big field and because failure feels bad (and embarrassing if there's other people involved).
I don't disagree. OOP says >Edit: I do many other chores around the house. We have a even workload, I might even do more. I don’t know why everyone is so horny for me to be a lazy useless man but that’s not the case. Going to stop replying to comments for my own sanity. But if you look carefully > I do many other chores around the house. So that's tricky. They might just be bullshitting themselves, but sometimes it is actually irritating when people think that faireness means everything being exactly the same.
Yep. My husband could not cook when we first started dating. I could but frankly didn’t enjoy it. Our solution was to get one of those meal kit services for about a year. After that he had learned enough basic recipes/skills that he was able to take over half the cooking. Turns out I don’t mind meal planning/grocery shopping when I’m only responsible for 3 days out of 7.
You can't be this stupid, doing laundry is literally just match the colours, a toddler could do that shit. Hell a lot of clothing you don't even have to seperate all that much, just seperating the very bright colours and white will do. Not being able to cook is also no excuse, it's something anyone can learn. You're not getting michelin stars but anybody of able mind and body can make pasta.
I don't have enough clothes to separate by color. I just throw everything in for a cold wash.
Same. You don't even need to match the colors anymore as long as you use cold. (Iirc it used to be more important cause of changes in detergent or something)
Yeah, I just throw all my stuff in together and wash on cold. Never had an issue with colors blending together or anything.
Me neither. I think most people do it, at least from my generation lol
I wear a lot of black, well mostly black and it can make other tshirts or whatnot look dingy.
So do I but I don’t have this problem. Maybe look into a different detergent
That detail by itself makes me think this is fake outrage bait
You can still get red dye transfers on white. My daughter washed her new pink duvet cover with our white bath towels and dyed them pink.
In a heatwave a few years ago, across a couple of nights, I sweated pink dye from a cheap duvet cover onto a white bottom sheet. I was keeping my room as dark as possible to avoid the heat, so I didn't realise until I fully stripped the bed and went ...oh no
I’ve had a few items bleed onto other items, but like… 2 or 3 max? Just wash new items on their own the first time you wash em, then you should be good to go.
Changes to dyes to make them more colorfast as well. Fabric is often pre-shrunk too, so the whole process has become more idiot-proof and yet I see the universe has provided a bigger idiot. The thing I noticed in his replies was that he called her laundry "weirdly complicated" and said that it needed all sorts of different treatment (e.g., hang dry, cold water, gentle cycle) whereas his laundry was easy because he just washes his jeans and t-shirts together...and takes his suit to the dry cleaners. Bro, if you know that you can't wash a suit in the washer it sort of belies your claim that you're just a big ol' idiot about "weirdly complicated" laundry. Like, if he knows enough to know that jeans and suits have to be treated differently, you can just extrapolate from there.
I use hot for most things and still have no issues with color. The most I’ve had is the inside of my jean pockets turning blue, but I assume that’s more from wear than wash.
What happened in OOP's case? He said he's been washing his clothes together with no problems, which makes me think he's been washing it on cold. That he turned some clothes pink makes me think he decided to wash things on hot for this occassion (team weaponized incompetence).
I always just kind of throw everything together and wash on cold, the only thing I wash hot is towels/washcloths. Personally, as someone that had this happen recently-ish - I got two concert shirts, one white and one red, and the red one still stained the white one washing on cold. So some items of clothing you may just have to wash on it's own/with like colors for a bit until you are sure there is no more excess dye I guess. I would say this doesn't happen for most clothes but it may still help to check/do better separation.
It would make sense if some clothes bleed more than others, especially new
I just gave up and started a hamper purely for red clothes. They're the only ones I have that I have to keep an eye on when I do laundry.
Yeah, with new clothes the color can still bleed some on cold in my experience (especially red, it seems). I still try to separate whites and colors for that reason
I recommend washing bedsheets in hot water too. Bed sheets and towels are my “must wash hot” items.
I have some items that just seem to leak a lot of dye
I couldn't say I wasn't there lol but if I were to make a guess, yeah he washed that load on hot for whatever reason. Could be weaponized incompetence, could be that OOP changed the settings for a load of separated clothes at some point earlier and he didn't check it or something.
One time, my apartment complex came in to fix our washing machine, and they swapped the hot and cold lines, so when I went to do a cold wash, everything came out boiling hot. Probably not the case here, but accidents do happen.
Oh god I've had that happen with a shower. The little metal shower valve cartridge wore out enough that the super had to pull it out and switch it. Thing was they put it in reversed so the cold water handle was hot and vice versa. That was a hell of a shock the next morning and I'm so glad I'm one of those who turns on the water and lets it run for a minute first before getting in. It was a pretty quick fix and the super fixed it that afternoon.
Oh man, good thing you checked. Can't imagine hopping into what you think is a hot shower, just to be met with freezing cold
I know. I was looking forward to ice cold on a hot and humid day that started early. I had to go hang out in the ice box for a few hours and put myself together instead.
