How to quash Annoying Girl (TLDR)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve got a situation that’s been brewing with a sort-of friend, and I could use some advice on how to deal with it.

So I took up running a few years ago, and I’ve made lots of new running friends along the way. In the past few months, several of us have gotten in the habit of meeting for dinner after runs, we have a group on FB, etc. So basically a bunch of people who all know each other and are in fairly constant contact.

One of these, I’ll call her “Alice,” is starting to get on my nerves, as well as those of a few others in the group.

First off, she is Chatty Cathy personified. She dominates every conversation, and she is loud. She works in the medical field, and likes to talk about her patients (no HIPAA violations, just TMI, especially for those of us who aren’t medical types and don’t need to know what drugs she chose to treat what condition, and don’t care) as well as armchair-diagnose OUR problems. (You might say, well, don’t talk about them in front of her, but part of running chatter is discussing injuries and such. And she is always the expert.)

She is a slow runner, which is fine; most of us are not speedsters. But she is always reminding us of how she’s so slow, and people give her the stink-eye, and she was so bad off after X race and had to be tricked into going into the medical tent, and she’s always dehydrated because she has a particular condition, and she has to carry this and that with her, and her training plan always has so many more miles than anyone else’s. We are apparently supposed to be fascinated by all of this even though we’ve heard it a hundred times.

She often asks others to do things for her that she could do herself. She recently asked me if I could bring a sweatshirt for her to wear after a race that a bunch of us were going to be doing, because she was going to be arriving at the last minute from work. (1) She is large and I am not, and why she thought I would have anything that would fit her is beyond me. (2) Can she not bring her own sweatshirt? Was she planning to come to the race in the nude? She frequently asks a friend to carry things for her: money, ID, extra energy gels. Get an extra pocket for your fuel belt! We are not your pack mules!

The kicker was this past weekend, when our team (of which she was a member) ran a relay race of about 50 miles. I had pretty much been acting as de facto team captain. I worked on assigning legs to each team member, I designed, ordered, and distributed the team shirts, I provided the team vehicle (our minivan) and stocked it with water/ice/supplies, printed out the leg maps and made notes to help us keep track, and a zillion other things that needed to be done, because the others were stepping up very little and just saying “I’ll do whatever” without actually claiming any duties.

So the team got together the night before the race for dinner and to hammer out final details. We decided that although various people were bringing general snacks to share, each person would be responsible for bringing whatever essential lunch foods she needed, since we’re all different and would be running at different times. After dinner, as we all were leaving the restaurant, my friend “Lisa” and I said we were stopping off for a few groceries before we went home. So Alice asks me if I can pick her up “some cold cuts.” Huh? You have your own car, can’t you pick up your own stuff, like we said? “But you’re going anyway!” Ugh. I told her I had already taken care of a zillion details on behalf of the team, and spent plenty of money besides, and she could pick up her own lunch, like we said. So THEN she starts waving twenties at me! “I’ll pay for it!” Alice, it’s not about the money. It’s about being a grownup and taking care of things yourself.

So, the relay. Six women in my minivan, all day long, driving along the course while the current team member is running, and switching off at the exchange points. Alice drove Lisa and me crazy all day, with the constant yakking, negative talk about herself, general loudness, yadda yadda. Lisa told me that Alice hinted that she wanted to join Lisa and me on a trip we’re taking for a race later in the year. Lisa said nothing (she’s not good at confrontation). And she kept talking about how we should all come and cheer for her next weekend at a race that none of us are running, and then go have a “team brunch” afterward. Nobody was taking her up on it. On the way home as we were dropping people off, Lisa actually told Alice at one point to use her “inside voice” (which she did).

After we dropped Alice off at her house, it was just me, Lisa, and “Kim” left in the car. I SO wanted to blow off about Alice with Lisa, but not with Kim in the car, because for all I know, she and Alice are BFFs. So I just said, “Well, MY ears are full,” knowing that Lisa would know what I meant, but Kim would think I was just talking about being in a van full of people all day. But Kim IMMEDIATELY said, “Oh, I’m so glad you said that! I thought it was just me!” and so we had a good three-way bitch session about Alice on the way home. Turns out at least one other team member was getting annoyed as well.

