In the OP, she said that Marjorie came to her right before she left the party crying. jsgoddess said that “Jeannette didn’t castigate him for his comment to Marjorie because she assumed Marjorie knew that he was “that way” and that she wouldn’t take him seriously.” Well, apparently Jeannette didn’t see Marjorie leave, so if that’s the case, I think js was right to do something. After all, Marjorie sees Harry call her a bitch at their very first meeting, in front of her own sister/Harry’s friend, and sis does nothing. She gets upset at this and tells jsgoddess, who does something about it, and only later does Jeannette learn that Marjorie left the party because of this.
Perhaps Marjorie was sensitive, but Jeannette shouldn’t have let her “friend” call her sister a bitch in front of her and not said a thing because ‘oh, that’s just how he is.’
Ferret Herder,
Actually I checked the OP before I made my comment, jsgoddess stated “Marjorie
left the gathering in tears, just after explaining what had happened. I wasn’t a
witness.” She did NOT say that the explanation was made directly to her, it could
easily have been spoken to the participants in general. At any rate it seems that the
incident could have ended there, as jsgoddess observes w/ her comment “Had I
butted out, everything might have blown over.”
Experience has taught me that it is rarely wise to confront some when you’re
“enraged” as jsgoddess admits she was. Finally I think that the congeniality of the
gathering was more important than creating a scene simply to satisfy some personal
frustration.
I do not believe that jsgoddess should agonize over this incident, I do think she
should learn from it and if a similar incident occurs in the future, it should be handled a
bit more discretely to avoid putting a damper on the festivities.
I was introduced to one of my best friend’s sisters for the first time.
Best Friend: This is my sister Susan.
Me: Now is this the sister who’s a bitch or the one who’s a slut?
There was a moment of stunned silence and then everyone burst out laughing.
My sense of humor leads me to occasionally make devastatingly inappropriate remarks to get a laugh. I can’t think of a time it didn’t work. So I guess it’s all in the presentation.
Of course it helped that neither sister was a bitch or a slut and that my friend had never said that they were.
If I made one of these comments and hilarity did not ensure – especially if someone was obviously offended – I’d fall all over myself explaining that it was a (bad) joke and that I was truly sorry for offending.
In your case. . .
Marjorie over-reacted. It’s kind of weird that she got so upset over a stupid remark from a stranger.
Jeannette under-reacted, making it seem that she possibly had told Harry that Marjorie was a bitch.
Harry should’ve apologized profusely as soon as he realized he’d offended Marjorie. Assuming that his original comment was meant as a joke, you were doing him a favor by letting him know he’d behaved poorly. If the comment was not meant as a joke, fuck him.
You did what you did. There were no good choices available to you. Don’t feel guilty; if Jeannette severs ties with Harry over this, she almost certainly would’ve eventually done so anyway.
I can’t do anything but completely disagree. I don’t care if my dad had a terminal illness and it was his last Thanksgiving, if someone calls my sister a bitch and makes her cry, while he’s a guest in my house, he’s going to be told to leave.
It’s neither acceptable behavior to do what Harry did nor unacceptable to confront him, in fact there are times, even in “polite society” where it’s appropriate to firmly but politely say, “I think you need to leave.” And that’s exactly what I would’ve done. I wouldn’t even have confronted Harry, I’d have just told him bluntly it was time for him to leave my family’s house after he just treated someone like that on Thanksgiving.
Your basic argument is, if someone does something extremely inappropriate and hurts someone, just let them get away with it because it’ll make a scene if you say anything. That’s bollocks.