Not my note.
It's so easy to rip people down. Pump someone's tires. It means way more than you can imagine.
The stranger:
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2025
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That was my first thought, but then I remembered the tiny campgrounds I've stayed at. Now I'm imagining this guy only like 7-8 feet away from the family
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I would have that shit framed
Nah, got to use wax, and stick it to something like a 40k purity seal
In the crisp brightness of the forest campground, there are only supportive neighbors.
This crispbright aesthetic can get it
No yelling,
Kids behaved,
Didn’t see you hit your wife (even once)!
The bar is set hilariously low, and a lot of people still don't make it.
That's right, you didn't see me hit her 😏
As long as it's consensual and boundaries have been discussed beforehand you're fine.
I think I would remember this for 5 years if it happened to me, which means I should do it to others
Absolutely. And I'd remember it forever.
I once had someone tell me on discord that they stopped cutting themselves because of me just being nice to them, when they had trouble making any friends. I'll never forget that.
Like 10 years ago I had a stranger come up to us in a restaurant and compliment how well behaved our kids were and I still remember it.
Make sure you confuse them though, give notes calling old grannies great fathers and fathers letters about the joy of child birth.
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Maybe it's generational I don't know. I'm a 47 year old dude I don't need strangers validation to know I'm a good dad and frankly that level of assumed eavesdropping and then feeling a need to announce that regardless of it being a positive message is just, fucking weird and off-putting.
Compliments are hard to take for some, and it sounds like you find it patronizing and creepy. This is for this very reason that I was really hesitant as a woman to compliment men, I'm more or less the same generation.
One time late at night, I had no makeup on and was very frumpy, going to buy a six pack at 7eleven. There, a gorgeous gigantic drag queen told me "Giiiiiiirl, look at your faaaace, you're so gorgeous". It was so so so cool and made me feel like a queen. So from then on I thought fuck it, I don't get compliments often and when I do, it makes my day. So now I do whenever I am sincerely impressed or enjoy something.
As a guy, I appreciate compliments.
There's a lot of us who do, so please don't stop. We receive them so infrequently that it's reassuring and nice to hear if we're doing something well or not from someone else.
No man is an island, and those that want to be tend to be assholes.
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I appreciate compliments. I have a hard time accepting overly specific compliments.
The original note that started this thread was on the overly specific side.
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At some campgrounds you can't not hear your neighbors. I understand there's a social expectation of pretending privacy but surely this is just a wholesome gesture?
If you've ever been camping at RV parks, there is limited privacy and especially if you have kids, if two campsites are next to each other outside, they are absolutely going to be listening in on each other, because there's not much else to do.
Also same with watching people pull in to their spot. As someone who regularly RV camps, everyone watches everyone pull in and also pack up to see how efficient they can do it vs themselves. It's like a pasttime, especially if you get lucky and catch someone who has to try 10+ times to line up the RV correctly, because you know they just rented a bunch of equipment and don't really understand how to use any of it.
TL;DR; it feels like you're complaining about someone being thoughtful and wanting to pay it forward at an RV park by telling someone else, one father to another, that they're doing a good job at life. Guys don't get positive reinforcement a lot, so I bet this meant the world to the father who received the note.
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Why?
Seriously, it seems like a genuinely nice note. No harm was done and everything that was said was validating and positive. It didn't need to be said, but that just makes it all the more special. That guy going out of his way to give that validation when it obviously wasn't necessary just shows that he isn't just being a good dad. His parenting is at a quality at that at least one other dad admires. He doesn't need to be told that, but I'm glad he was.
I suppose I don't understand your perspective. If you know you're a good dad then getting validation on top of that is just good, right? If it's obvious you don't need it and someone else is still compelled to tell you then you must be doing an even better job than you thought!
It's good you don't need validation. In fact it's a great level of confidence in your ability. So if someone validates that confidence. That's good? It's not needed, but it's still good.
Or at least that was my takeaway, I was curious about yours.
ETA: I had a thought... What would your opinion be if the feedback was negative? What if he was aggressive and mean? Not loud, or drawing attention, just a dickhead to his kids and family.
I'm not looking for any particular answer here, I'm just curious if your opinion would change at all.
the weird part to me is writing such a long note and putting it on the car.
if it was delivered in person (and then there's still a lot that could make it weird), or the note was just "hey man, couldn't help but notice you seem to be a great parent, props from a fellow camper", i'd be more comfortable with it.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I can understand how something coming across as overly specific could be creepy.
I think I'd put a bit more details to show actual examples then it doesn't sound hollow. I think I would feel weird if it was just a random short note. Like, what did I do? Did I make a scene? So to avoid making someone else feel that way I'd add a few examples in the least weird way possible 😄
But I'm autistic and tend to question my way of viewing things a lot, so maybe that's just a me thing 😉
Is this Adrian Dittman??
I've personally lost all sense of masculinity. There's no positive feature I would think men should have and women not, or vice versa.
To me gender norms feel weird and toxic, except there are folk in our trans community that get a lot out of representing as their gender.
But telling people they rock is a good thing I think. 2025 is expected to a lot of bad days.
Humble brag
Let the man brag. Good dads are underappreciated.
Long before I was a dad, I once told a dad I saw in a retail store "you're a great dad!" after being in an adjacent aisle and hearing him interact with his kid. He was clearly offput by the input. That was the only thing I said to him; hopefully it had a net positive impact.
Be the change you want to see in this world. Thank you for that, random internet stranger.
On the opposite end of this, I got this message taped to my apartment door after my mom, who was helping me when I had inflamed back muscles, accidentally grabbed some of a female neighbour's clothes from the laundry room (my mom thought it was my girlfriend's stuff):
"GIVE BACK THE CLOTHES OR I'LL CALL THE COPS AND REPORT SEXUAL ASSAULT!! I SAW YOU IN THE HALLWAY SO I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, YOU'RE DISGUSTING AND TWISTED. Leave them in the washing room, folded and in separate piles so I can wash or throw them away without needing to touch them too much, I don't even want to think about what you want to do with them. You have 15 minutes to do as asked or I'LL CALL THE COPS"
I'd never felt so misjudged in my whole life and learned that I've got an absolutely nuts neighbour. My mom did as she asked and left a response letter explaining what happened, and added that the cops would pretty surely see her as the bad actor in this, as that's the truth, if she calls them and they talk to us all. The day after, our landlord called me and said she had reported me, and after I explained the situation he sighed and said this isn't the first time she had reported stuff like this and that he would put his foot down and tell her to get her shit together or be evicted, he obviously wouldn't say too much but she had been a problem in many ways for years.
Hell yeah!
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