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?

I used to go to a yoga class where an older guy used to go. He liked to cross dress which isn't a problem in itself at all but his outfits became increasingly inappropriate for yoga.

The last straw was when I spent a session behind him wearing a black negligé, fishnet tights and no underpants.

The poor teacher had to ask him to reign in his outfits in future. He never came back...

[quote Cariadmehome]@GoldenOmber
Omg. Was it on live journal? I think I met Dave or someone exactly like him[/quote]
YES!

@Silurian which fansite? I got threatened with being banned from one of the Chalet School fansites because “people might find my view offensive.” Only, might, mind. No one had actually complained.

Theres always one.

I went to a lovely art club. Really relaxed and pleasant. Then some bloke brought in his cd player and treated us to marching band music every week. Wtf. I didnt last much longer.

I joined a dog walking group a few years back and the main guy was a PRICK! He thought he knew better than anyone about dogs and defended hitting his dog.
I went ballistic at him in front of the whole group (my first time meeting them all) and told him that I'd call the police if I ever witnessed him hitting any dog.
I had messages from the rest of the group saying how they all agreed with me and hated him but I never went out with them again.

Turned out my DH had met him a few years prior and also hated him.
This man met both of us once and then complained that we didn't invite him to our wedding hahaha

@Anyonebut

“Then she went on a Native American retreat and on her return made us do hollering and foot stamping which just seemed like total cultural appropriation to me so I stopped going.”

Sorry, but how is that more or less culturaly appropriating than Yoga outside of India (and/or other areas where it is traditional)?

Because A - yoga has been introduced and taught to us by the very practioners themselves, who are keen to spread the benefits of yoga and meditation worldwide, and B - Native Americans attach great cultural and spiritual significance to their rituals and possessions, and take exception to people usurping them for their own insensitive use.

So says my elderly friend, who is part Sioux.

@CorpusCallosum

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 😠

What is 'aggressively single'?

Earlier this year our local library started advertising a book club on local FB pages. I had already decided I needed to get out more (work from home) so off I went.

Chairs were positioned in a circle and three people were already waiting. I presumed this was the first meeting, said hello and sat down and waited. The 3 people were looking at each other and me, I thought everyone was just nervous being the first meeting but it turns out they had been meeting for over 20 years and wondered who the hell I was... they had no idea the library had put a notice up on FB pages.

So got past that when the late arrivals turned up. They all seem to have had book lists to review. Then some spoke of their holiday reads and what they thought. All pretty highbrow sounding stuff.

Towards the end of the meeting, I was asked if I had read anything recently. I was reluctant to tell them I was working my way through Patience Griffin's patchwork series, so I picked another series I had previously enjoyed, Lucinda Riley's The Seven Sisters series, and that I had found The Pearl Sister while on holiday a couple of years ago that introduced me to the full series.

Well, you should have heard the sniffs and snorts! Considering how well LR has done with her writing, it didn't go down too well in this book club meeting. Apparently, I was sitting opposite two local authors who started to talk to each other, as another member tried to draw out from me what I liked about the books and others I might have read. I stutted out I had a full library of a variety of books, some political bios, war stories, building, gardening etc, and as I went along, I felt more appalled that I felt I needed to explain anything..

In the end, I stopped talking and just stared at the two ''loveys'' opps me. The Chair of the meeting obviously had no idea of the type of book I was discussing but also didn't remind the others that not everything has to be to everyone's taste.

When the meeting broke, I was given the 2021 list to work out what I wanted to read. A lady nearby recognised me from being my Mum's physio and walked out with me. She hoped that I wouldn't give up on the group so soon.

I haven't been back.

I'll join. Hate poets and need a novel writing group

We used to have a Queen Bee of the group.
One day it was pouring with rain and she demanded we all go to a selling event she wanted to put on.
I used to help out at courses at this place, so I opened the door and told my pair to sit in the BIG 6 Times the size room, while I went to see what she was seliing, my friend wanted too look as well so had followed me into the Hall.
She has 3 tables set out and you only had chair room on each side of the tables.
Turns out she had said the BIG hall was out of use, just because she didn't want to pay to use it , as the little room was free.
I got a 3 page essay, on my ABUSE of the hall, how it made her look stupid and such, and she called my friend 3 times trying to sell her stuff.
I left the group and so did everyone else, she was livid, and a bully.

Back in the day I often found toddler club leaders to be utterly drunk on the power they wielded.

All unassociated, all unknown to the others in the sect but all with the same character flaws.

There really should be an investigation

Choir. Such a lovely choir. Absolute arsehole of another contralto so I left after a year.

My DC have recently left home and I was planning on getting out and joining some groups as soon as lockdown over. I'm not so sure now after reading these.

What is about men in creative writin groups?!

I had one who was obsessed with dialogue between 14-year-old schoolgirls asking each other for tampons . . .

@wishingitwasfriday

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.

Why was he allowed to join a women's beginners club?!?! Did no-one say anything when he turned up with his bollocks bulging in his lycra cycling shorts?

I used to go to a yoga class where an older guy used to go. He liked to cross dress which isn't a problem in itself at all but his outfits became increasingly inappropriate for yoga.

The last straw was when I spent a session behind him wearing a black negligé, fishnet tights and no underpants.

I'm not able to say what I think to this, because this is a banned term on Mumsnet. But take it from me that this isn't altogether unheard of. Was the group made up of predominantly women members? If this was the case, it's a near certainty he was doing it deliberately to make you uncomfortable.

I was just thinking about this some more and remembered joining a local social club in my 20s, at a time when I'd moved away from my home town and wanted to get to know more people locally.

In a weird coincidence, this social club's social secretary turned out to be where I was from, and was very pleasant on the phone. So off I went to one of their 'new members welcome' events, little suspecting...