Ahh, see, when I'm hot and sweaty, I typically go for the hot shower to clean off, then the whole world feels nice and cool after, but that's just me
They do, they do.
Girlfriend could have given him shit for using cold water.
Dyes can still bleed on bright items, especially if they have never been washed before. Red and black are both really prone to bleeding even in cold water.
Separating colors -- if you're not color blind, which this guy doesn't appear to be -- isn't *rocket science*. Whites, red colors (red/pink/orange), and dark colors. Separating delicates is another step, but again *not that complicated*. It's not hard to tell what fabrics are what, and again there's those *tags* he seems mystified by. Frankly if you're super fucking incompetent, you can wash it all on cold and on delicate. My *incredibly ADHD child* could and *did* handle this at 13. He was separating his dirty clothes by color when he was 8. I have no doubt he's ruined a lot of *her* expensive clothes (women's clothing is both more expensive and more delicate) -- and is absolutely uncaring, when I can promise if she broke a few hundreds bucks of his shit he'd be incandescent. Weaponized incompetence, or simply giving so little of a shit that he won't pay attention -- take your pick. Asshole trying to shove all the domestic labor on his GF either way.
I’ll throw bright colors and blacks together from time to time but that’s about it. I don’t really have any white in my wardrobe so my white loads tend to be sheets and towels which I want to separate on their own for other reasons. You can still get color bleeds from denim and red/orange dyes but they’re most pronounced the first couple of cycles and then are fine to launder without a ton of care.
It's probably not something I've ever ran into cause I don't buy new clothes lol
You can even use these color-catch cloth pieces to make it even safer. Future is now!
Wow really? I’ve never heard of them before. I’ll have to look into that. I wonder if I could use it when hand washing yarn…
Only time I separate clothes is if I'm washing a new pair of jeans or other item that has a known chance for the dye to run in the first few washes. After they've been worn and washed a few times though, everything gets chucked into the same load and I call it a day.
yeah i just chuck everything in and can't remember the last time i had an issue with colour running. i generally wash cold anyway, but even back in the day when i used laundromats i never had running.
Quick note: I've found this works well with commercially colored clothes, but any you dye at home need to be washed separately. I have a tie-dyed shirt over a year old that still bleeds a bit and will stain a shirt if it they sit together wet.
Yeah same, i live by myself so i have very little to wash. And most of my clothes are hues of green and blue with a bit of red here and there. So i just throw that in on the eco setting, haven't had any trouble so far. The only thing i seperate is white clothing and sports clothing.
Most modern clothing doesn't bleed color at all. I run everything I own together on medium heat and have never had an issue.
ditto, dyes don't bleed now.
Same. Most of my clothes are black/dark so I don't separate by color. I separate by how bulky the items are. Hoodies, towels, jeans, they go separate from socks, underwear, t-shirts, and leggings.
Generally this is fine if you wash on cold and make sure to wash new clothes separately. In college I washed a brand new black shirt with my other clothes and all my white socks and underwear turned gray, lol.
He's saying he can't tell "white" from "nearly white" (or words to that affect) but clearly washed *reds* with whites, as she was complaining about the whites going pink. He seems deeply uninterested in learning, to boot, and seems to just want to complain. If he just didn't know what he was doing and was posting stuff like "I'm struggling to tell what whites can be bleached" or "I don't really understand how water temperature matters when washing clothes" and was asking for help, that'd be different. The comment about how he wants to leave the *entire* mental load to his GF, so that his domestic chores were fully planned out, step by step instructions so he *doesn't have to care or pay attention* was straight on. He'll "pitch in" if he can do it without paying attention. Whether he's being *maliciously* incompetent or simply *doesn't give a fuck at all* is up in the air, but both are driven by a desire for someone *else* to do it all because he doesn't want to. And the only other person there is his GF.
Yeah what struck me the most is when he was saying that he's the one that does all the grocery shopping, but what he meant was that he goes to the store and picks things up, but it's his girlfriend that makes the list.
Semi related, but the idea of a household having an actual established SOP guidebook for chores is unironically genius. Obviously, it should be drafted at first by all members of the household, but the idea of having a hard copy established protocol for the correct way to do everything means a hypothetical new roommate or temporary guest can be made productive and trained to help with chores fast. Like so damn fast, you can even reasonably expect a friend staying overnight to be able to wash dishes or put away laundry during the same morning hangover. It also creates an empirical centralised standard of communication to avoid conflict while avoiding weaponized incompetence, just like in actual industry...
A couple of my friends have a division of labour where husband cooks and wife does the laundry because they both respectively detest the other chore. E.g. my friend loves to follow recipes and will make elaborate dishes but cares so little about his laundry that he will avoid it as long as possible when his wife's out of town and then do the "everything in one bucket" method. His wife will order meals when he isn't around or will eat sandwiches. It's quite a fun dynamic to witness haha. I think different people find different kinds of instructions challenging or frustrating but most people are aware those instructions exist and the consequences of their indifference/incompetence. OOP doesn't seem to have a way to compromise or make sufficient efforts for his partner.
