I work with a friend of mine’s mother. Said friend (we’ll call her “Hannah”) has been dating a worm of a fellow for more than a year now. We’ll call the worm “Jesse.”
Jesse is a worm for a variety of reasons. He teases Hannah about her weight, he hits on all of her friends in front of her, he has hit on her MOTHER on more than one occations. He has no redeemable qualities what-so-ever. He’s not smart. He’s not funny. He’s not particularly kind. He’s not good looking. In fact, he’s odd looking. He uses Hannah for money and convience. All of Hannah’s friends hate Jesse with a passion.
Hannah and Jesse decide to get an apartment well above their means. Instead of getting a one bedroom, they get a three bedroom. Because of this, Jesse must (gasp!) get a job. Because Hannah’s mom cares about HER (remember Hannah’s mom is my co-worker) she gets Jesse a job working here (huge corporation,) on the cleaning crew from 2-8.
Hannah’s mom comes up with a plan. Because Jesse now has a job, Hannah gives him HER car to drive to work. Hannah will walk to work. Hannah’s mom decides that when Jesse gets to work, she will move Hannah’s car to a completely different lot across the site. That way, he’ll think it’s stolen. I vetoed this plan, and instead suggested she move the car WITHIN the same lot, so he’ll think he’s nuts. And then I sweetened the deal by suggesting she do this every other week or so. Hannah’s mom did it, and didn’t hear anything about it afterwards. Which is good. He thinks he just forgot where he moved it.
Any other suggestions for gaslighting? Trust me, the sheer worminess of this kid can’t be described in words. It must be experianced.
BTW, does he have a Mullett?
or you can paint a potato up to look like him, show it to him every day for a week, and then eat it in front of him… he’ll never mess with you if you do this
I don’t have a suggestion for dealing with Jesse, but I have to disagree to some extent with SingleDad. Had my family stepped in and spoke up when I was living with my ex-fiance, it would have saved me a lot of heartache, embarassment, and my credit rating.
Instead, no one said anything, allowing me to learn from my own mistakes. It’s the kind of personal growth I could’ve done without. If anything, because of that experience, my ‘personal growth’ has made me more guarded, harder to get close to, less trusting, and supplied me with bitterness that can turn into a viscious mean streak. Then, after the breakup, I heard nothing but bad things from family and friends about her with the explanation that no one wanted to interfere - for 3 years, no one wanted to interfere.
I would have resented someone intentionally trying to break us up, but at least voice your opinion. Let Hannah know what everyone else sees in this guy. You may notice things that she doesn’t. She may be blind to his faults for a variety of reasons. I was blind to my ex’s faults until they greeted me at the door and shook my hand. Instead of playing pranks on Jesse, talk to Hannah, but do it in a non-threatening sort of way. If she is determined to stay with him she will regardless of what you say, so there is no point in damaging your relationship with her.
Um…SingleDad, I don’t believe I was asking for advice. Moreover, you have no concept of the relationship, and you have no ability to judge if his removal would induce personal growth. And I’m not aiming to drive him off, I’m sure he’ll leave her in the lurch just as soon as it is the most inconvient time for her. I’m merely aiming to drive him slowly insane.
Here’s a reminder: don’t discuss your personal relationships with me. But mostly because I don’t care about them.
John: LOL on the potato plan. I like the way you think. Alas, no mullet. However, I am sure this is due to his lack of ability to grow one, and not to any discriminating taste in hair fashion. He has a ton of curley dirty-blonde hair that surrounds his head like a funny looking helmet.
Slowly replace the lightbulbs where he lives with a lower and lower wattage. Eventually, he either thinks he is going blind, or “that durn electricity ain’t as strong as it used to be.”
Go to a news-stand in the scummiest part of town. Get as many subscription cards as you can, to the most bizzarre porn mags you can find. (The gift cards work best)
Fill them out in his name.
Selections that do not coincide with his gender preference work best to make him crazy- Besides, maybe he will change teams… then the problem is solved.
