Topic: Break someones implied trust, or Keep a friend "excluded"
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Basically some acquaintances organizing a trip to the movies, they appear to be excluding one of my friends on the grounds hes "creepy" and are in a public student lounge going to lengths to keep it secret, assigning code words to the trip.
Now, I was not invited, but I was in the room and they weren't being quiet, so I can assume they either don't expect me to talk to him about it, or they imply (somehow without ever being "nice" towards me) that I am somehow trusted to keep it secret.
As I myself have a history of exclusion I hate it being done to me, so why should I tolerate it done to other people? If they care enough how held feel that theyld avoid stepping on his toes then they should have the courage and integrity of character to inform him themselves that he is not welcome.
So, I have informed him and I am surprised that he is fairly pissed at them. But the way I see it, people who pretend to be your friends are worse then people who are openly your enemy. Either they will work this out, or he will sever ties with them and put it all behind him and work on building his friendship with people more deserving.
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posted
That's pretty juvenile behavior. I'm not sure if I would have told him or not, but I wouldn't feel obliged to keep something like that a secret as it's inane and I made no promise. If I were feeling a good amount of backbone, I might even tell the trip organizers that they were behaving like junior high school children and ought to grow up. Of course, I've never had much backbone because I, too, have been excluded and when I am included, I don't want to mess it up. I would, however, attempt to find different friends.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
as i said the people in question were "acquaintances" not friends. Someone else in the room however had already told them off for being morally disgusting.
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I wouldn't keep it a secret for their sakes. I might choose not to tell the guy just because I didn't want to hurt him, and telling him isn't going to do him any good but will hurt him.
quote:So, I have informed him and I am surprised that he is fairly pissed at them.
Really? What exactly did you expect?
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
i always thought of him as aloof and distant, i expected annoyed and amused, but angry less so.
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posted
Sounds like some pretty triflin' high-school drama to me. I clearly remember one time my buddies and I did something similar in high school, after a football game.
The guy getting excluded wasn't weird or creepy...just a really obnoxious jackass. And we didn't go to the lengths of having 'code words', we just didn't invite him and didn't talk about our plans around him.
However, since we regularly made a habit of going to one of a few places after football games (and there weren't very many options for kids our age that late), I'm pretty sure that even though the guy was a schmuck, he knew he was being excluded, so really the only thing we were servicing was our own egos and avoiding awkwardness. Pretty pointless.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Good on you for telling him about it. Now help him get over these people.
I've found those who form groups on the basis of excluding others aren't really people worth hanging out with. Their entire group, rather than being formed on an idea or a specific enjoyment (books, kayaking, hiking, an author, a style of movie, whatver) or mutual respect, is formed on mutually reassuring each others needy egos that they're cool enough to be part of the club. If you ever do get "accepted" by a group like that (and I hope you never do), you'll find that all they typically talk about is how awesome their own group is, and how pathetic and/or weird anyone not in it is.
So help your friend see the silliness and false friendships of such groups, and advise him to instead find friends who'll respect him and like him.
It's been a difficult thing to figure out in my own life, but true: you can have friends who get angry at you, friends who aren't too faithful, friends who are weird, but you can't have friends who disrespect you. They simply aren't your friends, they're just people using you and your emotions to get something.
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
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This is only an issue because of how closely everyone lives together.
No one is guaranteed to be invited to every social activity. Adults have the right and obligation to structure their social lives as they wish. Being someone's friend doesn't mean acting as their social director, and it doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to do anything without them.
You shouldn't have told the person they weren't inviting. It only caused hurt, and the people excluding weren't doing anything wrong.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Maybe I'm going to sound like a jerk here, but I think that you were out of line in telling the guy. You said yourself that you were merely acquaintances with them.
It wasn't your place to do it. That isn't to say that they were appropriate in their behavior; I am simply saying that, in addition to their maleficent behavior, you also acted wrongly. Your motivation, in my opinion, was not to help out this guy, but to get back at all those by whom you were excluded in a form of revenge by proxy.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
That might depend on whether the excluded preferred honesty or bliss.
Posts: 11 | Registered: Mar 2009
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by katharina: This is only an issue because of how closely everyone lives together.
No one is guaranteed to be invited to every social activity. Adults have the right and obligation to structure their social lives as they wish. Being someone's friend doesn't mean acting as their social director, and it doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to do anything without them.
You shouldn't have told the person they weren't inviting. It only caused hurt, and the people excluding weren't doing anything wrong.
Yes but they went out of their way to specifically ensure that not only was he not invited but also to ensure he wouldn't by chance be there. My friend is allegedly "creepy".
Jon, I'm certain if I had asked they'ld say "sure come along" as I have gone to the movies with them before, there was no motivation for revenge, these are not the people who slighted me in high school, these are people who I do get along with who I find, were acting like inane juveniles.