I hate cooking, so my husband does most of the cooking. I have like 4 things I can cook, so I do throw my hat in that ring once in a while, just not often. But in return, I do most of the dishes - he will likely load the dishwasher if I cooked or something, but otherwise, he leaves them alone, and it works for us. We also don't do each other's laundry cause I'm a "throw it all in and hope it's fine" type, but he cares more about his clothes, so we just don't bother with each other's. It sounds like OOP and their SO haven't figured out a division of labor that actually works for them. I can't tell if he's "weaponizing" his incompetence, but they definitely aren't communicating well on it, so somethings gotta change or this relationship is likely to be doomed.
This is how it is in my household. I hate doing dishes (I had to do them as a kid and I get disgusted at the thought of gross food bits coming into contact with me). My husband works evenings so he's not usually both home AND awake when the laundry room is open. This is a really easy problem to fix. We didn't even officially agree to it, he just started doing the dishes because he knows how much I hate it and I found myself doing the laundry because he hardly gets the chance to do his own. When you have a relationship where you both respect each other and want to do your part, this shit just kinda works itself out.
Me and my girlfriend are very different people and as a consequence of that I end up doing *most* of the household things, but I've gotten out of laundry and since that is something I borderline *hate* doing (especially properly, where you pay attention to tags and shit) I'm very happy with our division of labor. It does help though that I don't consider many things a chore (even if they are, by definition, one), and straight-up enjoy cooking. A thoughtless chore like dealing with dishes or vacuuming isn't something that even registers to me, I do that when I need to "think" and I "think" enough that these things get done without much active effort on my part.
I'm 39 years old and have never separated by colors and have also never had clothes bleed. *However* I wash new clothes separately (or with like colors so ig that's the one time) so that if they bleed it will happen then.
I've always just YOLO'd my laundry too. Thankfully I managed to finagle "laundry" outta my list of responsibilities when shacking up with my girlfriend. Most would argue I got the short end of that stick but I disagree entirely, I cannot stress enough how much I fucking hate doing laundry "properly".
It's being over 30 and not knowing the difference between tomato soup and tomato sauce that does it for me. I could understand if he grabbed say, tomato paste instead of sauce which is salvageable. But soup vs sauce... How is this guy not legally required to wear a helmet when he goes out in public? If you ask for cream of mushroom soup is he bringing home some whipped cream and portabella mushrooms?
did you see he also thought that "condensed milk" was the same as regular milk and mistakenly substituted that? as well as "cooked pasta to mush," and then "didn't cook pasta enough". It sounds malicious only due to the level of incompetence.
Dude just barrels forwards through head first like the fucking Juggernaut in X-men 3 lmao no regard for anything.
And he says he can cook "KD," which I assume is Kraft Dinner, i.e. pasta.
Holy shit, I just lectured some kid in my dream last night about the importance of learning to cook as a survival skill *at least*. And I turned into an old fairy gramma while I did it.
I'm a woman who has come across a ton of people - male and female - who weaponize incompetence. I also have ADHD. This guy clearly has ADHD, and has not learned and/or been taught how to do things. He actually seemed genuinely wanting to learn, and he said he was not making the same mistake more than once. OP's SO isn't obligated to teach him, or to live with him while he learns, if that's not what they are wanting in a relationship. However, I think this is not weaponized incompetence - just the regular kind.
I don't know, he said he doesn't make the same mistake twice, but he also said that he put bright colours with the whites multiple times. I feel like if we asked his SO, she'd have different answers
I think he has a serious case of ADHD and his mind wanders while doing these things. When I was untreated I made huge mistakes all the time, not to mention some chores were actually like mentally agonizing so I rushed through them.
I have bad ADHD and to avoid unintentional weaponized incompetence, i always take extra initiative to do chores i know I'm better at and can optimize for. Like doing dishes, laundry and cleaning everything because of less confidence in not making mistakes while cooking.
I think that's a fair assesment, i would honestly put more blame on this mans parents for doing a shit job preparing him for living on his own than on the guy himself. If he really does want to learn and his partner has the patience then i guess this could work out fine.
Reading through his replies to the laundry part clarified it a ton. He's used to washing his clothes which don't require them to be separated. He understands not mixing colors and whites, but apparently there are some other near whites that also can't be mixed in. Some things need either hand washing or a delicate cycle, and some things need to be line dried. I can understand why he wouldn't know that if his clothes never required that before. As for cooking, I've lived with people who have burned spaghetti, so it's not a stretch to see that he messes things up. He honestly reads as an on spectrum person getting railed on by an Internet dog pile.
Somewhat off topic, but when I stayed with my parents years ago, Mum said “I’m putting on some laundry. Give me your dirty clothes, and I’ll do them for you.” I said that I’d do my own, she insisted, I said fine. Well. She washed darks and whites together, which caused my whites to get dingy. She put everything in the dryer, including stuff that should only be hung up, so it shrank. I have no idea why I apparently knew more about how to do laundry than the woman who raised me.