... that it would turn out the be the cliquiest, unfriendliest 'friendship group' I'd ever have the misfortune to encounter.

I was the only new member there. Apart from one or two people, no one was interested in welcoming me at all, they'd come along to talk to their existing friends. I was left to do 99% of the icebreaking. And the so-called social secretary was the unfriendliest of the lot.

I never worked out what the deal was. I am friendly and don't have any traits that would put people off from wanting to talk to me, I don't monopolise conversations and am generally socially 'house-trained' so to speak, lol. But they just didn't seem interested in new members at all, I saw other newbies treated similarly at other occasions.

I stuck it out for a while, hoping if I went to enough events I would meet friendlier people (it was a big group), but it never really got any better. I left for good. after not attending any events for a YEAR and no one expressing an iota of curiosity over where I'd been when I came back.

Choirs are terrible! Two community choirs which rehearsed at my DC's school in the evening merged when the choirmaster of the one I sang in left. They started meeting together on the same night as my old one, but with the other choir's director in charge.
When I arrived, all the Soprano chairs had items on them, even though there were only about 3 women there. When I tried to sit down I was told 'you can't sit there, because that's Betty's space' to which I replied 'not on Wednesday nights it isn't!'

A close friend of mine. I joined a walking club and after a few enjoyable walks she invited herself along. For some reason she turned up in jeans and trainers (she knew full well that wasn't appropriate, walking boots were in the club notes for starters and we'd talked about clothing beforehand) and was loudly rude about a couple of walkers at the pick-up stop suggesting she might not be comfortable during the walk. They were a nice group of people and any suggestions would not have been made with malice.

During the walk she walked ahead at speed away from the group, I think trying to prove something, which she did prove when she could barely continue walking a couple of miles into the walk so from then on we ended up walking at the back getting steadily further behind everyone else and the group having to wait a few times for us to catch-up. She invited herself on the next walk but I made an excuse not to go, couldn't face it again as her behaviour spoilt it for others and I was embarrassed as I was responsible for her joining. I might go back (quietly) when the club re-opens post lockdown.

Not surprised to read of the horrors of the knitting groups. Allegedly quite a few of them have been overtaken by the wokerati who give people a horrible time when they don't engage in some of their finger-pointing and cancel culture.

Google 'Kate Davies controversy'. She turned to designing patterns and turning out knitting creations (very talented she is too) after a stroke ended her academic career. She had some of these vultures try to destroy her career and business after she refused to join their furious ravings against anyone they deemed guilty of 'wrongthink'. I couldn't believe the shitstorm I was reading - this, over knitting?

Her work is beautiful. She was on the usual media platforms as - a knitter: an activity I'd previously thought must be one of the most peaceable hobbies going.

Obviously, I was wrong.

I am in a bird watching group. Only the men are ever correct. They often “add in facts “or “mansplain” when they weren’t asked.

I'm not even in a group! Yet still they do it. I spend a lot of time at our local wildlife sanctuaries. I'm no expert but have been a nature-lover all my life and could probably tell you what most UK birds are.

They approach me in hides (I head off down there for a bit of peace away from my stressful life/work etc) or even outdoors, and mansplain. If they overhear my trying to teach and show my young son what kinds of birds we are looking at: mansplaining.

They even sometimes do it - albeit less frequently - when I'm with my husband - who's learned everything he knows about wildlife from me!

When I was in the swimming pool (I swim wearing earplugs which usually helps! and have swum 1-2 miles a week for the past decade) - a man approached me and tried to 'correct' my stroke.

If I want lessons in bird-spotting and swimming I'll pay for them. Leave me the fuck alone, willya?

Knitting forums are notoriously vicious, tbh. There's the whole acrylic vs natural fibre controversy, the whether crochet 'counts' debate... Not surprised that they blow up about other things too.

@CathyorClaire

Back in the day I often found toddler club leaders to be utterly drunk on the power they wielded.

All unassociated, all unknown to the others in the sect but all with the same character flaws.

There really should be an investigation

I took over the running of our local toddler group and having had much the same experience myself, I made a point of being friendly and and welcoming to all newcomers, and introducing them to other members.

I attempted to join my local running club twice. The first time I went along and was welcomed in the clubhouse. Then the run started and those that started to run with me started up a conversation that didn't include me about people I don't know. I then stopped to tie my shoelace. Not only did they not wait for me, but the whole lot of them ran past me because my original companions suggested we run close to the back. Even the tail runner left me behind.
God knows why I didn't just turn for home there and then. I did catch up but was ignored by everyone despite my attempts at conversation.
I emailed them afterwards to feedback my experience and got a reply from the organiser excusing the behaviour of the other members and citing the he would normally have run with me as that's his role when new members join, but his dad was running that night, and he really wanted to run with him.

A couple of years later I decided to try again as it's literally at the top of my street. I went back onto the website to get the times and saw that new members were encouraged to join on the third Thursday of the month. So I dutifully went along on this day to be met with a locked and dark clubhouse. I bumped into a couple of equally confused people in the car park. One was a newbie and two were members that ran with the club occasionally. We decided to go on our own run instead.

I emailed the running club again to ask if there was a misunderstanding and for them to consider putting a note on the website if nights were cancelled. They replied that occasionally club members organised a run to start from a different location to add some variety. I responded that perhaps that would be better organised on one of the other Thursdays of the month, as the third Thursday was their designated newbies night. I got a very aggressive response.

I haven't bothered trying again. Laughingly they advertise themselves as a friendly running club. Friends have asked me to join theirs (two different ones) and they have lots of refugees from my local one at theirs, but both are a 20 minute drive away and it adds that extra level of faff.