So we are thinking that we need to back off from Alice, or get her to back off, especially from anything that involves traveling together. Trouble is, there are always running events, some of which involve driving, and we’ve set a precedent of car-pooling. I am happy to carpool with others, but not with Alice anymore. But she’s going to want to. AND (I’m still kicking myself) she is on our team for a similar relay race this fall. (I’m secretly hoping that she will injure herself and not be able to come.) That was arranged before she really started to get annoying, unfortunately. So we still have to deal with her for one more event.

I’m trying to picture these conversations. I can totally see her thinking it’s because she’s slow, but it’s not. but telling her the truth isn’t much kinder. There’s really no specific behavior that we can ask her to work on, because it’s all just her personality. She’s just brash.

So it looks like evasion is the way to go. “You want to be on our team for next year? Gosh, I’m not ready to think about that yet” (while I’m actually putting a team together in advance, leaving no room for her). OR “I think it would be fun to mix it up and have different people on our teams every year” (meaning “not you”). “You want to ride along with us to X race? Oh, I think we’d just like to drive up separately.”

Trouble is, I don’t want to have to lie (in case I have to defend it). I know about the Miss Manners method of just saying blandly, “Oh, I’m sorry, but we just can’t,” but I can just see Alice harping on why. And there are still the regular local fun runs to deal with. I just can’t see doing dinner/brunch after EVERY ONE if she’s going to be there, well, being herself. The others, fine. But not her. But the fun runs are public events and we can’t “not invite” her. I don’t want to be sneaky and tell her we’re not doing dinner and the have everyone sneak off to have dinner without her. She knows a lot of the local running people . . . and I have to wonder how many feel the same way that we do, but are humoring her.

Thanks for reading this far. I was hoping to keep it short, but obviously that didn’t happen, even though I’ve left stuff out. Any thoughts or suggestions will be much appreciated.

2

“Hi, Alice. I’m afraid I have some bad news regarding your involvement in our running group. It’s become apparent that you don’t have the same level of dedication that the rest of us have. In particular, you’ve asked a lot of us, on multiple occasions, to do things or bring things for you that everybody else is able to manage on their own. It’s just not working out and we’re cutting you from the group. This isn’t a debate, so please let’s avoid the embarrasment of your attempting to dispute this decision. It’s final. Take care.”

3

Sounds to me like Alice is one of those people you’re just going to have to be honest with, as she does not take hints. Invite her to coffee or lunch alone (from the way she sounds, it won’t be difficult to convince her) and tell her the plain truth. “We don’t think you’re a good fit for this group,” and leave it at that. If she presses you for details, tell her. Be gentle but firm.

Just make sure everyone in the group is on board with you speaking on her behalf.

4

My vote is for confrontation with a side order of sympathy.

For any non-public event, just tell her she’s not invited. If she wants to know why, just say you’d rather not get into that. If she’s relentless, then tell her exactly why: you talk too much, you are self-centered, negative, and needy.

I once had a similar situation where an overly needy “friend” named Matt glommed onto our social circle. The denouement involved me telling him he was officially not welcome on a camping trip we’d been planning (and to which he’d tried to invite himself). Another friend who was more sympathetic than me also called him to deliver a longer, nicer version of “it’s not you, it’s me (but really, it’s you).”

5

Oh, and regarding Miss Manners advice, I think she has ruled that the repeat “Sorry, busy that day” approach is applicable to only when seeking to discourage a person interested in forming a purely social relationship marked by occasional, unscheduled outings.

That is not really applicable to your group—a group of runners who have an express objective: running semi-competitively. If a person doesn’t want to commit to that objective then it’s not an offense against etiquette to say, “This is bridge club; you insist we play mah jongg. So I’m afraid you’ve got to find a group more to your liking. Nothing personal; it’s just not a good match.”