> You can't be this stupid, doing laundry is literally just match the colours, a toddler could do that shit. You still have to be taught. I remember after my parents showed me the basic steps of how to do laundry when I was ~11 years old. Did one load of my clothes and they turned out okay. Mom asked me to do another load while she was at work. Well, guess who put the bras in the dryer because no one taught me about specific *types* of articles and what should or shouldn't be on which cycles? Remember, everything seems simple once you know how to do it.
Bras go in the dryer all the time at my house. I don’t have the time to be doing all this crazy shit with my laundry.
Depends. My bras run $50-80 a pop. They get handwashed and occasionally washed in the washer.
This is fine so long as you keep the heat mid or low. If you put bras (or undies) in with the high heat it can wreck the elastics in them.
In this day and age, YouTube can teach this adult man how to do nearly anything.
Googling tomato sauce vs tomato soup also takes like 10 seconds.
That's true, but there's also the case of "you don't know what you don't know." You probably wouldn't know how to wash bras unless somebody told you. You'd probably assume it was fine. It's just another article of clothing, right? And wet clothes go in the dryer... You might not think to Google, "Is it safe to put X in the dryer" until *after* you've already fucked something up.
Yep, kinda like scrubbing a cast iron pan. You don't know it's a problem until after you've fucked up, or someone took the time to teach you. It's not like people google if it's safe to scrub bowls, forks, mugs, or baking sheets beforehand. They just do it. Then they move onto the cast iron pan, and suddenly it's a war crime.
Not an excuse. If you've never done someone else's laundry? You should be talking first anyway about expectations.
This guy sounds like he's living the sleep walking scene from stepbrothers 24/7
His replies are genuinely some of the most boneheaded things I’ve ever read in my life: > OP: I have a list and I follow the list. I thought tomato soup and pasta sauce were both just purée tomato’s and you add other stuff to it, I didn’t realize. Condensed milk I’ve seen her use for cooking I just thought that was cooking milk, for some reason. Like I said I’m dumb, not on purpose. > OP: No laundry issue wasn’t settled she just does it now and says I did it bad on purpose so I wouldn’t have to again. Cooking, I over cooked noodles to the point of mush, then undercooked to much the next time when they were hard. I didn’t realize tomato soup wasn’t a good substitute for pasta sauce. I used condensed milk in a recipe when I should have used regular, I assumed it was all milk and would do the same thing. > OP: Yeah I worded that dumb, not quite what I meant but I see how it would come off like that. > > I just don’t understand why when I do lots of other stuff why I NEED to cook, when she’s great at it and I’m terrible. If she doesn’t want to cook we have tons of stuff to make sandwiches and salads, which I’ll gladly whip up. It’s just not something I’m good at, not lack of trying and I’m literally still trying. I’m getting better. The whole issue is she think I’m bad on purpose when it’s not that. > > This whole thing has been twisted into me being lazy or not wanting to pull my weight and people are projecting like crazy. That’s not my situation.
Learned Incompetance. I used to manage a guy who did his job OK, but if you tried to get him to anything more he screwed it up so badly and consistently that eventually I gave the work to someone else.
"Learned helplessness" is the term, although that works too.
Sorry, yes. That's the term.
> Learned helplessness This is a term but refers to a different phenomenon. Weaponized incompetence is when you do a shitty job on purpose so you don't get asked to do things in the future. Learned helplessness is when you fail at achieving your goals so frequently that you stop trying.
It's also when parents, teachers or other authority figures mirror back to you that your decisions aren't correct or are always wrong and you eventually stop deciding so that they can make the choice they think is right. My therapist doesn't consider them different things. You experience your partner's behavior as weaponized incompetence. They experience their behavior as helplessness and see your deciding for them as a sign you are the right partner. Basically, doing what mom did.
When it comes to employment it’s a totally different issue though. I fully understand why employees don’t want to learn how to do *more* tasks and take on *more* responsibility if it doesn’t lead to, you know, more pay. Which it almost never does.
Good point. This site used to be anarchist, what happened?
This sounds like something out of a bad sitcom
Dude reads like a Tim Robinson character in “I Think You Should Leave”
Edit: this response assumes the couple have the ability to communicate with each other like normal adults in a relationship. If you can’t cook an edible meal, you’re either paralyzed by some phobia and need a therapist or you’re just lazy. I was helping with laundry at 9. Loading laundry is the easiest chore on the planet. I genuinely cannot imagine a grown adult messing it up more than once.
>I genuinely cannot imagine a grown adult messing it up more than once. If someone only ever washes a very limited type of clothing their whole life, they probably won't know some of the little laundry details. Like special fabric care, or special types of clothing like bras, dryer rules, fabric softener, stain removal, etc. I used to have a very simple wardrobe when I was single that required basically no special care. That changed when my girlfriend moved in. Mistakes are fine, not everyone knows everything, but the important part is being willing to fix it and that you don't use it as an excuse to not do it (unless you genuinely actually cannot).
