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?

Howling @Bargebill19 penguin knitter and onion topics.

Oh god, my DF was the arsehole who ruined a group. I had to give him such a bollocking for being a dick

My DF loves learning languages, so decided to join adult night school to learn Italian.
He is the biggest teachers pet and took it very seriously.
Other people were there for socialising or learning new language for holidays etc. Not my DF, he thought he was training to be the translator for the Italian Prime Minister or something.

The list of his accomplishments were: telling fellow students off for not doing homework. Anyone caught giggling or not giving the teacher 100% attention was told to concentrate. And insisting on correcting his peers pronunciation.

He was very surprised when nobody would pair up with him to practice speaking

We had a long chat about his behaviour

Allotments are the worst for this sort of stuff. Add in power play between the committee and the Parish Council (fist bump for Jackie Weaver) and it's intolerable. I had to give mine up as it was terrible for my anxiety.

I also did a counselling course and was..disappointed. There was the woman who came late and/or left early and then had to explain it was because of childcare issues, with SAD FACE. She wasn't the only one with kids.

Same woman would monopolise every group discussion with problems in her life. Like a discussion about client issues would turn into focusing on her. She had a little bunch of friends (clique) in the group who would ooh and aah in sympathy with her. And carry on discussions they'd obviously had outside the class, then give us a summary so we could be "in the loop". Nobody, including the course leader, wanted to be the "bitch" to interrupt her when she was crying or about to cry. We had to be compassionate and empathetic and understanding etc.

Another one - I used to work for a big company that had an active sports and social club. In badminton there was a man who hated playing mixed doubles and as his partner if you didn't stand exactly where he thought you should he would tap you on the bum with his racket to get you to move. In the swimming club there was a man who would swim underwater under you in the same lane. We all used to laugh at these two but it was uncomfortable and annoying.

I joined the primary school PTA. After the first year the chair decided to stand down. After the meeting where she announced this, the parent part of the group adjourned to the pub. Someone said "oh, Mrs X says she might rejoin and would be happy to stand as chair". The entire longer term set of members agreed that if she came back they were quitting. No idea what the history was but she didn't come back.

So sad for all you allotment users having to leave their plots can you not put headphones on and ignore them..I have a large veg plot which a farmer very kindly has let me use on one of his fields and I am so grateful for it...all the fresh air and lovely fresh vegetables!

Another.

I started a 'Not quite beginners' French class at an adult learning centre. The premise being that you knew some basics of French, probably from school or holidays (Bonjour, Oui/Non, Une Deux, Trois, Fromage etc) but were ready to move on to sentences and probably complaining to waiters that ones beef tartare was not cooked and asking how to buy a second class ticket to La Rochelle.

To be clear there were LOADS of levels of classes to choose from. Including absolute beginners.

First lesson, teacher goes round the room. 'Bonjour Malin!' 'Bonjour Francine' we would retort! We get to this guy who blurts out 'what? What? What are you all saying???' Teacher explains we are just saying hello before we start the lesson. Guy says 'but I don't know what the hell you are saying!!' Teacher explains he's probably in the wrong class then, as this is more than beginners.

He refuses to accept he should be in the beginners class and turns up every week but insists that we write down and repeat over and over every single simple fucking French word. If we didn't he'd declare the class to be shit and so the teacher started pandering to him to ensure she didn't get bad feedback.

I never went back after the third hour and half class repeating fucking Champignon to him. Wanker.

Used to volunteer for Cats’ Protection League. A woman joined who’d just moved into the area.

She was a bully but all done in a “naice” matronly suburban way. Saw off the current leader of the group and took over the role herself.

I was the only one in the group who had the space and time to run cat pens, but she was such a pain in the arse I ended up jacking it in. Felt sorry for the cats but she was really getting to me. She kept insisting I paint the pens in MY garden. Who knows why? Think Hyacinth Bucket. I refused - no need plus I didn’t want the cats breathing in paint.

I took one of the cats who wasn’t well to the vet and he advised it be put to sleep. She even questioned the validity of that almost implying I had just wanted rid of the cat! I even paid all vet expenses and petrol for collecting cats out of my own pocket to avoid putting strain on the charity.

There’s more to tell than that.

I am quiet and shy IRL and it’s made me very wary of volunteering again. Did not expect to get bullied at a charity! Call me naive...

Awful bloody woman!

I haven't left my allotment but there are times of day that I tend to avoid going because of one of the annoying people normally being there at that time. And while I could put on headphones and sometimes do, I shouldn't have to.

I only just last night left an online baking group over the founders foul mouthed tirade.

This group had several thousand members and was a lovely old school baking group, the type to share bakes and tips and recipes.

The group had been running less than a year and the founder put admin in place 6 months ago who done the daily work.

The founder entered her baby in some dodgy online competition to win £5000 and posted on the baking group for votes.

When it was mentioned that it contravened her own rules of showing minors and touting for votes the found literally had a swear filled tirade and banned all the admin who told her to calm down.

Many hours later she is still kicking off and posting her child’s picture, so thousands have joined splinter groups run by the banned admin to have a place to share bakes without drama.

