If I had a long lost friend that had gotten married, or had a girlfriend or anything that I hadn’t seen in ages and I went out for food or anything with them, I would naturally try and engage their wife/girlfriend/friend in conversation; because if my friend liked them, more probably than not, I would like them too. And if I didn’t, it’s no biggy, its less effort to be nice to them than to blatantly ignore them for 2 hours in front of said friend. It’s also more respectful to my friend, considering they like them.
So that was number one. Deliberately being rude for whatever fucked up reason you can to validate your behaviour to yourself. I think next time I’m in a similar situation I may point this out to them; maybe it will make them be nicer to somebody else in future. (I’d love to do this, but I think I’d find it hard since I don’t like to be deliberately rude to people I’ve never met before.)
This next one is less personal and more of an observation on a conversation I overheard at lunchtime.
I was in the staff room, waiting to use the microwave and talking to this girl about a dress I bought on the weekend (DKNY!!!!) for a party. We stopped chatting while I put my lunch in the microwave and the conversation at her table was resumed between a group of 4 other women. They were talking about their husbands / boyfriends (for sake of ease I’ll just go with husbands). But they weren’t telling each other about the nice things their husbands do for them (which is generally all I rave on about when talking about Brett. If you asked my staff they’d know all about how he buys me flowers, presents, goes to the shops for me in the rain even after he’s put on his trackies, and does a multitude of other wonderful things); they were whining about what their “idiots” did on the weekend.
The list was short.
Their husbands have friends other than their wives. The wives don’t like their friends.
Their husband invited their friends into their homes (oh noes!), at which point the wives refused to leave the safe confines of their bedroom where they are lazing about watching TV in bed. You wouldn’t want to interrupt the Saturday night movie for 5 minutes to actually go and greet a guest in your house. And the looks on their faces! They all had such pissed off looks of disdain on their faces while discussing the atrocities their husbands have committed against them. I tell you what, I feel sorry for those poor husbands to have such narky, boring wives. Sure, sometimes you don’t feel like hanging out, but I suppose it wasn’t so much the issues they were describing, but the way they were all being so horrible. It was a truly terrible thing to witness.
It really made me realize how out of place I am amongst the other women in my office, and I suppose reconfirmed to me why I’ve never had many female friends. They’re so BITCHY. Seriously, it was horrible. I feel sorry for them. They need hobbies.
I felt like telling them that if their husbands and their friends were so awful then why don’t they leave them? I can only imagine they’d find someone new to whinge about.
Although it feels like SHIT to be ignored and is unspeakably rude, most people who act like that do so because they are very insecure, and don't have any social graces at their disposal. But rather than act shy or whatever, they act rude, as a kind of defense. It's still obnoxious and it drives me crazy but I'd guess it wasn't about you...
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