Arseholes Who've Ruined Groups And Hobbies

[EineReiseDurchDieZeit]

Moved house last year, then COVID happened.

I am CEV and so have done loads of shielding and joining a hobby group I was looking forward to post move hasn't happened but I am on their mailing list. For this specific thing they are my only option locally.

Get emails from the mailing list regularly and having had my interest piqued googled the social media presence of the named sender.

They are clearly an arsehole, a massive, tedious, arsehole with very "set views" which I imagine would need to be agreed with by any incomers, which is not going to happen. (They are a group organiser)

So potentially that's this group out the window...

Which made me think, MNers, were you / have you ever left a group style hobby you really enjoyed because of That One Arsehole and

What did they do? How bad was it?

Ugh, that sounds TEDIOUS.

I have an allotment. It is mostly lovely apart from 1 person who is massively annoying and stomps about like an angry bear, whilst making the odd 'over-friendly' comment. He sits with his pals on a sunny evening, which is the nicest for my plot as it gets the late sun. I ended up avoiding the sunny evenings last summer as it was just Too Much.

Oh God so you just want to you know sit and contemplate Life in the ebbing summer sun and you have to listen to Boring And Pals Holding Forth?

The Man in my yoga class who turns everything into a competition or mansplanation.

Man once stopped me mid-run in order to mansplain running to me ("It'll get easier the more you do it, because you get fitter!") I didn't give up, but I did change the time I went out because I kept seeing him and he kept wanting to chat.

You mean you didn't welcome his advice, Jesus?
He was only trying to help!

Eine holding forth yes, but with the added comments about tits and arse.
He really does think he owns the space.

Oh god - penguin lady who ran a knitting group. We weren’t allowed to crochet. (Deemed inferior). All projects had to vetted to meet some imaginary criteria or you weren’t allowed to knit. It had to be knitting and ALL conversation had to be conducted only when the leader had finished her row, and had to somehow incorporate penguins. You could have a drink so long as it was tea and you had the right money, you couldn’t take your own or have coffee etc.
She had a lot of yarn donated - but we weren’t allowed to use it, only to look at it.
Lasted 6 weeks and by then it’s was down to the leader, her friend and little old me.

Urgh, gatekeepers. As a woman who enjoys tabletop gaming and painting miniatures I've had a lot of practice at my 'oh my god I'm so fascinated' face while my brain replays episodes of Red Dwarf for me

For me a lot is down to how the rest of the group treat your resident yammering sphincter. If you can all put up with the occasional massive rant or weird obsession about one particular thing with a little shared humour and eye rolling, fine. Even if they're a group leader it's possible to appreciate their enthusiasm and be grateful that they're doing all the admin without going out of your way to engage with them directly.

If everyone else thinks it's normal behaviour, run.

I didn’t leave, fortunately she did. There’s always one on every yard, thinks she runs the place. One gave the key code to a delivery guy, far too busy and important to be there herself. Used to message all and sundry about ensuring the doors were all locked even if you hadn’t been near it. The yard owner threw her off for sharing the key code.

Another (different yard) decided she would make the helpers turn out horses which they then found out were wanted by the owners. She got a huge bollocking for this because one horse in particular was unpredictable and tricky to catch if he considered he hadn’t been out long enough. She wouldn’t let us hose the horses because she didn’t want a mess in ‘her’ area. Thank god she left.

@Bargebill19

Oh god - penguin lady who ran a knitting group. We weren’t allowed to crochet. (Deemed inferior). All projects had to vetted to meet some imaginary criteria or you weren’t allowed to knit. It had to be knitting and ALL conversation had to be conducted only when the leader had finished her row, and had to somehow incorporate penguins. You could have a drink so long as it was tea and you had the right money, you couldn’t take your own or have coffee etc. She had a lot of yarn donated - but we weren’t allowed to use it, only to look at it. Lasted 6 weeks and by then it’s was down to the leader, her friend and little old me.

She must have been a nightmare but that’s hilarious.

Doing some online postgrad study in the evenings. There is a study-group member who persists in leaving their camera on despite being the only non-lecturer to do so. Always contributes and wants to answer everything. When not invited to, adds onion to the chat instead. Yawn!

“resident yammering sphincter.”

Penguin knitting?

When not invited to, adds onion to the chat instead

Am hoping this isn't a typo.

We've Got a right bellend in our running group. Authority on everything. Posts political stuff and gets pissy when challenged on anything.

Very sneery in tone too. Typical middle age man freely giving unasked for advice. Dickhead.

I remember a creative writing night class I took many moons ago. Would have been wonderful except for one mature gentleman who monopolised everything and when asked to bring say a 1500 word short story to the class to read, would instead insist on narrating much longer pieces, that I seem to remember were generally sexist, racist or both.

@TheSpottedZebra

When not invited to, adds onion to the chat instead

Am hoping this isn't a typo.

I saw it after I posted and thought I’d leave it, as it made me smile. It would be more entertaining if it was so, but I meant to write ‘opinions’, sadly

I’m doing some volunteer work and one of the other volunteers makes all the decisions and doesn’t want input from any of the other volunteers. There’s far too much for one person to do but because they won’t delegate properly and are really bad at communicating with everyone else, it’s causing a lot of friction in the group. I’m going to see how it goes over the next few months because I really enjoy the actual work (working with animals) but I’m not loving the group dynamic.

I moved to a new area and joined a women's beginners cycling club. Was great, until a man joined. He didn't want to be in the men's cycling club as it was too fast and competitive but he then proceeded to try and speed up each ride meaning that our nice gentle club for beginners who wanted a ride and chat disappeared. He would cycle ahead to the top of the hill. He was then waiting for us and once we got to the top he would lead the group to cycle on, meaning no rest for those at the back. I gave up and have barely cycled since.

I jacked my allotment in thanks to the guy on the next plot.

Constantly commenting on how little I was there (some of us have jobs, dickhead), offering unsolicited advice, and then the last straw was when he complained that my DH wasn’t friendly to him (that’s because he thinks you’re a cunt, Roy).

I jacked it in. I went there to escape stress and drama, not be faced with more.

Every group I've ever been to, there's always one who seeks attention, talks too much, dominates, judges and is queen bee.

I've left a self help group, a creative writer's group, two U3A groups [staggering snobbery/cliques in these], and a drop in centre and been very happy to walk away. Others may act like sheep and defer to it all/not be bothered. I just go.

Hasn't made me leave but some people in yoga class (men) who don't get that deep breathing doesn't need to be audible to everyone else.

I gave up my sport because a girl joined the club who was best described as 'aggressively single' she was just awful, such a shame 😠

that’s because he thinks you’re a cunt, Roy

Creative writing always seems to attract that one person - usually working on a memoir of their oh-so-interesting life - who dominates and monopolises any conversation, managing to somehow turn any topic back to Their Incredible Memoir and, of course, Themselves. Which is nearly always pretty boring.