4004 Friends

Saturday, January 17, 2015

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

--Martin Luther King, Jr. --

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A few days ago I mentioned that I talk to no one much now  other than Daughter and store clerks.  Yeah.  That's quite different from four years ago in the Hudson Valley.  I was very active there in Mensa and the Albany and Poughkeepsie/Newburgh Meetup groups, and a few other things I belong to.  A lot of going out to movies, luncheons, dinners, hikes, activities --- a lot of conversation.

Here,  nothing.

I checked out the local chapter of Mensa.  There seems to be two subsets of the group.  The bunch near me seems to be overweight male basement-dwelling WoW types who don't much talk at all.  The more interesting folks congregate around Princeton.  They are fun --- but Princeton is a bit of a distance on a busy highway, and the drive just doesn't feel worth the effort.

I tried Meetup, but there are few dinner-and-conversation groups.  It seems to be mostly oriented toward booze, bars, and bands, or very young folks doing very physical things.  All that's left after that is special-interest groups, mostly woo-woo types.  Also, the people are different.  They are not as aware of what's going on in the world, not as well-read, not as intellectual as I'm used to in the Albany area.  They seem pretty xenophobic and racist.  I just don't fit in with any of that. 

I tried starting my own dinner and conversation Meetup group, and discovered that even if nine people reserve a spot at the table, that doesn't mean any of them will actually show up.  That is a major problem here, all of the organizers complain about it, and I guess it's the main reason activities are of the happy-hour type.   Then it doesn't matter so much; if 50 people sign up and 30 blow it off, who cares.

I looked for a volunteer group, like the RSVP (Retired & Seniors Volunteer Program) I had worked with up north, but although there are literally thousands of sub-chapters within 20 miles of here, 99.9% are in NYC.  The few things in NJ are hospice and animal rescue groups, and I know me well enough to know that I have to stay away from anything where I'll get emotionally involved.  I DID find the volunteer tax-prep assistance locally, something I did back in the Hudson Valley, but believe it or not, the classes for that ended January 17.  Today.  Missed it.

Upstate I was also into volunteer civil/small claims court mediation, but there doesn't seem to be anything like here.  

Nothing.

Yeah, I've got neighbors, but, frankly, I'm not into that kind of thing.  I'm actually more than a bit of a loner.  In fact, I'm very much a loner.  I really don't want people who are there all the time.  I guess I don't really want friends.  Not that kind.   I've often in my youth been hurt by friends who, now that they know a lot about you, suddenly turn on you, and know exactly how to hurt you.  I never understood that.  It seems like friendships take a lot of work, and steel emotions. 

I think I got turned off by stuff I saw happen in the upstate NY Mensa group, too.  Like what happened with May.  May and her husband, I'll call him Joe, hosted a weekly Happy Hour in Kingston, with a core group of ten or so people every week.  That went on for like ten years.  And every year they hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for all members without families.   And then Joe died.  The night he died, sitting in his recliner at home, May called me, I rushed over there, I walked her through making the necessary calls, took her to the undertaker and lawyer over the next few days, and so on.  No one else, of all those people, helped her.  I called the editor of the newsletter to tell him to put a notice in the next issue, and he refused, because Joe "was not a member".  I was furious!  Everyone knew Joe!  He was always with May at every event.  Everyone knew May.  How can you just ignore his death!?  How can he not matter!

And then there was NJ.  NJ was one of the founding members of that local Mensa group. She was the newsletter editor for years, and was the treasurer for decades.   She hosted three of the biggest and best annual parties every year, including food and champagne for all at her own expense (and she was far from rich).  Everyone went to them.  Then she came down with colon cancer.  No one knew until we all went to her annual Moonlight Madness party and discovered she was wearing a chemo pump.  When she had to resign her job in White Plains (under threat of layoff) just before her surgery, like three weeks after that party, she asked the group for assistance clearing out her personal belongings.  That Saturday, one other guy (the aging hippy) and I were the only people to show up.  Nobody else even acknowledged her need.  That really pissed me off.

I thought May and NJ had a lot of friends in Mensa.  Maybe not bosom buddies, but still a lot better than mere acquaintances.  I guess not.  Once they seemed no longer useful, once they weren't throwing parties any more, they were pretty much cast adrift.

Let's not forget my experience with FW, she who started out a friend, and ended up scaring me half to death with her demands and accusations.  The one The Man called my psycho exgirlfriend.  She was poison to my mental health.  I made a serious mistake there.   (Actually, she turned out to have problems with others, too.  She had been elected president of the local Mensa group, but was relieved of her duties under threat from national, and ultimately resigned from the group altogether after some unpleasant interactions with others.)