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Why have you appointed yourself the social police? People can decide who they want to hang out with. You shouldn't have said anything - it wasn't any of your business, and you did was cause hurt.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: No one is guaranteed to be invited to every social activity. Adults have the right and obligation to structure their social lives as they wish. Being someone's friend doesn't mean acting as their social director, and it doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to do anything without them.
You shouldn't have told the person they weren't inviting. It only caused hurt, and the people excluding weren't doing anything wrong.
Yes, adults can choose to structure their social lives however they see fit, but it's repugnant to overtly exclude someone and make fun of that person. It's done all the time, but it's repugnant.
I'm not sure if he should have told the person or not. I don't think he was under any obligation to keep it a secret, but actually telling him might have just caused hurt. On the other hand, if the guy honestly thought these people were his friends...I dunno. I'm not exactly brilliant with social dynamics.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Sure, making fun of someone is juvenile and repulsive, but is it really "excluding" to not invite someone? It isn't like they were inviting everyone in the class to the birthday and left one person out - they were gathering a group to go to the movies and limited the invite list.
Attending one social event with people doesn't obligate them to invite you to every social event that occurs thereafter.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Intent may be significant. Like the Queen's use of invitations in Kings last night, exclusion is often used for political purposes.
Posts: 11 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
Wow, you're not even in high school anymore, correct? It's pretty sad this kind of thing wasn't left behind years ago.
Posts: 930 | Registered: Dec 2006
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There was even a reason given - they thought he was creepy. Maybe it is a harsh judgment, but that is a plenty good enough reason to not want to hang out with someone. People shouldn't be forced to continue socializing with people who make them uncomfortable.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
It was the WAY they did it though, they went out of their way to do so and made it known to a bunch of other people that they were going out of their way.
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Even if we operate under the premise that they were wrong in their actions, your conclusion doesn't follow. Once again, as I noted earlier and noted by katharina: you have neither the obligation nor the right to interfere in these people's lives. You do not have an invested relationship with any of them, and their private interactions are none of your business. Anything you did exacerbated whatever problem previously existed and caused more harm than good.
As well, as mentioned earlier, I'm not sure that your intentions were just, and I suspect that it is revenge by proxy.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Doing something badly is not the same thing is doing something bad.
Their technique lacks class, but the actual part where they didn't want to invite him and didn't want him to know he wasn't invited? There's nothing wrong with that.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
It could be argued that exclusion is exactly what is wrong with the politics of human society whether it is played out in kindergarten or post-invasion political vacuums.
Posts: 11 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
Besides which, can someone please explain to me what is wrong with exclusion?
Not just "It hurts my feelings" or something of the sort.
I'd much appreciate a reasoned argument for why exclusion is bad, given that I don't think that it is as self-evident as many of you seem to think.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Inflicted hurt may be sufficient reason. I suppose it depends on what sort of world you are hoping to build. I doubt that exclusion will lead to a more inclusive society.
Posts: 11 | Registered: Mar 2009
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That's too bad. If I were included in the cabal I could certainly come up with some great rationalizations.
Posts: 11 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote:Originally posted by BackHand: That's too bad. If I were included in the cabal I could certainly come up with some great rationalizations.
Well, you're into openness and inclusion. I'll tell you why you aren't part of the cabal! Perhaps if you extended your posts past a single line, that would be a good start. After that, we can move on to posting things more substantive than pretentious faux-wisdom. Now we're getting somewhere. After that what say you get more than 10 posts to your name. You can't exactly be included if you haven't been posting for a while. However, let us suppose that this is a new account for an old member. If this is so, then you could also stop making tangential references (Kings?) and assuming everyone will understand in an attempt to, once again, put forth faux-wisdom. After that you can join the cabal.
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And longer posts will come as my thoughts require. So far the one liners seem sufficient to reduce the opposition to ad hominem rebuttal.
Posts: 11 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
When your one-liners are unreasoned and speculative, then there's not much else left to do aside from ad hominem. And technically what I did wasn't ad hominem for the most part. Ad hominem would be saying that you're stupid. I was saying that your arguments were stupid. There's a difference. This, however, is ad hominem: "If I were included in the cabal I could certainly come up with some great rationalizations." Implicitly at least.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers Are Evil GSF1 is one of the most common fallacies, and one of the most deeply held. Many geeks have had horrible, humiliating, and formative experiences with ostracism, and the notion of being on the other side of the transaction is repugnant to them.
In its non-pathological form, GSF1 is benign, and even commendable: it is long past time we all grew up and stopped with the junior high popularity games. However, in its pathological form, GSF1 prevents its carrier from participating in -- or tolerating -- the exclusion of anyone from anything, be it a party, a comic book store, or a web forum, and no matter how obnoxious, offensive, or aromatic the prospective excludee may be.
quote:And longer posts will come as my thoughts require. So far the one liners seem sufficient to reduce the opposition to ad hominem rebuttal.
Yeah, you're a titan of rhetorical strength. None dare oppose you.
And by posting under an alt, it's like you're a superhero with a secret identity or something! It's very exciting.
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