You do this with other people as well? You have one person in the front and the two of you sit in the back? I’ll bet money that these other people think you are strange and years from now when you and finance stop being siamese twins someone else will say, “yeah, we all thought you two were really weird about that”.
Oh and btw.
This is called blaming the victim.
Upon reflection, this isn’t even a PDA. You’ve got a captive audience of one whom you’re forcing to watch/listen to you. He can’t get away, look away, or talk to someone else in the car.
No kissing in the back seat! It doesn’t just “happen”. No kissing, none, until you part ways.
I think he’s gay, probably closeted even to himself, and he’s deeply conflicted about his best friend getting married. It’s not necessarily that he’s in love with your fiance, it’s that it’s bringing the issue to the forefront for him.
He doesn’t have to be gay to resent losing his best friend. Even if he is trying to deal with it.
I resented losing my friends when they started getting all kissy-kissy in front of me and I’m definitely not gay.
This summer 2005, watch as sparks fly-- and someone’s forced to watch. As the uncomfortable feelings begin with the makeout fests, one of the kissing partners will be forced to kiss the innocent bystander! Only on Fox.
Did the producers of “I Love Lucy” raise you? In fact, I’m pretty sure that Lucy and Ricky shared a kiss in front of Fred and Ethel at least once. Were you given a shot of cattle prod until you “realized” that displays of affection in front of anyone was wrong? How is it to be so sexually repressed that hugging a pillow close to you is considered masturbation?
But it’s all right. America needs people like you who still realize that not only should shame exist, but be a part of life. Don’t ever lose your morals and stand for it when they show that episode of 7th Heaven where the Reverend Eric Camden and his wife Annie sleep in the same bed.
I salute the proud soldiers of repression like you. It’s people like you who ensure that we don’t have <i>too much fun</i> and remain true and pure to our mission: Marrying a likewise Christian blonde haired blue eyed woman who finds sex, except in the instance that it produces children, to be repulsive and heretical. Keep on trucking my friend.
:rolleyes:
Public displays of affection are fine by me. But in this situation, I can totally see how it could make Joe uneasy. (And yes I understand that the OP claims she wasn’t “luvvy dubby”, I’m just saying in general… it would be rude to do so).
WTF? Anaamika’s talking about a couple not kissing in front of a single friend, not sexual repression. :rolleyes:
Honestly, if this is the best you can do, let me be the first to invite you NOT to register here.
That’s true. But she’s also talking about not kissing in public PERIOD. I took great offense to someone still having such an uptight sense of ettiquete. It seems to be PDA should be a choice of the couple, not something that should be done with completely.
Of course, Anaamika’s talking about his own opinion. Which is fine. I just didn’t like the way he went about it. You know, in the “I KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU SINCE YOU’RE STILL A YOUNGIN’ AND I’M NOT SO THAT MAKES YOU IMMATURE” kind of way.
I realize I’m disturbing the peace and for that I apologize. It’s just that Anaamika disturbed my peace.
I honestly don’t want to make Joe uneasy. However, I really feel like I’m getting lambasted in this thread for apparently one thing I did wrong: choosing to sit in the backseat of Joe’s car. I really, really didn’t know that so many people find it a socially unacceptable thing to do. And, I want to point out that in almost every reply (and the original post) I did say that I am fine with one of us sitting up front. And I apologize for not knowing that it was unacceptable. I still feel as if, since I was unaware of this and am unfortunately not psychic, it would have been easier for Joe to just let me know.
Instead of, you know, driving off with all my things.
As for me “blaming the victim”–honestly? He’s the victim, how? Because I somehow forced my way into the backseat? Because he neglected to let me know he found it uncomfortable? Because he took off with my things? Because I got out of the car to see why my fiance had? How is he the victim here?
And, Anaamika–tell me how he was being forced to watch us kiss. If we’re in the backseat… maybe he should keep his eyes on the road. And I’ll say it one more time. We are not lovey-dovey in the backseat. I do not find problem with the occasional kiss, especially not out of the normal view of the one person we’re with.
