06-18-2018, 11:28 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-18-2018, 12:49 PM by AsIGotHitByACar.)
I'm stuck with thoughts about someone I truly hate going round my head. Let’s call him J. I hope you don’t mind me writing a long rant. I think it might help to at least attempt to get some of it out of my system.
Many years ago, I was best friends with some people I know from a youth theatre group. When we were about 20, my two friends appeared to be latching on to this J guy who was and is a couple of years older and was considered very much to be the 'star' of the entire youth theatre. Someone who was believed to be the person who would be breakout success as an actor some day. I never had a particular burning desire to be pals with him, but my two friends, having grown up in the youth theatre environment, worshipped the ground J walked on. They were constantly affecting his mannerisms and parroting his would-be witty remarks, endlessly... it was pretty embarrassing to see them fawn over him, like it was some kind of teenage crush. He had a pseudo-charm about him, was very ‘quick’, with seemingly no fear.
I initially thought he was OK, but he began to grate on me as he started making lots of belittling remarks in my direction, which needless to say did not endear him to me. This was when I was very young and struggling enormously with self-esteem, my place in the universe and was deeply insecure and desperate for female attention, as well as having poor social skills. My negative opinion of J was solidified when he deliberately and successfully pursued a girl who he knew I liked and at that point had show a lot of interest in me. I had to be in the same room as them getting together in a room full of people trying to sleep very late after this party and it was, at the time, a really crushing experience to me. (I say “at the time” because I later befriended her and she transpired to be a massively toxic sociopath who I made a lucky escape from, but not after doing lots of shitty, fucked-up behaviour at my expensive. So needless to say the I grew to find the idea of being attractive to her quite laughable. It just hurt a lot at the time.)
In the following years, I often had to be in J’s company a lot and he would put me down a lot with his withering, belittling remarks, and my two best friends - and now his henchmen - would never defend me. I just took it all. Things began to get worse as one of these friends began being very distant towards me and it was increasingly clear he wanted to break away from me. In hindsight it appears that I was becoming unpopular all round and it would not have been helped by me being vocal about not wanting to throw rose petals at their idol’s feet and generally thinking J was a massive dick. In fact, their hero’s actions would get increasingly shitty towards me, try these for size:
- Arriving to meet a large group of people, which he ‘greeted me’ by saying “who invited you?”, loudly, in front of them all
- Telling me he thought the music that I made was shit, completely out of the blue, when we weren’t even on the subject of that in the first place
- Finding cigarette ash in my hair, as it transpired he had been using my hair as an ashtray, unbeknownst to me, one evening. (This is the sort of thing which the press would report as funny when it is done by someone like Liam Gallagher towards Mick Jagger at an awards ceremony, but believe me, it’s right up there with the worst of the biggest shitbag behaviour I have ever been on the receiving end of and I defy anyone to have a sense of humour if it were to happen to them)
Needless to say, by this stage I HATED the guy. My other friend of the two eventually grew to dislike me as well, we had a band together and he became increasingly passive-aggressive towards me and encouraged the others to be ganging up on me. I decided to break off all contact with him and I can remember it being one of the most upsetting periods of my life - much worse and far bleaker than being dumped in a romantic relationship. It was a true low point and and it hurt in such a distinctly awful way. I felt truly pathetic and had so much anger towards all of them.
I saw J once about 5 years later, by surprise. He had been watching another band I was playing with and he actually complimented me on my guitar playing, but I was wise to his utterly false smarminess and needless to say had not forgotten all the shitty, bullying behaviour towards me. He sat at an adjacent table to my friends that night and I was so uncomfortable, I drank myself into a stupor, to the disgust of my then-girlfriend.