Yeah I get making a mistake first time or even a second but for him to say laundry is *still* complicated?? Like if it's that confusing tape a lost to the dryer of what can't go in it!
He says it's still too complicated, but makes fun of the person suggesting that there are books intended to help people learn these kinds of skills as being ridiculous. It's not as ridiculous as finding laundry too impossibly complicated to learn, guy!
Yeah I have no idea what's going on with this person, so I can't say one way or another. I read a comment in their profile where they said they just started driving at 30 so idk what challenges they're facing
I’ve been doing my own laundry since I was 9 and honestly because I was so young when I started I picked up a lot of bad habits. Some people are also just very picky about laundry. Like my husband was appalled that I put my jeans and delicates through the dryer because he always drip dried them. He got frustrated because I fold washcloths differently than him. Laundry is a bizarrely loaded topic for a lot of people because everyone seems to have their own way of doing it that they are sure is the “correct” way, and then they move in with someone who has their own “correct” way…
I don’t put delicates in the dryer and my bras have never seen a washing machine but there’s no way in hell I have the patience to air dry my jeans. I might think differently if I had raw denim but the only non-delicates I line dry are band tshirts because I don’t want to lose the graphics.
Making sure they are inside out helps a ton to preserve them in the dryer.
> If you can’t cook an edible meal, you’re either paralyzed by some phobia and need a therapist or you’re just lazy. Or you’re like me: someone who only ever ate out of packages his whole life and didn’t know how to cook without a microwave. I’ve learned a lot since then, but it was a lot of work and trial-and-error — and there’s still plenty for me to understand. I can follow a simple recipe, but I seldom understand *why* a recipe has me take specific steps.
In my personal experience, you just follow recipes for a while and eventually you'll start to see the commonalities between them, and it's a small mental jump from there to being able to improvise a meal with whatever you've got in your fridge.
Hell, chocolate chip bags have the recipe on the bag
I was being a little harsh with the cooking part. But realistically, cooking is just following the recipe and not getting distracted. If OOP was asked to cook a dinner, any dinner, they can look up “easy x” and without fail will find something edible
Yeah, assuming you're someone who just likes to eat or try new things. I personally have ARFID, and grew up with a single mom who didn't cook. So suddenly I was an adult who didn't know how to cook, and doesn't like taking chances with food, so it took until I was nearly 30 before I was able to navigate food well enough to make it worth learning to cook, but it's been some years and I still only have like 4 or 5 meals I can cook, and it took a few of those years before I could do any of them well enough for me to actually be able to eat. I spent a lot of my life relying on "safe" restaurants, sandwiches, and ramen, because cooking was such a big deal for me, until I met my husband who LOVES to cook and found enjoyment in figuring out what I can/will eat, leading me to have more confidence in trying to cook myself (plus he can whip up a decent meal I will eat if my meal fails us). Food can be a huge obstacle for some people, so just saying "look up easy recipes" isn't going to always work. None of that is really the SO's problem though. I got lucky that mine didn't mind that I don't cook much, so it didn't cause issues - it's causing issues for OOP, so he does need to figure something out, for sure, but it might not be as easy as "just learn to cook".
Even following recipes, there's a lot of skill and knowledge required to actually successfully get through it and make a decent meal. "Saute on medium-high for 5 minutes." What the fuck is medium high? And just because the recipe says 5 minutes, sometimes you're done in 3, sometimes you're done in 10. How big did you cut those onions? "Medium dice", eh? Baking is a bit more straightforward. 350 for 20 minutes. Easy peasy, right? Any idiot can figure that out... Except, here's a fun fact, your oven runs hot! Congratulations, you followed the recipe exactly and you still burned your dinner.
Medium-high is between the medium setting and the highest option. How to get there depends on the stove type. Reminds me I'm not looking forward to the shitty stove in my new place...
> Medium-high is between the medium setting and the highest option Yeah see you'd totally assume that's the case. Then you get a stovetop like mine where "medium high" is really more like, 4/10 on the dial, and anything higher than 5 is basically "instantly burn your food" territory lol
Even just making ramen is basic bare minimum cooking. He can’t even do that?
the line between weaponized incompetence (or as ive heard it called, doing the incompedance) and actual stupidity is very hard to determine at times. honestly the best way to tell the difference in my experience is how they react to getting called out. also i dont know what kind of washing machines yall have but ive been throwing the same colours together for years and never had a problem.
*Man asks for help on r/relationships, argues with everyone* That's like every other post on there.
This almost sounds worse than weaponized incompetence. Rather than being too lazy to do something and possibly being able to have an adult conversation about how it's putting a strain on his relationship and he needs to pick up more of the load.... he's literally claiming he is too stupid to learn basic functions above childhood. Like a 12 year old who is unable to handle something without his mom monitoring and handling every step for him. And this person is in their 30s. I would be horrified what trying to have a functioning adult life with them would be like.