Or… Mail him a dead fish to work, using the slowest method possible. Put a weird return address- something with the word “sexypants” or the like works very well.
wow, easy there Singledad, i’m in agreement with you and all to a large degree, but this is mostly out of humours sake it seems, and it doesn’t sound like they are trying to seperate the couple indefinitely, just teach the jerk a lesson or two.
Besides that, sorry to sound so scolding, don’t mean to, SwimmingRiddles, don’t mess too much, you may make things harder for “hannah”.
Sign him up for all kinds of nasty junk email. or The Ultimate Anonymous Revenge
Color me a tight-ass, but I find nothing funny about self-righteousness, unwarranted interference in the life of an adult, or mean-spirited vengance.
SwimmingRiddles:
Seems to me you were asking for advice on how to implement your self-righteous mean-spirited vengance to interfere with the relationship of two adults. My advice is to stay out of it.
Let’s see… My ex-wife slept with all my friends, failed to pay the bills for three months then left with all the money, turned most of my friends against me with lies, and verbally abused my son. I think I have a bit of a clue about what it’s like to be in a really bad relationship.
My participation in that horrible relationship was totally my responsibility. I would have resented and been offended if my family and friends had taken it upon themselves to “teach her a lesson” or otherwise materially interfere in our relationship. It was not their responsibility and none of their business.
Break my heart. :rolleyes:
BratMan007:
I sense that our situations were perhaps similar. In my case the way I acheived personal growth was to take responsibility for my involvement with the situation and for my emotional state. My involvement was totally my own responsibility and my family and friends had zero responsibility or invitation to “save” me. Likewise, my emotional state is totally my own responsibility; my ex-wife has zero responsibility for it. I choose to be happy, emotional open and sure of myself. Neither she nor anyone else has the power to change that.
Probably the best you can ethically do under the circumstances, but based on years of experience I predict that such a conversation would have a very small chance of success. Still, it is not unreasonable for you to offer your unsolicited advice, but no more than one time.
Seems the point SingleDad is trying to make is that people need to make their own mistakes. And that anything that doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Learning from painful experiences…
In short, some people need to sick their hand in the fire to make sure its hot.
My opinion…these people are idiots!
It’s Darwin at his best, I don’t think you’ll see to many of those people who got walked on their entire lives stacking up to be balanced and rock solid. They may pick themselves up off the mat, and get back to emotional Sea level, but there’s alot of wasted time there.
Not that these eternal victims will listen to you, nor are you obligated to say anything, but lets not act like its a “growing experience” and once they’re over it, they’re better off than they would have been if it’d never happened.
As for the dickhead, fuck him…he has it coming. You reap what you sow!
Just to clarify, I make no assumptions about what people should do, I merely say that, with very few exceptions under extreme conditions, people should not stick their noses in other people’s business. I’ve observed that you absolutely must interfere (e.g. to prevent imminent death), you must make certain your motives are pure and your actions loving to avoid making things worse.
In my opinion, you have a brilliant grasp of the obvious!
What you do is up to you, but you should consider a couple of things.
Jesse is going to lose/quit this job. You can see it coming, I can see it coming, everyone but Hannah can see it coming. The problem is that Jesse will probably know or at least guess what your friend is doing. Then he will be able to tell Hannah, “I could have kept the job, but your mom had a grudge against me, and she got me fired.” In other words, you’ve played right into his hand.
Jesse is abusive. One of the goals of an abuser is to separate the victim (Hannah) from her friends and family. But remember, despite the lack of any redeeming characteristics in Jesse, Hannah is in love with Jesse. It is the nature of love, especially new love, to take the part of the lover against others, even when that is not rational or logical. By persecuting Jesse, your friend is creating an “us vs. them” situation which will actually reinforce Jesse and Hannah’s relationship, and possibly cause a rift between Hannah and your friend at a time when your friend needs to maintain close ties with her daughter, and not coincidentally, when Jesse will benefit the most from the rift. (I think that sentence is too long)
It’s very, very hard to watch people you love make mistakes. It’s even harder to say anything about the situation without communicating to them that you think they are an idiot (hint, hint) You may think Jesse is the worst dipshit in the world, but Hannah has chosen this person as the best person for her at this time - and at some level, she may be right.