Fast forward to recent times and I’ve had many more positive experiences in my life and have met many more positive people and my self-esteem has grown a lot. I’ve got so far too go, but it really feels like the worst days are behind me. However, though the course of therapy, J keeps coming up in conversation. He’s back on my mind again and all the shitbag behaviour comes back to haunt me. One of my biggest problems is rumination and I spend days thinking about what an utterly bullying arsehole he was to me and how I was too weak to deal with it. So I hated him now more than ever, even though it had been years since our paths have crossed. I have been playing in a supporting role with a much more successful band recently and I was perturbed to notice him ‘liking’ our Facebook content, which I wouldn’t have expected of him as I wouldn’t have expected him to even like this band in the first place. What was going on? I talked about it a lot in my therapy appointments, that it seemed like we were going to cross paths again.
The day I finished my exams, I got a message from the band’s singer to invite me to come along to the opening night of this art installation event, which we will be playing as part of of in this venue in a couple of weeks. I’m delighted to go along and have some free drinks etc, especially after just finished the hardest part of my year of studies. So we’re in the bar room and low and behold, in marches J who booms out in his hammy actor voice to get everyone’s attention and inform them that the entertainment is about to start in the main room. OH CHRIST. It all made sense - he was employed to be an MC / bigmouth for this festival. Gross. And there was me thinking our paths don’t need to cross anymore…. He actually walked by me a few times and thought perhaps we’d be able to avoid each other, but what happened shortly afterwards was excruciating. While I was talking to a few people, out the corner of the my left eye I could make out him appear at my side and was slowly moving up towards me to kiss me on the cheek. Like, in an ironic kind of way, but clearly intended with the facade of being friendly, which I've decided I will at no point ever accept from him again. Without looking him in the eye, I put up one hand as if to say ‘please, no’ while wincing as hard as I could, which cause him to literally run out of the room. It was excruciatingly embarrassing. A woman who I did not know looked on in bewilderment and said “that guy just tried to kiss you?” and I just muttered something about him not being nice guy. I had already let the other people know that he was a bully from the past and was uncomfortable about his presence with him lording about the place as he only knows how.
He actually corned me about half an hour later and acting all innocent, as if he’s never serially been an utter shit towards me years ago and said “I didn’t mean to offend you earlier”. When I blanked him again and turned away, he actually said “I consider you to be an old friend!” Wow. What an utter arsehole. I hope the onlookers could get a small glimpse of what was going on. I don’t know if he especially cared, or if this had ruined his big night being the MC or anything - it wasn’t like I excepted us to have these encounters so just acted instinctively with regard to my current feelings.
Sure enough, the day we came to play the actual gig as part of this ongoing event - which I had been looking forward to for months as it was one of the most high-profile shows I’ve ever been fortunate enough to be a part of - he was there again. He was given the job of being the band’s rep for the evening. My plan was to avoid him at all costs, so much so that I was even nervous to use the toilet in case I’d bump into him. Before the soundcheck, he came round offering teas and coffees to all the band and I had to blank him again when he addressed me by name, again as if he could just bulldoze on through and act as if he could get me to be civilised towards him. When he said my name a second time, I could help but just bark “NO” back at him. I was worried for a bit that my other band mates would think I was just being rude, but I overheard one of them say “I think there’s some history there”, which was very astute of him…. Anyway, they all like me and know me well enough by now. Screw him. I’m not going to let him invade my world in present time easily.
So, yeah. That’s a big rant. Where does it leave me then, now that those recent encounters have been and gone? I told the story to my friend who knows him a bit (and doesn’t mind him) and he tactlessly told me to “get over it”. Of course, he doesn’t know the whole story of how he treated me back then. I just said “he’s a bully” angrily and it was very awkward, but I think my friend possibly understood to an extent.
Needless to say, this is exactly the sort of emotional pain I need relief from. I would like to stop thinking about this guy and about how wronged I felt back in the day. I would like to stop thinking about all manner of people who hurt, belittled and rejected me. I’m open to the idea of forgiving them, but only in my own head - why build bridges with people you never liked or deserved in the first place. I’ve got so many bad experiences like this, I NEED to clear them out. I hope you can understand why I’m desperate for a sub to start working on me soon.