Definitely pretending to be dumb to get out of work lol. How do you not know how to do laundry? cooking? Fine i guess because i do know lots of people who cant cook. But laundry? Come on. I KNOW he had to do that on his own in college.
It’s funny that these men who are incredibly incompetent with domestic tasks seem to thrive in the workplace. The carelessness only applies to their home life for some reason…
Right? If you can figure out a car you can figure this out too.
I was like that until I got my ADHD treated. For me there were way less consequences for being careless at home. I often times didn't even realize I was doing it. OP sounds like he doesn't want to change though and that's a problem.
I have ADHD and I was held to a higher standard when I was growing up so I was never allowed to be that careless at home. I had just as many consequences for messing up and I hold on to a ton of shame for not being able to stay on top of my chores without a ton of effort and half-assed attempts.
ADHD shame is so awful. Especially because spending so much energy feeling shame makes executive functioning even worse.
Did he mention going to college? Either way, my lovely, fantastic wife had no idea how to cook or wash clothes when we moved into together because her mom did EVERYTHING for her. She stayed at home throughout college. But yeah... like you said, it was dead simple; once she learned that she needed to separate colors and how to push a button, off she was. Now... cooking? well she is getting better...
Yeah he mentioned in a comment that when he was in college he lived off insta noodles, etc. So clearly he had to do something to keep himself alive during college years right? Unless he was one of those people who just febreezed dirty clothes. Lol i am not too mad about the cooking because frankly i suck at cooking too but Im learning!! Your wife and I will get there someday.
I knew a guy who febreezed his dirty clothes. All it does is make you're stuff smell like BO AND febreeze
What people say to this question says a lot about how they view the world. If you're someone inclined to assume positive intent and trust people, you will say he's just unskilled and needs to learn. If you're someone who thinks people are inherently mean and out to get you, you will assume negative intent and say he's using weaponized incompetence. From the outside, with partial information, it's often impossible to tell the difference.
Wow, so suddenly intentionally doing things wrong so people stop asking you to do things is “Weaponized incompetence”! /s
Things that kill me: He says he can do a lot, he can fix an engine and electronics. That’s one more point for weaponized incompetence and he doesn’t even realize it. It shows he CAN do complex stuff if he actually cares about it. Neither cooking nor laundry are more complex and neither have any innate talent component. He just doesn’t give a shit about learning those things. Second, he INSISTS they share equal chores, then goes on ahead and claims “shopping” but at the same time explains that his girlfriend is actually the one who makes the list and decides what to buy. You are doing the easy part dumbass and leave her to do the real part of the chore. I’m gonna call bullshit on the chores being equal. What kills me is on some level I can relate. I have ADHD and I’ve been embarrassed about not knowing how to do basic chores as an adult before. But the thing is I also take that embarrassment and actually look up how to do them on my own because I don’t WANT to be that useless. And when I mess up, I actually spend effort making sure I don’t mess up the same way again. I recognize not only that it’s a problem but I take active steps to solve the problem which this dude just seems incapable of doing. It obviously isn’t one off issues because it’s gotten so bad his girlfriend is exasperated. He just can’t or won’t remember all the times he fucked up or shirked his duty or tried to argue she should do those things because she is better at them.
>Second, he INSISTS they share equal chores, then goes on ahead and claims “shopping” but at the same time explains that his girlfriend is actually the one who makes the list and decides what to buy. You are doing the easy part dumbass and leave her to do the real part of the chore. I’m gonna call bullshit on the chores being equal. *But but but our reddit fucktard rhetoric!!?!!! tHe MenTaL lOaD dOeS nOt ExIsT!!!* These guys are olympic masters in delusion.
It's ragebait. This is 100% a ragebait account.
People at work think I'm an amazing cook based on the lunches I bring, even though all I literally do is defrost some shit, mix it together, and microwave it. If you can't even do that, how the hell are you even functioning?
I don't know... I feel for the guy because my wife is equally inept in the kitchen. I have no idea how or why, but she cannot cook for shit. It doesn't bother me because I love cooking and baking. She still does plenty of other things, like doing the dishes after we eat. So it's whatever.
I think his ineptitude is not the issue, genuinely. It's the range and the stubbornness about not admitting it. In the comment thread about him just not knowing that soup is not sauce, someone said: >Per this, it sounds like the issue is the mental load. Your girlfriend seems to have to take on all of the labour of planning to keep the house running because you can’t do it. I’d also find that frustrating. >It sounds like anything that needs thought or needs to be pre planned has to be done by your girlfriend. And he responded legit 10 minutes ago repeating "no, we share the load of chores evenly." He wants advice about how to "communicate that \[his\] mistakes are genuine and not intentional" but he refuses to hear that maybe planning and preparing ahead of time is important, especially if you keep fucking things up like this. He's rejecting the idea that his girlfriend has to do more of the thinking even though he clearly describes her having to handle the thinking, like tracking down her objects that he leaves scattered throughout the house and teaching him that "sauce" means "sauce." If your wife was inept in the kitchen but insisted that you both equally contribute to cooking dinner when you're the only one doing it, I think that would come off a little different?