I don't get it.  I really don't.  I don't know how this "friends" stuff is supposed to work and I'm afraid to try.  It's just too hard, and I don't understand the rules, I guess.  I don't want friends anyway.  All I really want is compatible people to converse with occasionally, that's all, and I can't seem to find even that.  Not around here, anyway.

On the other hand, I am perfectly comfortable with my own company, especially these days when my body rebels frequently, so I'm not suffering any, either.

(Daughter seems to have a lot of friends, but I've noticed the friends she has now are not the same ones she had two years ago.) 
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3174 Now I'm getting scared.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

“The most ineffective workers are systematically moved
to the place where they can do the least damage: management.”
-- Scott Adams --

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FW is heating up, and I don't understand why. I wouldn't be surprised to find her coming at me with a jar of acid. I'm not kidding. I almost never lock my front door during daylight, but I'm locking it now. She's flat-out crazy.

I have found that I can usually let go of things by writing them out, so here goes. The history. This is pretty long, as is every study in madness.

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She's a member of Mid-Hudson Mensa. At a group dinner in late 2006, I mentioned that I couldn't remember ever going out for New Year's Eve. She mentioned a dinner and a good retro band, but she couldn't afford it, so we decided to go together, and I paid for the evening for both of us.

We enjoyed it. We started going to parties, dances, dinners, movies, and so on together. She and I are very different (she's a nudist, heavy marijuana user, politically involved, artistic, and she has described herself as bi in the past "but is no longer"), so I found her views fascinating. She's on disability, so I usually footed the bill. I didn't mind, because I have it and at least I was getting out.

This was also the period when Roman was jerking me around, and I needed someone to talk with. She was madly in love with a guy who was living with another woman, with whom he had two or three small children. They used to get together at a place back in the woods near Mohonk where nudists hung out all summer. (She tried many times to talk me into going there with her, but I'm absolutely not a nudist, not even close, and from the stories, it wasn't a place for people just to be free of clothing restrictions - it was more a place for gays to cruise and straights to roll around together in the poison ivy - very sexually charged.) Or he'd show up at her house and they'd roll around there, then he'd leave. He kept promising her he was going to leave the other woman, but it showed no signs of happening.

Anyway, within a few months, she was chewing me out for not being attentive enough. She informed me that she expected chatty phone calls, a minimum of once a week. I'd told her many times that I hate the telephone, when I make a call to anyone, it's brief, to conduct some kind of business or ask a question, I just don't EVER call anyone just to chat. I hate the telephone! Even my cell phone was turned on only in emergencies. She continued to castigate me for not calling. She said some nasty things to me over my not calling. (Note - she rarely called me because it was a toll call.) She said hurtful things that left me feeling bad.

Things bumped on that way through most of 2007. I, by early summer, had started turning down invitations, because it seemed that no matter what I did, how I was, it wasn't what she thought I should do/say/be, it just wasn't enough for her. She was very demanding, and vicious when things didn't go as she wanted.

In September of 2007, she decided she wanted to go to the Mensa Hallowe'en gathering in Chicago, but she didn't want to go alone. I wasn't particularly interested, but she talked me into it. What the heck, this is supposed to be one of the largest and best of the regional gatherings, so ok, at least I'd have someone to go with. (I absolutely wouldn't have gone alone, so this was an opportunity.) I said yes, and paid for my gathering registration and four nights at the hotel, and made the flight reservation.

A week later, she informed me that she couldn't afford both the gathering registration and the plane ticket. I shrugged and paid her gathering registration. A few days after that, she asked if she could share my room, since she couldn't afford a room of her own. By now, I'm already into this for two registrations, four days' room for me, and my plane ticket, almost $1,000. Either I find her a place to sleep, or cancel everything and take the loss, or I end up going alone. I don't share a room, ever, except with a man I'm sleeping with, it just doesn't work for me, so I shrugged and reserved another room for four nights for her.

Yeah, you feel what's coming next? A few days later she says she can't afford the plane ticket. I somewhere acquired some balls and wished her luck finding a courier ticket or something. No, I couldn't afford to fly her out. Sorry.

I guess she found some money somewhere, because she made it to the gathering. I arrived Thursday afternoon, she arrived in the evening, and we had dinner at the hotel. She was having new troubles with that guy, and talked steadily about him during dinner. I knew she wouldn't want to hear what I had to say about him, so I listened, I really was attentive, "uh huh"ed at the appropriate moments, didn't say anything against him, and refrained from changing the topic.