Zayda’s argument is just as true and much more compelling that SingleDad’s. No offense implied or intended, SingleDad, but saying “it’s a bad idea” doesn’t sink in for some folks unless you can explain how and why it’s a bad idea.
In my own case, I had no idea what to do when my relationship with TW (That Woman) began to sour. Sadly, It took arriving home one afternoon to discover most of the furnishings gone to help me realize that trying to please someone who’s trying to use you isn’t going to get them to wake up and say “Oh! Sorry. I’ll be nice now”.
Ya learn. And if you don’t, you’ll get kicked in the teeth again.
SingleDad,
um, your still missing the point. SR isnt exactly trying to break Hannah and her BF up. She is unhappy with the way he is treating hannah, and wants to get a little satisfaction and revenge in a non-harmful way.
I would agree with you if SR was saying that this little stunt is intended to break them up, but its not.
Zyada said it correctly. People do need to learn their own lessons, but there is no problem with giving your friends advice. IF I was making a mistake, and my friends knew, I’d like them to say what they thought, rather than saying,
'hey, let him go through all that shit alone, it’ll make for good life experience.
For the record SingleDad, it’s called transference. Just because you had a bad relationship with someone does not mean that EVERY bad relationship is identical to your experiance. Nor does it mean that because you had a bad relationship, you are automatically more qualified to pass judgement on other bad relationships than someone who is observing the relationship first hand. THAT sounds a bit “self-righteous” to me. You’re blowing this WAY out of proportion.
I am not trying to break them up. If this is who Hannah feels is best for her at this point in time, so be it. Until she realises that Jesse is a worm, even if she DOES break up with him, she’ll most likely choose another worm.
I am merely attempting to bat the worm around for a while. Call it retribution for getting all handsy on me in front of Hannah, one of my closest friends, on numerous occations. I’d like it if Hannah saw the light and kicked the bastard out, but I’m not counting on it.
Zyada, your points are well taken. However, Jesse managed to hold down a job at Denny’s all last summer, and I think he’ll continue to be able to hold down this job. He’s on the cleaning crew. It’s not rocket science. I DO think he’ll leave her as soon as he has someone whom he deems as “better” to go to. But she is enough of a tough cookie to make sure that he works as much as she does while they are living together.
Your second point does deserve some consideration. But I wouldn’t even consider doing anything that could be considered anything more than a practical joke. I’m not gonna get him fired. I’m not gonna slash her tires, or block thier lease from going through. I’m not going to call their apartment late at night, harrassing them. In short, I’m not going to do anything that would make him do anything more than scratch his head in confusion. More-over, he’s such a doofus, the likelyhood of him figuring out that it is me or Hannah’s mom doing this is extrodinarily low. And even if he DID, everything I’d consider doing could be easily seen as a good natured practical joke. Let’s keep in mind I talked her mom OUT of moving the car across the site, approximately 1/4 mile away.
The guy can’t be that stupid. He’s obviously going to figure out if he hasn’t already that someone is playing a joke on him, and using logic, (don’t underestimate people, sometimes those lazy jerks are much brighter then you ever imagined, just lazy), will figure it’s someone with keys to the car… so he obviously knows it’s the mom or “hannah”.
I’m sorry i put up the link i did earlier now, any further action you take, whether it’s just a practical joke or not, may push him to continue. He may see it as a reason to continue bein who he is…
And go light on SingleDad, transference or not, that stuff is rough. Been through it myself, and it’s no fun, so as much as he may be still feeling the scars that may heal but never dissapear, he’s still just looking out for you [SwimmingRiddles**.
You really don’t want to upset yourself over the matter further i’m sure, and perhaps this seems like it’s not all that big a deal, but think about what “hannah” has to go through later on that you won’t have to go through with jesse.
Just lookin’ out for ya kid.
Lighten up 