Hi, improvers! I’m hoping to see how you’d treat this situation.
My (39m) gaming group and group chat posts multiple times daily and we meet once a week to play pc games over discord. I’ve known 1 for 20 years, and his friend for about 15, I’ll call them Sam (41m) and max. (37m)
I’ve known Sam since high school and have been soft adopted by his family as 1 of their own, but he’s acted this way that bothers me. I feel he can’t skip belittling things I enjoy and he doesn’t, and he won’t relent. He’s recently got max to back him up, which confused me further since Max gifted me most the things of which they criticize because I love the franchise.( Is it common to gift things ppl like, then dunk on them?)I feel like I’m only there to be mocked.
When Sam and I met I was extremely overweight and unhappy. I’ve finally been learning self love and respect recently and it’s been more and more difficult to accept is as playful teasing instead of dismissive and/or insulting.
I’ve discussed this honestly yet awkwardly in the past, Sam said sorry and to let him know it’s out of line, then he’ll forget the next week and they’ll go back like nothing changed, or he’ll deny an occurrence happened.
Should I wish them well, ignore it, and go business as usual? Or is it time to keep them at arm’s length, and try harder to make new connections? What would you do?
6 comments
I think it’s time to work on other friendships, myself. I don’t see this pattern improving.
People are who they are. If they can’t see what they’re doing wrong, say sorry but then do it again, it means they don’t get it or don’t care. It’s who they are.
But I hate people like the second guy even more. The ones that behave one way with you alone, and completely different when with other people around.
I’m usually pretty quick at cutting toxic people out of my life. My well-being is more important.
It sucks that they won’t respect your wishes. At the same time you can take this as a hard lesson to build your own confidence. If they find things that make you feel bad then take a step back and analyse why you feel bad about those things in the first place.
If it’s your weight they mock then that’s dickish and there’s no real excuse for it unless they think you’re ok with it and consider it playful. But if it bothers you then maybe deep down you want to lose weight and would be happier working towards that goal.
If they mock some of your hobbies the same rules apply, except you are not obligated to change what makes you happy. Instead try to analyse in your mind why your hobbies are actually fun, cool, enjoyable even relatable. They are not obligated to agree but at least you’ll have a response next time they start teasing you that won’t just be “But I like it.” It will be “Tons of people like this because it’s X and it is unique in Y and you can’t find the Z quality it has anywhere else”
I wish I had a good answer for you. The best idea I have is having an honest, but non-accusatory conversation with them. I hope things get better for you. And that you keep having fun with what you like.
If they’ve been made aware multiple times that you find it really hurtful and they keep doing it anyway, then they don’t care how you feel. They’re toxic. Especially denying that the conversations happened is some real awful stuff, you can’t reason with people who are willing to lie and gaslight you into thinking you made conversations up.
They literally decided that their ability to insult you is more important than whether or not you should be questioning your memories and your reality… isn’t that really fucked up? I was the victim of that too and it’s completely awful.
Happened to me when I got in self improvement and wanted better things from life. After a while interest change and you don’t relate to then much anymore. Such is life, grow and attract like minded people. It might be lonely and hard at first, but stick to the path and they’ll inevitably come 🙂