IDK if you've heard, but "weaponized incompetence" has been in discussion quite a bit lately. It refers to you willfully acting like you don't know how to do something so someone else will do it.
More often than not, weaponized incompetence turns up in the home and has to do with household duties like laundry, cleaning, etc. And although it's not exclusive to one gender, straight men tend to be the most common offenders.
Since I'm convinced weaponized incompetence is a full-on epidemic, I wrote a post sharing stories from women in the BuzzFeed Community who have experienced it firsthand from the men in their lives. And, unsurprisingly, it inspired even more women to come forward with weaponized incompetence stories. Here are their responses:
Note: Some stories are also from this Reddit thread by user u/ohlookitsanonymous.
1. "I love my fiancé, and he does a lot, but sometimes, he 'isn't sure how to do projects' around our home. We needed a new sink fixture in our bathroom earlier in the year. We literally went to the hardware store to pick out a fixture together, and then it sat on our kitchen table as he 'figured out how to install it.' After a week of hearing, 'I'm still working on how to install it,' I finally got on YouTube one afternoon and figured it out. I had it done in 45 minutes. He later told me he was very upset when he overheard me telling my dad about how I installed it myself?!?"
2. "I work in healthcare, and the amount of women (mothers, girlfriends, wives) who call to make appointments for the grown men around them is so embarrassing and weird."
3. "My husband cannot load a dishwasher. He'll place spatulas in the plate section and then not put in the plates because there isn't any room. Dude! How can you not know how to load it?! You unload it so you can see how I've loaded it. He most definitely isn't allowed to do laundry. All whites, all jeans, all towels and then everything else. Black T-shirts washed with cream colored silk blouses. Yeah, my hubby has ruined a lot of clothes."
4. "My grandfather, who I love very much, either didn’t know how or refused to do his laundry until he died. He’d been retired for a good 11 years at that point."
5. "When I was a child, my mom asked my dad to clean the bathroom. He used Clorox and a pressure washer. The whole house smelled for days."
6. "My grandmother died a few years ago, and my grandfather, in his 80s, had to learn how to pour milk into his cereal for the first time. And get his medication. And open the microwave. And start the washer. And my mother kept giving in because he would have an anxiety attack every time he had to learn a new task. I had to keep telling her, 'His mother lived until she was 94. Do you want to be wiping his arse for the next 14 years? If not, you make him learn. If he won't learn, he can hire a cleaner. But don't you dare act like his wife and take care of him.' He calls her crying when he accidentally deletes an email, and expects her to leave her job and come running over to take care of him."
7. "My brother used to ball up his clothes as his way of 'folding' them, so my mom and I would fold them for him. One time my mom was out, and I saw my brother folding the clothes PERFECTLY. I confronted him about it, and he was like, 'What, do you think I'm an idiot? Of course I know how to fold clothes; I just don't want to.' I told my mom what he said, and we never folded his clothes again."
8. "Just had a little bit of this from my husband this past weekend. We had just gotten home from vacation and had to do some grocery shopping. I had written the list, made the menu, etc. We were in the produce section, and I told him to get apples. I'm by the peppers, and he comes up to me empty handed, and I'm like, um...apples? His response: 'You're better at picking them out.' BOY, IF YOU DON'T GO OVER THERE AND GET YOUR LAZY ASS YOUR OWN APPLES! He knew the look, that I was about to make a scene. Who picked his own apples after that? Exactly."
9. "My ex-husband told me that he couldn’t pick our sons up from school because he didn’t know which school they go to."
10. "I was the oldest of four, and my mom relied on me a lot to help with the younger kids and with housework. She was a stay-at-home mom and did everything. I never saw my dad wash a dish, fold an article of clothing, cook a meal, or do any sort of cleaning. If she was out and he got hungry, he would wait for her to come home to make him a sandwich. I was a teenager in the late '70s/early '80s, and my mom took ill and had to be hospitalized. A bill was due, and I had to show my dad how to write a check to pay the bill. She finally divorced him after 40 years. I often wonder how he has made it the last 14 years all on his own."
11. "I worked in an enrichment center, and we have some forms for the parents to fill out. I can't count the number of times a dad has asked me, 'Honey, would you fill this out? I have no idea.' Sir, I'm asking you for your child's age and birthday, not the measurement of their toes, are you telling me you don't know those?"
12. "When our daughter was born, 10 minutes after my contractions started, I ended up delivering her on our sofa. The midwife, who literally arrived just as the baby was crowning, asked him to make me some toast as I had gone into shock due to how quickly everything had happened. He told her he couldn’t, because he didn’t know how to use the toaster."
13. "My FORMER boyfriend couldn't put sheets on the bed correctly, and acted like he had never seen how a fitted sheet was supposed to look. He also gave up when the pillowcase got twisted because he'd just stuffed the pillow in it."
14. "I was briefly married in my early 20s to a man who kept insisting he didn't know how to do the laundry. We lived in an apartment and had to use the laundromat, and I figured we could just trade off on laundry days. He insisted he didn't know when to use bleach. I said only when you have an all white clothes load. Otherwise, just don't worry about it. He would constantly come back with bleach stained clothes....and not only that, but mysteriously, only my clothes would have the bleach stains on them. Always with the apology of, 'It's confusing.' We were married for about a year before I'd had enough. He wanted a mommy he could sleep with."
15. "I was post-surgery and starving, and asked him to make me some instant porridge. It was a chocolate powder and needed some boiling water mixed in. He brought me the powder in a bowl, no water added in, insisting it was being served correctly. This man had a PhD in a natural science field. He'd used that as an argument to why what he was serving me was correct, while he was giving me literal. Powder. Without. Water."
16. "My ex kept leaving his dirty boxers on chairs. When I confronted him about it, he said, 'I don't know where the dirty clothes box is.' He had been in my house for two years."
17. "My brother has a high IQ, went to mechanic school, started his own business, sells solar, grows his own pot plants, goes on hikes in the mountains solo, obtained a gun license, and made smart investments in Tesla years ago. However, he acts incompetent so my mom makes his doctors appointments for him and brings him to the appointments. She also picks up any medications or toiletry products he needs from CVS for him. My dad does all of his laundry and puts it away, does all of his dishes, takes all of his trash out, and pays all of his bills. When my brother has a problem with his car, my dad makes an appointment with a mechanic, brings my brother’s car in for him, and then takes an Uber back. My brother is the smartest person I know, and yet, my parents treat him like he’s an incompetent child."
18. "I had an ex who couldn't make himself a cup of coffee. I tried to teach him, and he would run out of the room because he 'couldn't handle it.' It was regular coffee with milk and sugar."
What's the worst case of weaponized incompetence you've seen from a man? Share your stories in the comments!
Note: Some responses have beed edited for length/clarity.