Okay, this is inspired partially by upcoming events, and paritally by Biggirl’s thread I’m losing respect for one of my best friend.
I used to be really good friends with a couple- let’s call them Chad and Maria (if only so I can have an amusing thread title).
Chad and Maria are the limelights of my little social group. They’re very active in the hobby we’re all part of (LARPing), and they do a lot of work in that hobby, in promoting that hobby, and in organizing social activities for my circle of friends.
The problem? Maria has serious issues with self-esteem and anger. Specifically, she frets that everything she involves herself with is going to fail miserably, and she turns her fear into anger at everyone else, and will suddenly lash out at people for small errors- and by ‘lash out’ I mean screaming, shouting, and belittling that person in every way possible. She also sees any sort of competition as a personal threat, and does whatever it takes to win. (This is part of the reason she and Chad are the ones who always organize parties; any time someone else tried to start something up, either Maria would jump in and take it over, or would start a bad-mouthing campaign behind their back.)
This attitude is only worsened by Chad; he’s a nice guy but a classic enabler. Every time Maria flies off the handle, Chad makes private apologies and gives one of a list of excuses (it’s her time of the month; she’s stressed out at work; she’s on new asthma medication which is playing havoc with her moods) to calm the waters, and Maria generally never has to deal with the damage her tantrums cause.
These two are not people I want in my life. Especially given that for three months, Maria’s outbursts were always specifically directed at my girlfriend. You can pull a lot of shit on me, and I’ll just roll with it (though Lord knows I resented Maria enough by that point for making me the occasional victim for her bullying), but I won’t take that sort of shit being pulled on Rebecca.
Sounds good so far, right? Nasty woman and nasty man, get them out of your life, everything’s fine, right?
Except that I’d remind you that Maria and Chad are pretty much the social organizers for my group of friends. And therefore nearly every party or gathering I can go to would be one organized and hosted by Maria and Chad. Which I feel would be an implicit acceptance of them, and while I don’t want to start some sort of social/civil war in my group, I don’t want to continue attending parties where Maria is the center of attention, and by my presence imply that I feel the same, or at the very least (and actually much more important) that I don’t mind myself or Rebecca being treated in this manner by Maria.
So I can boycott these events (and come up with excuses and excuses so that I don’t seem to be specifically avoiding them), but that also means cutting my social life by two-thirds. I like parties. I like hanging out with groups of my friends. But I also know that the only way to do that is through Maria; if I try to organize such things on my own it’ll mean starting up a direct confrontation with Maria (especially if I don’t invite her).
Any suggestions? Commiserations? Or am I just being a whiny git?