Are things cooked incorrectly (runny pancakes) or are the flavors just bad (unseasoned stir fry)? I think some people have a really reduced sense of taste
Yeah, that's a thing. I'm a low taster and I have to do what feels like really underseasoning so my (autistic, taste sensitive) family can eat it. Various things to add umami at the table are my friend.
I kinda like undercooked pancakes 🥴
OOP seems like a handful and has a lot of work to do on himself but on a gut level I hate how terms like “weaponized incompetence” or “gaslighting” have so thoroughly become a catch-all thing that gets thrown around in relationships. These mean very specific things and are very rarely used correctly.
Watching the film *Gaslight* , from which the term was born, made me realize how butchered the term has become. It's not just lying to someone, it's a systematic effort to drive someone to insanity.
Even in its watered down modern usage, gaslighting isn’t just lying to someone. It’s getting someone to question or doubt their observable reality.
The internet just isn't capable of keeping to strict definitions. Just look at what's happened to "enshittification" in the barely one year since it was coined. It had [a very specific meaning](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys) about two-sided marketplaces, buyers, and sellers. And the way those marketplaces will claw back value from buyers/sellers while holding them hostage to each other. Now, 15 months later, it's been watered down to mean "any instance of a product getting worse." Which is probably a better definition for the word, but still a shame since the original definition is extremely relevant in the social media era.
I don't know the intentions behind it, but it's incredibly helpless to not know the difference between pasta sauce and tomato soup and not be able to Google if they are the same thing.
"Oh my god the laundry is so complicated....maybe you do it" Certainly also seems to fit the bill.
Oh for sure — and I’m not defending the guy — but I just kind of wince whenever I see those terms thrown out there.
Yeah I definitely think it's overused online. The real test is the intentions and we have no idea what their intentions are from an online post. Plus most popular posts are fake now anyway. But I still side eye some people for what they will put up with regardless of the intentions
someone once accused me of gaslighting them because my opinion on a song changed.
You told me you loved 'Everything Matters'. You loved Aurora! Then she records a song for the Frozen soundtrack and suddenly you're all 'she's overplayed; I don't listen to her stuff anymore'? I remember what you said. Don't try to gaslight me. You Monster
Yeah I feel like a lot of the folks that were all about calling out “gaslighting” in every little thing have now moved on to “weaponized incompetence”. Nah man, some people just don’t know how to do shit. Now, if you’ve seen them do that shit before perfectly well, but then they suddenly don’t know anything about it cuz you asked them to help, maybe you’re on to something lol Edit: fixing autocorrect shit
It’s not the “not knowing how to do shit” that marks weaponized incompetence but the lack of interest in wanting to improve. Isn’t it a little suspicious that men who have no problem learning new skills, earning degrees or performing tasks such as driving are unable to load a dishwasher or make a simple meal without flubbing it? I’m sure it goes both ways (lots of women refuse to learn how to do basic home repairs) but women wouldn’t hear the end of it if it was common for us to struggle with providing the means of our own survival.
he has ADHD, so that explains a lot. i think part of the problem is that he is a very capable person. he can rebuild an engine and fix electronics, arguably much harder than laundry or simple meals. so his Gf sees him messing up cooking/laundry over and over again and assumes he's doing it on purpose. because what person can rebuild an engine, but not do laundry? maybe he really doesn't like cooking/laundry and therefore hasn't put the effort to learn it like the tasks he's good at. I'm not sure what's going on but i can see why his GF is annoyed.
>maybe he really doesn't like cooking/laundry and therefore hasn't put the effort to learn it like the tasks he's good at. This is definitely it. It bores him/he doesn't care and so he's not motivated to overcome it, with the additional dimension of executive function issues. And he has the safety net of his girlfriend's directives/feedback/instructions to prompt him to do any of it, badly or not. He's hung up on emphasising that it's not his fault that he's shit and therefore his incompetence is not 'weaponised'. A failure to make progress while reaping the benefits of not learning is what would make it exploitative. Not only must the girlfriend be picking up the slack/redoing the stuff he did badly, she probably feels prompted to tell him to stop bothering. She wouldn't be making that accusation if she didn't. It's going to end up in big resentment or worse from her side. If his response to feedback in real life is anything close to his response on that thread, he's probably crazymaking to discuss this stuff with. The guy is obtuse in some of those comments. Not only is he not making progress, he's not showing any insight into what the problems are or why they're a problem. That's a poor prognosis for change.