And I think we agree that he did not act well. We are pointing out why it may be that he did this extreme thing. I don’t think you want his action to be validated at all, and that’s a little unfair. Try seeing this from his point of view - because your fiance wants to move past it, and both of you should care about what he thinks.
He will be well aware of what you are doing - its a change in voice tone - whispers, giggles etc. And this is only going to underline the fact that the two of you are in a special couple world, which he is excluded from. Now, he’s going to have to learn to deal with this, but you can make steps to make it easier on him. You didn’t know it bothered him to have the two of you sit together in the back? Well, great, now you do, and you can do something about it. Just be a little more sensitive to his feelings, and you may find this releases the tension a little.
As I said before, Joe’s not going to go away - so find a way to shake it off and move on without holding a grudge.
Right, and that’s why I started this thread. I wanted to know how I could handle the situation with Joe after this incident. Of course, it’s morphed into a discussion of if I was rude or not, and so forth.
I honestly don’t know if his actions can be validated. Sure, he had valid concerns, but he drove off with all our things, including my purse. He then showed up an hour and a half later and dumped our stuff by the side of the road, only staying because we came out to meet him. To me… that’s not a way to react to something that can be validated.
I think Shagnasty hit the nail on the head.
Joe is feeling threatened and left out. He is afraid that he is going to lose his best friend and you, as the girlfriend, are the culprit. Now he might not even reallize that he is feeling this way. It might just be a sense of unease when all 3 of you are together. Or he might know what he is feeling, and he isn’t liking feeling that way.
My guess, Joe let his emotions take over that one day and said some stuff that came from his guts and not his head. So he both means it and he doesn’t mean it. So he exploded, and then ran off, not to be mean, but because he was feeling ashamed of what he said. He couldn’t face you afterwards, so he dumped your stuff at the curb, where family would find it. Joe is still probably feeling pretty bad about what he did, and that’s leading to lots of current ackwardness.
If your fiance still wants to be friends with Joe, then you should think about trying to mend the fence. I’m not saying that you were even mostly to blame, but sometimes you just make the jesture, to save a friendship.
Send Joe a short email. Tell him that you are sorry that you and your fiance made him feel uncomfortable or left out. Tell him that you didn’t mean to insult him with your joke, and that you are very thankful for his helping you out with rides and carrying your stuff. Tell him that you value his friendship with your fiance, and with yourself.
Hopefully, Joe has just been stumped as to how to break the wall that has gone up between you, and by offering your understanding, all 3 of you can move past this.
Sitting together in the backseat may be inconsiderate or even rude. However, it’s lightyears from driving off with someone’s stuff or asking that they not talk. Sure, I can see how Joe would be peeved, but he blew it all out of proportion.
Friends don’t act perfectly towards each other all the time. We’re all human. Stars, I don’t think you intended to offend Joe or make him feel excluded by sitting in the backseat. You inadvertently hurt his feelings which we all have probably done to our friends at some point. IMHO, his reaction was way above and beyond what you deserved. He may have issues with confrontation, but that’s really his problem and not yours. He was deliberately nasty. You weren’t.
That said, if you want to mend fences, you should probably do what Tastes of Chcolate suggested. I still think he’s more in the wrong than you are, but sometimes you have to be the bigger person to maintain a friendship. And it sounds like Joe’s just not there yet.
My unorthodox advice - based on nothing all that specific - you’re too young to be a fiancee. Settle down when you’re 30.
JohnBckWLD’s response is pretty much why I’ve shied away from posting on this board a lot. I’ve been expecting judgments based on my age. Suffice it to say… it’s a personal decision, I think relationships vary for everyone, and I don’t plan to wait until I’m 30. Besides, this thread is not about that at all.
I think what I will do is try to contact Joe in some way. He doesn’t check his email that often, but I’ll try to catch him on AIM and have a talk with him. I really do want to smooth things out between us.