She didn't sleep in her room Thursday night. She spent the whole night in the hospitality suite, drinking and talking, and then slept most of Friday.

Friday night was the Hallowe'en party. She decided she was going to go '60s and had asked me if I knew how to do a beehive. I said yes, so she decided I was going to do her hair early that evening. At a time of her choosing, of course. It took 1.5 hours. There were two presentations I wanted to see that I blew off to do her hair. She slept in her room that night, BUT, and I'm sorry, but I found this unbelievable, she informed me that night that she was leaving the gathering in the morning to meet a blind date in Chicago, and would be going clubbing with him Saturday and Sunday nights, and would be staying with him until her return home Monday. I asked if she had canceled the hotel room for those nights, and she acted surprised.

So Saturday morning I frogmarched her down to the desk and made sure she canceled the room, and wished her luck with the rest of the weekend. So, except for dinner Thursday, doing her hair Friday, and checking her out on Saturday morning, I was there alone for the gathering. Exactly what I didn't want to do. I felt royally used. She just wanted a trip to Chicago.

Well the next week, she called me and chewed me out up one side and down the other for not being sympathetic enough at dinner Thursday! I, like a guilty puppy, just took her abuse. I said nothing. In fact, I think I may even have apologized. It was only later that I realized that I had done nothing wrong. No thank you for the registration and room, no thank you for blowing off my plans and doing her hair instead, nothing. I felt royally used.

I did nothing, said nothing. But the next time she called, wanting to go to dinner or something, I told her that I didn't think I could be around her any more, that she made me feel bad too often, that I had worked very hard to learn to like myself and I couldn't allow her to keep tearing me down, so no, I don't think our getting together is a good idea.

That was 2007.

Now, she was the president of the local Mensa group, and I had volunteered to rewrite the Bylaws. The sessions were to be held at her home, as central to the three of us on the committee. That worked out ok. We were civil. And then something terrifying happened in April of 2008. It's amusingly described here: http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2008/04/1752-psycho-ex-girlfriend.html.

I had to "break up with her" all over again.

In June, another group member, John, was having a cookout and invited all the active members. When he called her to invite her, he asked for other members' phone numbers. She wouldn't give him my number. She told him not to bother calling me, she'd call me and tell me about it. She never did. When I heard about the cookout, I was a little hurt that everyone but me (I?) had been invited. Of course, no one knew that FW had told John she'd take care of it, John didn't know she hadn't, and of course no one was going to ask John why I hadn't been invited.

That was all in 2008.

In 2009, other people in the group starting having run-ins with her. There was a public incident in a restaurant which resulted in the group treasurer resigning on the spot. Other members of the governing board were accused of undermining her control when they simply did what they thought were their duties. She was getting increasingly paranoid and irrational. A possible contributing factor was that the guy she'd been involved with married the other woman and moved to the Carolinas.

In August of 2009, she had to go to the hospital for surgery, and, amazingly, called me to ask me to take her to the hospital and to help her. I did. Somehow, that's an "of course". I was still thinking we could be civil. That story is here: http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2009/08/2464-day-in-hospital.html.

That was 2009.

In March of 2010, we had the public "F**k you" screaming incident, described at http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2010/03/2803-buck-you-fuddy.html, in case you skipped it in the previous post.

2010 was a group election year. I was on the nominating committee, and I worked hard to get a full slate. Several of the people nominated were people she'd had problems with. She announced that she wasn't going to run for reelection, and I didn't push her to change her mind. She started skipping governing board meetings, and then suddenly resigned her position. She dropped out of the Yahoo group. She withdrew from chapter activities, which was a relief for a lot of people, because they had gone beyond finding her merely difficult to work with, and were beginning to actively fear her.

Several people told me that she had decided to no longer take her medications. She thought she could function without them. That scared ME! Not for me, for her.

Our last direct contact had been the "F**k you" thing. The next time I saw her was at the holiday dinner in December, when we ignored each other, and I got the distinct impression that she expected me to approach her first. Then there was the dinner last week, when I again did not approach her.

And now there's the Yahoo group exchanges detailed in the previous post. All I was trying to do was help her, and she attacked me and anyone who attempted to defend me.

It has gotten worse since.

Yesterday I found something amusing and posted it to the group. This is the complete text of my post:

Subject: Accepting your Oscar: A Guide

From Shoebox.com (http://www.shoeboxblog.com/?p=23859):

Thank the little people, but don't call them "little people" because they HATE that.
Thank the spiritual being of your choice. Point up/over/ wherever (probably not down).
Thank the producer, even if he's just some rich jerk who knows nothing about movie making.
Definitely act surprised. Practice this one in the mirror beforehand.
Thank significant other, then blow a kiss to him/her. Have significant other
practice "in love" face.
Use the exit music to dance your way off stage. "The Worm" would be preferable.