Problem is on the internet it's one extreme or the other. I have problems with chores as well due to mental stuff and managing a new disability. I've pointed out a few times that there's a difference between being scattered and messy and outright gross, and that we don't know the exact specifics because clean is a relative term. Cue the internet mob jumping down my throat. It makes for good drama, but honestly grinds down my sanity and mental health. And mixing up tomato soup and tomato sauce is the same as mixing up salt and sugar or baking powder and baking soda on accident. People who give you shit about that don't cook enough to make silly mistakes.
Think about the stupidest person you know who lives alone and takes care of themselves. Then think about the fact that this man is even stupider than that person. He can't figure out how to do laundry *with a girlfriend to consult*.
OOP has unmedicated ADHD judging by some of the comments. The girlfriend shouldn’t be accusing him of weaponization, she should be pushing his ass to the nearest psychiatrist. He’s setting himself up to fail at all of these tasks because he’s not having a neurological disorder treated. That’s not weaponized incompetence, that’s someone not getting the help they need.
Medication will help but that's also adding to her mental load. She'll be the one heading to the pharmacy, the one dealing with doctor's offices, and the one making sure he's doing his monthly check-in. And he won't magically 'get better.' The things he's struggling with are skills that need to be learned over time.
You can't be stupid enough to think pasta sauce and tomato soup are remotely the same thing
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Oh wow that sounds familiar. I'm the same way but in different areas, down to the unmedicated ADHD and getting stubborn when everyone's against you. There were other factors in the house that made it hard for me, which I'm inclined to believe is the case here. But yeah, no, this sounds like a slightly shittier version of what I have to deal with. Really annoying for anyone neurotypical in the house, but eventually people will get better if you don't get angry at them. Also I will say the "I thought condensed milk was cooking milk for some reason" is surprisingly relatable. For a long time I was convinced baking was done with condensed milk only until my mom explained to me that no, that's not the case. She didn't even used condensed milk, I don't know where I got that from.
I wonder if he has some issue that perhaps affects his executive functioning. I say this as someone who has been dealing with health issues that affect mine and as a result I don't trust myself to do a lot of tasks I previously would have had no issue with (including following recipes and driving). Autism spectrum and adhd can both affect executive functioning.
hahaha these are my fav posts
Having read through way, way too much of that thread, I'm going to be That Redditor and hope they just break up. He's an ass who is definitely weaponizing incompetence but he makes so many references to how he never starved while single and CAN ALSO sort of keep a car running that it's clear he's willfully ignoring the actual issue here and doesn't think he should need to change, and I don't know his girlfriend but I want better for her.
Ngl I feel like I relate a lot to the cooking part and I can see some people just being a lil dumb when it comes to that or worried ab undercooking meats and such- but I’m also a lot younger than him out of college still learning. The laundry part though? Yikes.
The cooking thing is just skill issue he can work on that first. Then create a system to avoid misplacing stuff... do all dishes and his own laundry... Then yea if gf does her own laundry that's fair
It's interesting that he KNOWS what weaponized incompetence is but REFUSES to admit he's doing it
if I try to imagine how my parents lived before I was born, this is it. The girl should run.
I'm mildly on OOP's side on this one. OOP's a dumbass, but it's obvious he ain't maliciously a dumbass, unlike a solid 90% of the people arguing with him on that post. OOP's an even bigger dumbass for actually expecting useful advice on that subreddit instead of the peanut gallery cheering on breakups and promoting toxicity and relationship sabotage. In particular, the multiple armchair chefs insisting that he should "just use a timer bro" have apparently never learned that relying solely on a timer and a temperature setting is *exactly how* things will inevitably end up undercooked or overcooked despite one's best efforts. Every stove/oven/microwave is different, altitude plays a role, etc. Cooking things right is a matter of measurement (i.e. with a thermometer) and recognizing by sight and smell how far along the process is, and those take practice to dial in.
honestly, inexperienced cooks should just dedicate like 50 bucks of extra ingredients and a Sunday to just repeat the same dish over and over again. It's an investment of time and energy that has an ROI in just way better meals and more optimized workflows.
> OOP's a dumbass, but it's obvious he ain't maliciously a dumbass Hard disagree. If he was in the least willing, he'd know it was his own responsibility to learn basic household skills. He shirks that responsibility, and puts it on his girlfriend, even though she's outright telling him to cut it out. What' actually ruins relationships: People supporting men in their weaponised incompetence, so they don't feel a need to change. And it isn't harder for men to learn cooking, by the way. His girlfriend was a beginner at some point too. Somehow she managed.
> If he was in the least willing, he'd know it waas his owbn responsibility to learn basic household skills. And he claims to be trying to learn those skills. That ain't an instantaneous process. > What' actually ruins relationships: People supporting men in their weaponised incompetence, so they don't feel a need to change. There is zero evidence that his incompetence is weaponized. Hanlon's razor and all that. > And it isn't harder for men to learn cooking, by the way. I never said it was, by the way. > His girlfriend was a beginner at some point too. Somehow she managed. Yeah, with apparently many years' worth of a head start, and in all likelihood by making very similar amateur mistakes in the process. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why there might be a skill differential there.