Twitter Celebrates Valentine's Day By Sharing Cringe-Worthy 'Mansplaining' Incidents

Valentine's Day has come and gone, leaving in its wake countless boxes of half-eaten chocolates, day-old flowers, and some pretty tapped bank accounts. Yet in honor of this annual occasion, several Twitter users banded together to celebrate this holiday of romance and love by honoring the special men in their lives -- the irritating mansplainers that can't seem to shut the hell up. 

For those of you lucky enough to have never experienced this annoyance, mansplaining expands far beyond its eponymous implication of men explaining things. Mansplaining is an incredibly grating phenomenon occurring when dudes baselessly decide their knowledge is superior to the women or nonbinary folks they're speaking to, condescendingly explaining concepts they assume the other party not to know, even though the people they're patronizing are already well aware of the information at hand. 

On Sunday, Twitter user @J_Dot_J took to the platform with a question for her followers "In honor of Valentine's Day, what's the most obvious thing you've ever been mansplained about?" she wrote. "Mine was once mentioning a 30(b)(6) depo for work on here, and a guy sent me the text of the rule and offered to send me a PowerPoint that explains what a corporate representative is." 

Over the next few days, several users seemed to understand this irritating trend all too well, flocking to the thread with their own alleged examples of times mansplainers did not, in fact, know who the hell they were talking down to. 

First up, a translator proposing a rousing sequel to the beloved book series -- Harry Potter and the Mansplaining Mishap. "I once had a man lecture me about Harry Potter during a long drive where I was captive audience," wrote user @gilibugg. "He said I completely missed the point of the books. I am the Hebrew translator of the Harry Potter books. He saw the first film, but never read the books." 

She continued. "He claimed the books were about sexual awakening because all youth books are about sexual awakening, and also that they are dream texts because all fantasy is dream texts. When I tried to reflect his arguments back to him he got angry and accused me of twisting his words." Considering her job is literally to twist words into another readable language, what was he expecting?

However, @gilibugg was far from alone. "Me: 53 yo law professor with an extensive educational background in international relations, Russian, Soviet history, and economics," wrote @AndreaBoyack. "Him: 21 year old 1L with a degree in PoliSci from a Kansas school. 'What you need to understand about Communism is supply and demand.'" One could only imagine how red this comrade's face was after learning his mistake. 

And it's not just academia. One user reminisced on a time her husband told her she was being overdramatic about her labor pains "When I was in labor, my husband was watching contractions on the monitor and told me one of them wasn't so bad," recalled  @CashmereTights. Now, as a childless 24-year-old, I may have no experience with parenting or pregnancy and don't plan to for many years, and even I know this is an absolutely terrible idea. Ouch. 

Now, in what may be the most glorious "I am the manager" moment of all time, one Twitter user shared a time she absolutely roasted a student who attempted to patronize her. 

"At a NASA Earth meeting 10 years ago, a white male post doc interrupted me to tell me that I didn't understand human drivers of fire, that I def needed to read McCarty et al," she wrote. "Looked him in the eye, pulled my long hair back so he could read my name tag. "I'm McCarty et al." Wow. I guess not being a dingus is in fact rocket science. 

So folks, with Valentine's Day in the rear-view mirror, go grab yourself a package of discount candy and some semi-wilted floral arrangements and remember, don't be a condescending douchecanoe. For all you know, the person you're patronizing could have written a dissertation on your topic of choice -- looking at you, the one guy who discredited my rationale, claiming he was a media expert because he "read a newspaper once." 

For more internet nonsense, follow Carly on Instagram at @HuntressThompson_, on Twitch.tv @HuntressThompson_ and on Twitter @TennesAnyone.