Rant over. Any thoughts on how to move forward with the likes of this would be appreciated.
Many years ago, I was best friends with some people I know from a youth theatre group. When we were about 20, my two friends appeared to be latching on to this J guy who was and is a couple of years older and was considered very much to be the 'star' of the entire youth theatre. Someone who was believed to be the person who would be breakout success as an actor some day. I never had a particular burning desire to be pals with him, but my two friends, having grown up in the youth theatre environment, worshipped the ground J walked on. They were constantly affecting his mannerisms and parroting his would-be witty remarks, endlessly... it was pretty embarrassing to see them fawn over him, like it was some kind of teenage crush. He had a pseudo-charm about him, was very ‘quick’, with seemingly no fear.
I initially thought he was OK, but he began to grate on me as he started making lots of belittling remarks in my direction, which needless to say did not endear him to me. This was when I was very young and struggling enormously with self-esteem, my place in the universe and was deeply insecure and desperate for female attention, as well as having poor social skills. My negative opinion of J was solidified when he deliberately and successfully pursued a girl who he knew I liked and at that point had show a lot of interest in me. I had to be in the same room as them getting together in a room full of people trying to sleep very late after this party and it was, at the time, a really crushing experience to me. (I say “at the time” because I later befriended her and she transpired to be a massively toxic sociopath who I made a lucky escape from, but not after doing lots of shitty, fucked-up behaviour at my expensive. So needless to say the I grew to find the idea of being attractive to her quite laughable. It just hurt a lot at the time.)
In the following years, I often had to be in J’s company a lot and he would put me down a lot with his withering, belittling remarks, and my two best friends - and now his henchmen - would never defend me. I just took it all. Things began to get worse as one of these friends began being very distant towards me and it was increasingly clear he wanted to break away from me. In hindsight it appears that I was becoming unpopular all round and it would not have been helped by me being vocal about not wanting to throw rose petals at their idol’s feet and generally thinking J was a massive dick. In fact, their hero’s actions would get increasingly shitty towards me, try these for size:
- Arriving to meet a large group of people, which he ‘greeted me’ by saying “who invited you?”, loudly, in front of them all
- Telling me he thought the music that I made was shit, completely out of the blue, when we weren’t even on the subject of that in the first place
- Finding cigarette ash in my hair, as it transpired he had been using my hair as an ashtray, unbeknownst to me, one evening. (This is the sort of thing which the press would report as funny when it is done by someone like Liam Gallagher towards Mick Jagger at an awards ceremony, but believe me, it’s right up there with the worst of the biggest shitbag behaviour I have ever been on the receiving end of and I defy anyone to have a sense of humour if it were to happen to them)
Needless to say, by this stage I HATED the guy. My other friend of the two eventually grew to dislike me as well, we had a band together and he became increasingly passive-aggressive towards me and encouraged the others to be ganging up on me. I decided to break off all contact with him and I can remember it being one of the most upsetting periods of my life - much worse and far bleaker than being dumped in a romantic relationship. It was a true low point and and it hurt in such a distinctly awful way. I felt truly pathetic and had so much anger towards all of them.
I saw J once about 5 years later, by surprise. He had been watching another band I was playing with and he actually complimented me on my guitar playing, but I was wise to his utterly false smarminess and needless to say had not forgotten all the shitty, bullying behaviour towards me. He sat at an adjacent table to my friends that night and I was so uncomfortable, I drank myself into a stupor, to the disgust of my then-girlfriend.