@MrsDrudge

A choir. A friend and I went and despite being friendly and asking questions no one spoke to us over the six month period we attended. The leader was a total knob, we got told off for stacking the chairs incorrectly in the hall, we were wearing our lanyards (yes we all had to have one) the wrong way, we were sitting in the wrong place. We got told off for giggling (quietly) when we did not sway in time to the music correctly or do an “attitude point” action in the air in time. Pathetic. Very very cliquey and you didn’t fit in if you didn’t wear sea salt clothing, wooden chunky necklaces or silk scarves. The leader made it quite plain we were not their type, not middle class or self important enough. Yes a proper arsehole.

This has to be a Rock Choir. I tried one locally and my MIL eventually escaped the cult left hers in frustration at the Borg-like conformity and being fleeced.

*I've decided the only way to win is to start your own group, be very specific about what you will and won't listen to, will and will not do, make a list of rules, and if people come along who won't play ball, tell them to piss off.

So, no memoirs, no poets, no journalists, no bloggers, no academic writers, no shite film scripts and no short stories. You must write novels. Those novels should be at least 150 pages long when they're eventually finished.

I'm gonna try this out, soon, IRL. I may get punched in the face, but at least I won't have to suffer any more wannabe Dylan Thomas*

To be honest it sounds like you and Penguin Wool Lady have a lot in common

Bold fail

Actually my friend at yoga. Me and other friend had been going ages. Nice and relaxed. Friend b decides to come. Totally competitive, doing fucking headstands at the drop of a hat, sighing loudly with boredom during cooldown. Sadly all those headstands gave her a migraine and she never came back.

My friends DD joined a book club, it was a mix of people including an author and several aged 16-30s then this man joined, he was in his 80s. When she told me about him, I realised I knew him and that he was the DH of someone I played bridge with and well known for being crude and causing his wife embarasement, so much so she had banned him from going to any functions with her. . It wasnt long before he started hisodd beaviour at the reading club, he turned every conversation to sex and talked about the things he did in bed, completely irrelevant to the books they had been reading..in the end they pretended the book club had closed as they couldnt deal with his pervy comments.

This thread has all the potential plot lines for another 3 series of Midsomer Murders. 😂

Another allotment one. The bullying antics seem to go in a roughly 4 year cycle. Most allotmenteers just want to grow their produce in peace. Unfortunately every few years someone on the committee decides to start flinging their poo. It all gets very nasty.

The venom displayed in the Handforth meeting was very familiar.

I left a book club I set up. ☹ the local parish council got it's claws into it and before I knew it everything we did had to support initiatives in the village.

One member was constantly worried that people who weren't members would see the group as elitist (who gives a fuck about what people who aren't members and aren't going to join think?).

One member was pressuring me to write reports to the parish council about what the club had done and attend a monthly 3 hour meeting (!). When the report was deemed insufficient he got someone else to write it without telling me.

I left. Nothing is worth the drama.

I feel guilty posting this as she was really struggling with depression but this person affiliated with a uni society I went to.

She was struggling with her mental health and had virtually no conversation topics of interest other than her illness and maybe mental illness in general. Worse than that she had so many triggers that even a normal light hearted conversation would be full of them and once triggered she'd bawl her eyes out in a way that would dominate the event and really drag down the mood as people tried to calm and comfort her.

This situation happened during the freshers night and unsurprisingly pretty much none of the silenced onlookers who witnessed her meltdown returned to the group. We didn't want to kick her out obviously but we did silently seethe at how her behaviour was driving people away.

It’s sad to read how many of these arseholes get away with it because group leaders/tutors/chairs won’t address the behaviour.

@OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow friend B sounds like my yoga fiend. She also did a lot of loud sighing and groaning. You aren't in the North London area are you?!

@rookiemere

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.

Everyone I know who teaches creative writing would say that half the challenge of classroom management was trying to stop older an male student hogging the space and talking over younger women.

I once took a course myself where there was a deeply self-satisfied retired engineer who simply couldn’t grasp that there was any expectation he would do anything other other than write one draft of his thriller, check for typos, bang it off and get an immediate agent and publishing deal. He thought that one thirtysomething woman who was several drafts in was being silly and self-doubting and over-conscientious.

Then he stormed out when the group called him on the lascivious descriptions of naked female corpses his cop kept salivating over. There was a schoolgirl who had ‘pert, cold tits’.

@Silurian you're lucky he stormed out !

Our tutor was a lovely ethereal lady, great on the supportive comments, less good on crowd control. It was a number of years ago so I can't remember the exact details, but I do recall one session where she had to tell him not to interrupt others when they were reading and he got a bit stroppy at that.

@PolarnOPirate

*I've decided the only way to win is to start your own group, be very specific about what you will and won't listen to, will and will not do, make a list of rules, and if people come along who won't play ball, tell them to piss off.

So, no memoirs, no poets, no journalists, no bloggers, no academic writers, no shite film scripts and no short stories. You must write novels. Those novels should be at least 150 pages long when they're eventually finished.

I'm gonna try this out, soon, IRL. I may get punched in the face, but at least I won't have to suffer any more wannabe Dylan Thomas*

To be honest it sounds like you and Penguin Wool Lady have a lot in common

Exactly what I thought 😂

Every online group moderated by Americans I've been in for the past year descends into a purity spiral of identity politics.