6

Trouble is, it’s not a closed/private group. The majority of our interactions are at public running events, and we can’t exclude her. Anyone can show up. Also, so far, I only know of three, possibly four people who have a problem with her. I can’t speak for everyone. The post-fun-run dinners are pretty fluid as to who attends, and we often invite newcomers to join us. It’s usually about six people out of a pool of, say, twenty, and that’s within a running community of a few hundred people.

I most definitely have no problem with keeping her out of things like trips that Lisa and I are planning (two so far this year). The team thing gets dicey, because it’s sort of assumed that if you’re friends with someone and they’re putting together a team, you’re welcome on it. Perhaps “We’re waiting to hear from a few other people”? But then she’ll want to know who. Ugh.

I don’t mind her presence at events, and I can talk with her to some extent. But I just can’t take her in large doses for long periods.

I like the idea of “It’s not you, it’s me.” I prefer a more mellow vibe, whatever. I’ve also been thinking of presenting it as, “We don’t have to make every event a big group thing.” But again, I’d be speaking only for myself. It’s hard to think of a way to deal with this that’s not going to create friction in what is otherwise a nice, friendly, positive community. Ideally if I just tell her “no” enough times she’ll drift off into spending more time with other people and not glomming on to me/us so much.

7

Thing is, it’s not that she’s not committed to running – she is, very much. And even if she weren’t, it’s no skin off anyone else’s nose if she chooses to train differently. It purely the social skills that make her stick out. And no one can “kick her out.”

8

Sure, she can still go to those events, but not as part as your little group. If she’s annoying you that much, there has to be some nucleus that has formed. I’m sure that there are hella annoying people at the supermarket, but I wouldn’t know because the supermarket isn’t that intimate.

But if it is like the supermarket, then just say "Oh hey, Alice, great to see you again. You know, I really wanted to catch up with Ben before he takes off. Take care and have a great run! (or “Keep running!” as appropriate).

9

True enough, and I can make that part of my approach. I’m grateful that her pace is so much slower than most of us, because that precludes her from wanting to do any separate training runs with us. Lisa and I get along so well partly because our paces are pretty similar, and we often run together, just the two of us. Alice would never keep up, and she knows it, so she hasn’t tried inviting herself to join us there.

But she sure thinks that now that we’ve been on a team together, we’re all BFFs.

10

Wow, that’s a crappy situation. I don’t envy you. Could you try and change her behavior? Correct her every time she’s obnoxious?

“Alice, you’re talking too much, it’s getting on my nerves.” “Alice, you need to take responsibility for your own things. It’s irritating to be constantly asked to do things you could do yourself.” “Alice, we don’t want to hear about your work.” Etc. And when she asks about carpooling, just say the car is full. If she bugs you for specifics, just be non-committal: “Oh, there’s a list.” If she pushes you on it, tell her you aren’t discussing it. Be as pleasant as possible, but firm and not friendly.

I know this is bitchy, but you don’t sound like you’re going to be able to completely get rid of her, so if she thinks you’re a bitch, maybe she’ll glom onto someone else. I’m terrible with situations like this, though, so probably someone else has a better idea.

11

I’ve found the only sure fire way to get rid of someone is to give them away to someone else. You really just need to reduce your exposure to her by about half (or more).

Can you wrangle her some invitations to some other groups? Point out some other group meetings or events that she might like to attend (that you are not attending)? Introduce her to someone? Stuff like that?

I would definitely attempt to move her away from your group toward some other groups in a kind and friendly, ‘helping you out’, kind of way first. Stronger actions could follow if this were not effective.

12

You really have two choices:

  1. Someone needs to talk to her - “Alice, you’re welcome to run with us however there’s some things bothering the group.” Lay out the problems, ask her to adjust and see what happens. This may come off as needlessly blunt, it may offend the hell out of her, she may be totally surprised and freak out…or it may work. If it works, great. If not then you’re on to option #2:

  2. Stop inviting her. You can’t not invite her to a public event (i.e. the local 5K fun run) but you do not have to invite someone to a gathering that you and your friends are planning. Start up a new email list and do not include her. If you always do a 9am run Sundays at Smith Park, change the time/day/location. Agree in advance on when/where to go for an after-run meal and if you see her, don’t bring it up. If she asks about going out say “Thanks but I’m busy”.