I thought it amusing. If you watch people accepting Oscars, that's exactly how they do it. Except for the last sentence, maybe.

Well, today I got this personal email from another member:

FYI and confidential - [the group moderator] has placed [FW] in a "Moderator must approve posts" category on our Yahoo group. One of her two most recent posts is pending moderator approval. It claims your "Accepting Your Oscar" post is actually a slew of double entendres, and the tone of her note implies paranoia.

Regardless of whether there is anything going on (which I seriously doubt), I don't think anyone else would see that and would simply assume it is "[FW] being [FW]."

[FW] will be at [the regional gathering next weekend].

(I admit I am wrong to post that note when the author has marked it confidential, but if I turn up dead or seriously injured this weekend, show this post to the cops.)

By the way, the other of her "two most recent posts" was "Subject: The excitement is Growing", and contained only this link: http://mediumlarge.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/cats-quote-charlie-sheen/. Now, how does "the excitement is growing" apply as the subject? Do you find it ominous that it's hate-filled ranting?

So. I'm seriously scared. It will be impossible to avoid her at the gathering, and if nobody shows up at her Oscar party tomorrow night she WILL blame me. That's just the way she thinks. And she WILL retaliate. I'm serious. But I can't allow her to keep me from going to the gathering. I won't hide from her. I think I'm going to have to ask some of the other friends there to act as bodyguard. Never leave me alone.
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1752 Psycho Ex-Girlfriend

Thursday, April 3, 2008

I have to tell this story backward.

At dinner with my man on Monday, he told me a story. The following may not be his exact words, but it's close enough.

He said there was this woman that he'd been friends with. Not a romantic or sexual thing, just friends, they enjoyed each other's company. Over the past year or year and a half, they'd gone out clubbing together, to dances, and to parties, and sometimes just the two of them for drinks or dinner, or a bad movie. But it was not dating. He often paid, but that didn't make it a date, just an acknowledgement of a difference in disposable income.

[I had a flash of jealousy. I thought, "Why have you never mentioned her before? Hey, if you wanted to go out to all these parties or whatever, why not call me?" I was hurt.]

He went on: "And then in, oh, about last October, we took an extended weekend trip together. [He and I were really heating up then, imagine my shock hearing this!] We didn't share a room at the hotel, although I paid for her room. I got the distinct impression she was taking advantage of me. She seemed to take a lot for granted. She demanded my undivided attention, without feeling a need to return it."

[At this point I relaxed. I recognized the story, and was impressed that without seeming to listen, he had really heard and understood some bits and pieces of things I'd said a few months ago.]

"After that, things went downhill. She acted like the relationship was much more than it actually was. She got very demanding. She tried to tell me how she thought I should act. She got jealous of my relationships with others. It was getting weird, and I decided to cut it off. Along about November I told her I couldn't spend time with her any more. Done. Over .

Fortunately or unfortunately, we are both involved in certain activities, so I can't avoid her, but we are civil, even friendly, when we do meet. Things were fine for the past four months.

And then, yesterday, we were at a meeting, which happened to be held at her home, and she suggested that we get together after the meeting and 'catch up' on what's been going on. I didn't see anything wrong with that, but I didn't want to be alone with her in her home, so I suggested that I treat her to dinner.

Imagine my shock when, toward the end of the meal, she looked up at me beaming, and said,
'Oh, I'm so happy we're getting back together!'

That's the Psycho Ex-Girlfriend Syndrome! She thinks we were 'just on a four-month break'"!

He looked at me and said, resignedly, "What can I do? There's only one cure. I have to sleep with her. I have to sleep with her, and make it so bad she won't want me any more."

By this time I was cracking up.

I said I was telling this story backward. The above happened later in the evening. Earlier in the evening, I had told him that I'd had dinner with the female friend I'd had so much trouble with last year. The woman I had finally told in November that I couldn't be around her anymore, I was tired of her mistreating me, and I couldn't put myself in her line of fire any more. I said that she'd said the scariest thing I'd heard in a year. During dinner she looked at me and beamed, and said, "I'm so happy we're renewing our friendship!"

I said that I about fell off my chair and I didn't know what to say. The very idea that she thinks that scares me.

He choked on his drink, roared with laughter, and said, "You've got a psycho ex-girlfriend! You know what you have to do now, don't you?"