We have a saying around here: Don’t ask for advice if you aren’t prepared to have people disagree with you.
I agree with the view that this was insensitive of you. However, I do not choose to lambaste you over it, because Joe’s response was so completely over the top and inexcusable that it doesn’t really matter what you did to precipitate it. Extreme rudeness is not justified as a response to a slight, actual or perceived, period.
In my view, your fiancé is the one who needs to take Joe to school on this. It’s admirable that you want to reach out to Joe, but I can almost guarantee that he won’t react the way you want him to. No, this requires guy time, a man-to-man where your fiancé sits Joe down, buys him a beer, and tells him to chill the fuck out.
Joe is definitely worried about getting frozen out of your fiancé’s life, and whether it’s a repressed-gay thing or a maladjusted regular straight guy friendship thing is irrelevant. Essentially what he’s doing is passive-aggressively demanding that your fiancé make a choice between him and you, and he’s setting himself up for a failure, because given the choice between best friend and spouse, only the most fucked up person will go against the spouse. It may even be possible that he’s trying to poison your relationship; he may force your fiancé to choose you and abandon Joe, which will be a point of conflict in your marriage, and after you finally break up, months or years later, your fiancé will have to go back to Joe.
Your fiancé is the one who will have to explain all of this to Joe, not you. And if your fiancé won’t do it, then there’s a bigger problem here. (I have some personal experience with a situation similar to this.)
I know that. I mainly asked for advice concerning how to deal with him now. I can still disagree with the advice given, and I don’t feel that a lot of it actually focused on the heart of my OP. I even apologized after some people found something rude that I had no idea was, and I stated that I’ve chosen a state of action based on my advice: speaking to Joe.
What else am I to do?
Sorry, my response was to Guinastasia, not Cervaise.
The problem with my fiance sitting down and speaking to him is he sees it as my problem, not his, since he’s already made up with Joe and all. He’s reluctant to get involved and make both sides angrier. At the same time, I don’t feel like I’d get as much of an audience with Joe than my fiance would.
I dunno, it’s all giving me a headache. It’s hard for me to hold a grudge and let things go unresolved. I’m just not sure how to go about resolving it beyond talking to Joe myself.
Sure. Apologize to him. And tell him he was wrong, too. You were wrong, but he didn’t react well, either. Say, “Joe, I’m sorry we’ve been making you feel left out. We sure haven’t meant to,we like hanging out with you. However, leaving us beside the side of the road and taking our stuff was rude and inexcusable. Maybe we can talk about why you did such a thing.”
And for the person who talks about my sexual repression, uh…Friends of Sonic, I think. You don’t really deserve a response. Without knowing me or anything about me you concluded I was a…what was it? “Christian blonde haired blue eyed woman who finds sex, except in the instance that it produces children, to be repulsive and heretical.” However, I’ll answer you even though you’re not a regular poster here and will probably be gone in a week.
Well, first of all, I’m female. Secondly, I’m an atheist Hindu. Thirdly, I broke away from my family because they didn’t approve of my liberal views on sex, among other things. I live with my boyfriend from choice, for 8 years now. Oh, and I have brown eyes and lovely dark curly hair. And my boyfriend is Chinese. And I’m not going to tell you about my sex life, but suffice it to say this much: I don’t want any children, but I’m having sex all the time.
That being said, it is very rude to kiss in front of someone who is your boyfriend’s best friend and has no partner or love interest. I don’t recall ever making reference to **StarsApart’s ** age, just her maturity level for not realizing at all that this would hurt Joe. People 50 years old can still be immature.
**StarsApart ** and **Friends ** of Sonic, you may think PDAs are OK. StarsApart even says so. However, that does not give you the right to decree that everyone should think they’re OK.
**StarsApart ** no matter what sitting in the back seat of someone’s car when they’re being nice enough to drive you somewhere is wrong. However, you’re right, this shouldn’t be a “who started it” thread. I’m sorry for derailing it. Upon preview I see you’ve even apologized for it, so that’s muchly appreciated. 