(1) can be handled in a variety of ways but you’re all adults so a simple, polite, straight approach is best IMHO.

13

This chick sounds a lot like my mom, if my mom were into running. The glomming, the brashness, the lack of personal initative, the begging for rides, the largeness, the oversharing, and every conversation turns instantly into one-upmanship–no matter how hard you have it, she’s had it worse and HERE’S WHY! :rolleyes: She’s even a nurse, so the medical bullshit sounds very similar to what you go through. She just, frankly, never stops talking. EVER. It’s a very hard personality to take with any sort of frequency, unless you’re exactly like that too (in which case you wouldn’t be making this post). So, I totally understand your frustration.

The best tactics I’ve found are distance and gentle-but-firm disengagement–but your situation is different because 1) you obviously don’t have the luxury of increasing her distance from you all, and 2) you have no interest in maintaining a relationship with her whatsoever. Given that, what you *really *need to understand is, that there is NO way you can break this to her without her getting hurt. Her feelings are going to be very hurt, there’s no way around it, and there’s nothing you can really do to cushion her from that. She might end up hating your guts–these types of people *rarely *turn their criticism inward. Knowing that, it makes the most sense to tell her in a way that makes things better for your group ASAP. Someone is just going to have to ball up and tell her–send her an email. Don’t hint or beat around the bush. Don’t be “nice.” People like this see niceness as weakness (not in an evil way)–they just honestly believe that they are actually liked by people who are forcing themselves to act nice because of social decorum.

Be firm! Be brave! B natural! :cool: Write her a frank email; if you’re lucky, you won’t ever see her again (although you may receive a series of rude emails in reply). Don’t expect her to be understanding and see her own faults–she’s not capable of it. But if you aren’t firm, she’ll continue glomming onto the niceness… so do what you have to in order to forestall future recurrences.

Gluck.

14

"I’m afraid there’s no delicate way to tell you, Alice, but if you want to continue participating in group events, we’re going to need you to pull your own weight with the organizational duties and try to remember this is a group activity. A number if us have expressed concerns privately about your habit of asking us to assist or handle your responsibilities, and it’s becoming a major issue for several members.

The other major issue is that a number of members have stated their frustrations about your tendency to dominate a conversation. I’m sure it’s unintentional, and you are a valued member of the group. But the tensions are there, right or wrong, and I wanted to speak to you privately before things came to a head and a confrontation or worse happened, as I don’t think you’re aware of how some of your actions are coming across to he group. I’d rather not have to have he conversation at all, but I wanted to tell you in confidence and avoid embarrassing you or creating a rift in the group.

I think you bring a lot to the table, and you are a valued member of the group. I’d hate to see you leave, but I also would hate to turn a great thing into a soap opera or have members resenting one another privately. "

As the de facto leader, you’re the only person that can say that and have it taken in a positive way. Shell be mortified but glad it was a private conversation, and try to fit in better (in which case the occasional artful glance or aside will help keep her in line, or she’ll storm off and quit. Win win for you.

Or just punch her in the throat the next time she goes off.

15

I’m heavily leaning toward this approach. No matter how I deal with it, I would still have to see her at events and runs. I need to keep it so we can remain civil and somewhat friendly, but just not to have her in my face ALL THE TIME. I’ve taken the first step by hiding myself from her in FB chat. :slight_smile: (She likes to message me rather frequently. Not anymore, hopefully.)

Fortunately she does participate in some programs and groups that I do not. And she already knows a lot of people that I don’t. Hoping to foist her off on them more.

For (1) I can really speak only for myself. And I don’t want to crush her by essentially saying “None of us can stand you.” She’s tolerable in limited doses, she means well, and she’s enthusiastic. She’s not entirely horrible. Just too much for extended periods.

For (2), again, for all I know, some people in the group like her, and it’s not my place to throw her out. It would feel mighty catty to make secret plans without her. I’d just like to see things change to “You do your stuff and I’ll do mine. We don’t need to be joined at the hip.”

