Well, I went out drinking this weekend. The night ended awfully - but the point of the night was to celebrate my girlfriend’s 21st birthday, which we were unable to celebrate a month ago because she was studying abroad.
I brought my sister and her husband, with which my girlfriend gets along just fine. My girlfriend invited her sister whom I do NOT get along with. She is materialistic in such an obvious and obnoxious way as to seem like a Disney villain.
But I can tolerate that - live your own lifestyle, and such. What I couldn’t tolerate was her sister taking every moment to insist we should probably head home. And while I would have gladly said “Please, do us the favor” I couldn’t because I have to be decent, and all.
But this is nothing. Because the worst part of the night is that the sister brings along her latest fuck-buddy. An ill-tempered, out-of-line, arrogant douch-nozzle. The likes of which I’ve only seen in caricature and never in real life. But all this, I can STILL put past me. Until we get to the restaurant to have dinner.
Mr. Suave decides to start using the n-word in the middle of dinner. At first we are stunned…then he says it again. Then again. Noting the shock value, he says it…again! He says to us all - “don’t worry, there are no n-words in the restaurant, so who cares?”. I’m trying hard to restrain myself, so I ignore him.
At the end of the night he starts up again, outside, in a very urban city, and I say “you know this is a dangerous neighborhood, someone was shot 50 feet from where you stand.” He laughs and asks me what I’m going to do about it. I told him nothing - someone would eventually come along and take his head clean off his shoulders. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut but I was scalding mad at this point. We got into the cab and left. Night stained by the idea that for some in the South the good ol’ boys network is still alive and well.
Now I’m wondering if I’ll have to deal with this guy at every family gathering. Here is to hoping he falls into a wood chipper.
I wouldn’t really call your weekend companions “strangers”. Strangers are people you meet at the bar and continue drinking with them.
Your first mistake is that you wimped out and failed to call out the douche the first time he offended you. Your lack of a back bone resulted in you being miserable the whole night. Your own fault. Own it.
I wasn’t afraid to call him out on it - I was trying to keep the peace. He was a stranger to myself, my girlfriend, my sister, and her husband. A first meet of anyone involving drinking just seems like a bad idea. If I had met the guy before under different circumstances I could have known not to go out with him.
Seems like the sister had the right idea…you all should have called it a night and headed home the first time she mentioned it. She was WARNING you, it seems, that the night would get irritating the longer you stayed out. At least you could have pretended to head home and then continue the evening somewhere else, without them. Maybe next time you will listen to the foreshadowing…LOL
I don’t understand your usage of the word “let”. I didn’t “let” him say it - I told him it bothered me and left it at that. I cannot physically stop him. And the kind of person, to me, who would use that word in public, without heed to surroundings, is probably dangerous and mentally ill. I don’t want him coming at my family.
If her sister is as materialistic as you say, it may be worth pointing out to her that her fuck-buddy . . . probably . . . is not going to be a huge success in life.
Does your girlfriend realize her sister is a douche with a habit of dating fellow douches? Because if your girlfriend doesn’t get that her sister just ensured that she’ll never be invited to a polite gathering again, you two need to have a Talk.
She does indeed realize that. An unfortunate part of all of this is that her folks are separating over the next few weeks, and she wanted to include her sister. We talked about it afterwards. After a night of drinking I assumed I’d be a little sick to my stomach, I just wish it were from drinking and not racism.
Sister dearest has a pattern of dating controlling men. Frustratingly enough she projects that on my girlfriend, claiming that I am controlling of her. Which is absolutely nuts if her sister knew anything about my girlfriend she’d know that she wouldn’t take that bullshit. It is a tough situation - she loves her sister no matter what, but if they weren’t related I couldn’t imagine the two of them existing in the same room.
Maybe it’s just part of getting old (I’m 56) but when someone starts saying “nigger” (I’m assuming that’s the “n” word you mean) I just tell them I want nothing to do with fucking racist shitbags and I leave. Easy-peasy.
“I’m not comfortable with that kind of racist language so I think I’m going to ask the waiter if we can move to another table. I hope you understand.” Then do it. You don’t have to fix people who insist on acting out but you also don’t have to sit at a table with them. As a special bonus, calm infuriates the kind of person who tries to provoke responses with this kind of childishness.
I grew up in a very racist time and place and have watched a lot of people evolve over the years. They don’t respond well to threats or shame (who does?) but they can change PDQ when they realize they are the odd man out.
I can see tolerating the sister of the girlfriend, for sake of family, but the only way I can see that tolerance covering the annoying boyfriend as well is if your girlfriend was ok with it.
I’m on the bandwagon too, you should have called him on it. A little bit of confrontation at the beginning of the night should have stopped a night-long douchefest.
Either way, the dude isn’t part of you life now and from what you say it sounds like the two of them may deserve each other. Take solace in that fact and if that doesn’t work you can always write sitcom screenplays in your mind with those two at the center.
Agreed with those who say you handled this poorly. You should have gotten up and left with your girlfriend the first time he said the “n” word. And I also agree the sister was trying to warn you by suggesting it was time to call it a night.
The sister certainly didn’t care about any of that, she just wanted to be home because she is a home-body. I wish we had gotten up and left. I know everyone would have been mad at me, girlfriend included, but it would have been the right thing. Or, at least, to ditch him, or insist on him separating. I’m probably explaining this poorly, but basically sister wasn’t leaving douche’s side, and girlfriend wasn’t leaving sister (we rode in together on a cab, planned on doing the same back to sister’s apartment). So I felt roped into the whole mess.
Girlfriend does not approve of use of the word. Her best friend is a black guy that she practiced theater with for a long time. Myself, girlfriend, my sister, her husband, were all pissed and afraid of his usage, but I guess we didn’t know how to react. We were all drinking, douche the most, and I suppose we didn’t exercise better judgement.
Partially I was afraid of stirring the beehive (especially a drunk beehive) and part of me was just so stunned. I know this is going to sound silly, but it was the first out-in-the-open racism I have experienced since moving down south 5 years ago.
As much as I think the sister deserves to be with a lunatic like that, I don’t want him popping up at her family’s occasions. I get a nervous dread around people like that. He’s the kind of person that can destroy everything you’ve worked hard for because he has nothing to lose
You keep coming off as a victim to this guy, even now with comments like this.
You should have straight up told the guy that you don’t appreciate comments like that and if he wants to continue talking like that, maybe he should take the sister home. But you just sat there through 3 different instances, and when he saw the shock on your collective faces, he said, hey don’t worry, there are none of them here. Yeah you can’t change a racists’ attitudes, but your silence is seen as a tacit acceptance to them.
No no, there was the first instance, with everyone stunned, then at the end of the night I confronted him on it. And I am the victim - I didn’t want to hear it. Obviously not much of a victim, I’ll give you that…but considering the guy was willing to say what he said in a city with over 1/3 the population being black, and with a lot of crime issues, I figured he had some loose screws. I didn’t want to set him off and have him attack my family or friends. Especially not after drinking. Surely you would understand why I feel this way?
Racists usually don’t go after people of their own color, just because they disagree with them. Most racists are cowards. They usually throw out their comments looking for agreement or non-resistance and then they will continue to pile on. Usually when told to shut the fuck up, they realize they not among their own kind and usually do just that…shut the fuck up.
I agree with others that you handled this very badly.
The first time you should have told him you didn’t want to hear that word again in public.
The second time you should have stood up, dropped some money on the table to pay your share of the tab, say you were leaving, and ask your girlfriend to come along.
If she wouldn’t come, then you leave and she’s now your ex-girlfriend.