Blank look from me.

"You have to sleep with her! It's the only way!"

And then later, he told that story. It was the story of me and this woman. I was impressed. There aren't too many men who could show that degree of awareness and understanding of a bad interpersonal relationship in which they have no interest.

...Although I don't necessarily agree with his solution.
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1734 I Don't Understand People

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

I'm going to write about a friend here. I said I wasn't going to do that any more, but this thing has me reeling. I don't understand her logic. I don't understand why she is reacting the way she is, and I don't care if this gets back to her somehow, because maybe then she'll understand why I had to pull away from her a few months ago, and am resisting getting involved with her again.

Background facts: She's on disability, and works part time jobs, which means money is always an issue. About a year ago she almost lost her house because she was without housemate and couldn't make the mortgage payments. She rents the second bedroom, sharing the kitchen and bathroom, and has had some miserable tenants over the past few years.

Last spring, George, a newly-divorced construction worker, moved in, saving her from foreclosure, and George has proven to be an asset. He volunteers handyman work on the house, is quiet and sober, is a gourmet cook, often treating her to dinners, and always pays the rent on time. He's a nice and accommodating guy, and she needs the rent money. He even arranges to be out of the house when her boyfriend visits, without complaint. Perfection, right?

Over the past few weeks, an odor has appeared and grown, emanating from his bedroom, and spreading to her bedroom. She says he doesn't smell it, and isn't bothered by it, but it bothers her so much she has been sleeping on the couch downstairs. She said it smells "sort of like old gym socks". She accused him of being unclean, and freaked when she discovered that his comforter hadn't been laundered since he'd moved in. She took it to a commercial washer and washed it herself, but the odor didn't go away. In fact, it got worse.

She has been after George to figure it out and fix it. I know her well enough to feel sorry for George. She says that he is now avoiding her, and refuses to discuss the problem further. They have stopped speaking. She's furious about having to sleep on the couch because she can't stand the odor upstairs.

I suggested that it may not be George. It's an old house, and she's had some serious roof gutter problems. Perhaps melting ice had gotten into the walls and it was mold. From her description of the odor, it sounded to me like mold.

So, I got a call from her last night. She went into George's room after our last discussion, lifted the rug in one corner, and found mold, on the floor and on the underside of the carpet. She thinks George had left a pile of wet towels there. (I am not convinced it was George's fault - it could still be coming from the wall, but I didn't say anything.) She found some stuff in the hardware store to fix mold problems. She thinks she can get rid of the mold and the odor.

However, here's the part that has my head spinning. She is going to kick George out, give him his two month's notice, on Easter Sunday.

I asked why, and she said because she can't continue sleeping on the couch any longer. I asked why not just clean George's room, and let him stay. "You're between jobs, you need the rent, he's been a great housemate, it's not like he did anything on purpose, if it was towels, he'll never do that again, and if it turns out to be a problem in the wall and you can't get rid of the odor, you'll have great difficulty renting the room to anyone else, and the odor doesn't bother him, so why throw him out?"

Her answer, "Because I can't sleep on the couch any longer."

????

There's some kind of logical disconnect there.

I pointed out that to get her back into her bedroom, she'll have to treat his room. She says she can't do that while he's living there.
"Why not?"
"Because everything he owns is in that room. He's got so much stuff."
"Why can't you just move his stuff out into the hall or whatever?"
"There's too much. He has to be out."
"But if you wait until he's out, and he'll be there for two more months, you'll be on the couch for two more months, at least. And then there's no assurance that you'll be able to re-rent the room, depending on whether the treatment works. If you move his stuff out temporarily and treat the room, you'll be better off."
Her response? "He has to get out. I can't sleep on the couch any longer."

I do not understand. I just don't get it.

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Maybe her paranoia is rubbing off on me. I told her last December that I didn't want to "be pals" with her any more because I was tired of her going off on me and mistreating me, and taking advantage of me. I told her I was not going to put myself in her line of fire any more. And so far, I've stuck with that. We are pleasant when we meet, and that's it.

Now, she KNOWS if she kicks George out, she's going to have big financial problems.

She also knows I have money.

Last Sunday, at Green Eggs and Ham, she mentioned to me that as she's job hunting with little success, she's currently living on her tiny savings. She's three years younger than I, and has no family. Her house is her retirement plan.

I have a feeling that in a month or two, I'm going to have to be very strong. Yes, I do donate to charities, and I can be very generous with my friends, but if she insists on digging this hole on purpose, I have to let her fall in it, even if she loses her house. It's her fate, and her lesson to learn.
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