I totally plan on being firm with her when she hits me up personally, but again, I can’t speak for everyone. She won’t be on any teams with me, she’s not coming on any trips, she’s not carpooling to races. I think I may be stuck with the group dinners because that’s sort of an established thing, but stuff that she initiates (like the apparently aborted “team brunch”) I can certainly avoid.

I did not mention one other thing, because it’s not really relevant, but she also has a food addiction problem that grates on me. I understand that it’s totally not my business, but she keeps bringing up how she’s not losing weight (and is having trouble improving her pace; think there’s a connection?), while she always wants to order the big fried appetizer platter and the junkiest crap on the menu. I’ve had a weight problem myself (lost 75 pounds) – it’s why I took up running – and she knows it and asks me for advice, but then she always – and I mean ALWAYS – makes the worst possible choices, and she always “deserves” to splurge. Drives me nuts.

16

I really disagree with this approach. Alice is not going to change or improve her behavior.

If you’re going to deliver a “shape up or ship out” message, you might as well just go straight to the “ship out” part. Alice’s feelings will be hurt either way, and making it wishy-washy will only prolong the pain.

17

Well, I was de facto leader just for the event this past Saturday. That team no longer exists. But I’ll probably end up being de facto captain for the fall relay, which is a team with a slight different mix of people, but still includes Alice. :frowning:

Yeah, I can’t really make her “ship out.” There’s no concrete group to kick her out of, and no stated consensus on her behavior. Best I can claim is the three- person bitch session, out of a few dozen people who regularly interact.

It’s more about limiting my exposure to her, while still having fun with everyone else. Well, mine and Lisa’s, since we do a lot of running stuff together and we agree on the Alice issue. And since Lisa isn’t good at handling this sort of thing (for good reasons and I don’t fault her for it), it falls to me to handle it.

18

Be assertive. People like this thrive in groups where nobody wants to be the bad guy and tell Annoying Girl she is annoying. Be direct, chances are she’s going to act all shocked and try to guilt trip people.

My mom can get on my nerves sometimes and the most annoying part is that when you try and call her out on it, she makes you feel so guilty for even thinking the way you do. You need to power through that- you know you are a decent person, dont let someone annoying second guess yourself, because the minute they know you feel bad, they know that they can get away with anything and will continue to roll over all your boundaries.

Setting firm boundaries with peers is one of the most challenging things to do sometimes because some people make it so much fucking WORK to get them to understand you do not want to be a part of their drama. :mad:

19

I play team tennis and personality conflicts happen all the time. Here’s how we handle it: “Official” team events (matches, post-match lunches, and team celebrations) are all considered open to everyone. There’s no excluding anyone from your team for any reason, even if it’s an event you host at your own home. A team event is a team event and all are invited. If someone needs a ride, they’re free to hop in any of our cars.

Peripheral events (shopping trips, post-practice lunches) are “Invite who you want” kind of things. But everyone has to be an adult about it. That means that you are discreet if you go out and don’t include the entire group. When one of the women invited 6 of us to her home in Florida, we didn’t talk about it in front of the other team members who weren’t invited. We didn’t share pictures in front of the group. We tried very hard to respect their feelings. For their part, they didn’t complain about being excluded. Their feelings might have been hurt, but they acted like adults.

Sounds like the OPer is doing the right thing by refusing to be Alice’s chump. I also have a friend who acts like she cannot do anything, and she routinely cajoles other people into covering for her. For instance, we all provide lunch after home matches, on a rotating basis. This friend claims she can’t cook. So she’s usually given the easy thing, like bringing the napkins and plastic ware. Not with me. When I’m in charge, I make her carry her own weight. And I tell her upfront that if that means she has to go pick up catering, then that’s what it means. But no way am I spending 2 hours making a nice lunch while all she has to do is throw some plasticware in her tennis bag.

20

How competitive are these relays? And is there money already committed by the team members?

It’s quite a bit on the jerky side, but if you can replace Alice with someone significantly faster (she already knows she’s slow), that seems a reasonable thing to do for a competitive group. If she’s already paid her entry fee, that’s a different matter, of course.