Fast forward to recent times and I’ve had many more positive experiences in my life and have met many more positive people and my self-esteem has grown a lot. I’ve got so far too go, but it really feels like the worst days are behind me. However, though the course of therapy, J keeps coming up in conversation. He’s back on my mind again and all the shitbag behaviour comes back to haunt me. One of my biggest problems is rumination and I spend days thinking about what an utterly bullying arsehole he was to me and how I was too weak to deal with it. So I hated him now more than ever, even though it had been years since our paths have crossed. I have been playing in a supporting role with a much more successful band recently and I was perturbed to notice him ‘liking’ our Facebook content, which I wouldn’t have expected of him as I wouldn’t have expected him to even like this band in the first place. What was going on? I talked about it a lot in my therapy appointments, that it seemed like we were going to cross paths again.
The day I finished my exams, I got a message from the band’s singer to invite me to come along to the opening night of this art installation event, which we will be playing as part of of in this venue in a couple of weeks. I’m delighted to go along and have some free drinks etc, especially after just finished the hardest part of my year of studies. So we’re in the bar room and low and behold, in marches J who booms out in his hammy actor voice to get everyone’s attention and inform them that the entertainment is about to start in the main room. OH CHRIST. It all made sense - he was employed to be an MC / bigmouth for this festival. Gross. And there was me thinking our paths don’t need to cross anymore…. He actually walked by me a few times and thought perhaps we’d be able to avoid each other, but what happened shortly afterwards was excruciating. While I was talking to a few people, out the corner of the my left eye I could make out him appear at my side and was slowly moving up towards me to kiss me on the cheek. Like, in an ironic kind of way, but clearly intended with the facade of being friendly, which I've decided I will at no point ever accept from him again. Without looking him in the eye, I put up one hand as if to say ‘please, no’ while wincing as hard as I could, which cause him to literally run out of the room. It was excruciatingly embarrassing. A woman who I did not know looked on in bewilderment and said “that guy just tried to kiss you?” and I just muttered something about him not being nice guy. I had already let the other people know that he was a bully from the past and was uncomfortable about his presence with him lording about the place as he only knows how.
He actually corned me about half an hour later and acting all innocent, as if he’s never serially been an utter shit towards me years ago and said “I didn’t mean to offend you earlier”. When I blanked him again and turned away, he actually said “I consider you to be an old friend!” Wow. What an utter arsehole. I hope the onlookers could get a small glimpse of what was going on. I don’t know if he especially cared, or if this had ruined his big night being the MC or anything - it wasn’t like I excepted us to have these encounters so just acted instinctively with regard to my current feelings.
Sure enough, the day we came to play the actual gig as part of this ongoing event - which I had been looking forward to for months as it was one of the most high-profile shows I’ve ever been fortunate enough to be a part of - he was there again. He was given the job of being the band’s rep for the evening. My plan was to avoid him at all costs, so much so that I was even nervous to use the toilet in case I’d bump into him. Before the soundcheck, he came round offering teas and coffees to all the band and I had to blank him again when he addressed me by name, again as if he could just bulldoze on through and act as if he could get me to be civilised towards him. When he said my name a second time, I could help but just bark “NO” back at him. I was worried for a bit that my other band mates would think I was just being rude, but I overheard one of them say “I think there’s some history there”, which was very astute of him…. Anyway, they all like me and know me well enough by now. Screw him. I’m not going to let him invade my world in present time easily.
So, yeah. That’s a big rant. Where does it leave me then, now that those recent encounters have been and gone? I told the story to my friend who knows him a bit (and doesn’t mind him) and he tactlessly told me to “get over it”. Of course, he doesn’t know the whole story of how he treated me back then. I just said “he’s a bully” angrily and it was very awkward, but I think my friend possibly understood to an extent.
Needless to say, this is exactly the sort of emotional pain I need relief from. I would like to stop thinking about this guy and about how wronged I felt back in the day. I would like to stop thinking about all manner of people who hurt, belittled and rejected me. I’m open to the idea of forgiving them, but only in my own head - why build bridges with people you never liked or deserved in the first place. I’ve got so many bad experiences like this, I NEED to clear them out. I hope you can understand why I’m desperate for a sub to start working on me soon.
Rant over. Any thoughts on how to move forward with the likes of this would be appreciated.
