Page 2 | To have fallen out with my friends boyfriend because he takes the....

SlimmingMumOf1 · 2018-08-15T07:12:36+00:00

Piss? Every time I see my friend and her long term boyfriend who is in his 20s, he always says to me "have you shrunk or something? You're getting smaller!", I usually laugh it off but I have literally had it up to here with it. I know I am small (4'11"), I don't need to be reminded about it every single time I see them! Yesterday, we decided to meet for a coffee and her boyfriend was walking with her on his way to work, I said hello to him then he said "you still haven't grown. Why are you so small", I immediately stopped in my tracks and told him why don't he take a good look at his ugly mug in the mirror and to grow the F up. My friend was mortified. She said that she will text me later instead but she never did. I'm sorry but I just lost my temper with it! Surely I was not being unreasonable? I don't usually have a short fuse but yesterday really got to me! We are in our 20s FFS, surely that's what immature young idiots say to each other.

ShatnersWig · 15/08/2018 08:45

Good on you op, and those of you blaming her for not pulling him up on it earlier, how would you handle it then?

If someone said something to me that I didn't like I would - if it was intended as misplaced banter/taking the piss without malicious intent - say "I don't like that, I'd rather you didn't say that" or even "I'm short but you're ugly" and if they did it again I'd tell them to "fuck off".

If what they said had malicious intent from the outset, I'd tell them to "fuck off".

But I wouldn't laugh it off from the outset. That's just me. Other people are of course different.

tinytemper66 · 15/08/2018 08:46

I am the same size and I often get taken the mick of! Usually by the kids I teach. Sometimes I take it and sometimes I do t. I usually preempt it with jokes about myself but on times of said in a nasty way. I will pull kids up on it.
I have often not been taken seriously in professional situations because if my size and patronised too.
So OP I would have said the same or similar especially if it ongoing.😡

diddl · 15/08/2018 08:47

I can get why it pissed you off so much (fellow shortarse), but insulting/swearing at him was always likely to piss your friend off unfortunately.

missyB1 · 15/08/2018 08:50

What on earth is your friend doing with such an ignorant twat of a bf??
I’d not apologise but simply wait for her to realise she needs you more than she needs him.

echt · 15/08/2018 08:51

I am astonished at the apologists/blamers on this thread.

To make fun of someone for being what they are, e.g. old/short/tall/black/woman is inexcusable.

AmIRightOrAMeringue · 15/08/2018 08:51

To everyone saying she should have said something earlier as he may not have known she didn't like it...only an idiot would think the recipient may have found this funny. It's basic manners not to continually point out things about people's appearance. I'm rubbish socially and even I know that!!

MaisyPops · 15/08/2018 08:51

It depends.

If you've laughed along with it and gone along and not suggested that it was annoying or you hated it then I can see how he might view it as daft banter (as in its people laughing along with it - we have lots of daft jokes at each other in our friendship group. It isn't bullying. Not everyone stops having a laugh when they reach their 20s). In which case when you snapped then he might be a bit confused that he'd been joking.

But if you've looked uncomfortable, fed up, suggested already you don't really like it and he continues to so it then he's being a bit of a dick.

Talk to your friend.

Smellyoulateralligator · 15/08/2018 08:51

Red herring with the racism joke comparison. They actually aren’t the same echt but I can’t be arsed explaining it to you ;)

OP - he sounds awful and I wouldn’t worry about him or his girlfriend again - poor her though...

Belindabauer · 15/08/2018 08:51

He deserved it.

YeTalkShiteHen · 15/08/2018 08:53

Everyone having a go at OP, if he’d said she was fat or ugly would that have been ok?
(Not saying you are OP!)

Constantly chipping away at physical characteristics of someone and then going “oh it’s only a joke haha” is a fucking wanker. If you need to keep telling people it’s a joke it’s not fucking funny.

OP don’t apologise, if your friend is prepared to let her dickhead boyfriend put her friends down repeatedly then she’s no friend. If she can’t work out that you had every right to tell him where to go that’s her problem!

He was a cheeky bastard and you were quite mild I think.

ScrambledSmegs · 15/08/2018 08:53

I would never let a partner pick on a friend like that. Don't think much of your 'friend' for letting him do it time and again.

WillowRose79 · 15/08/2018 08:56

He probably just thought I was banter if you always laughed it off and now you've sworn st him and called him ugly- way too much of an overreaction

echt · 15/08/2018 08:58

Red herring with the racism joke comparison. They actually aren’t the same echt but I can’t be arsed explaining it to you ;)

Do try.

ShatnersWig · 15/08/2018 08:58

@echt I don't like being called an apologist so please stop it.

There. See. That's how you handle someone saying something to or about you don't like.

ferrymeoff · 15/08/2018 09:00

I'm 4' 11. I hadn't realised it was such a big deal.

echt · 15/08/2018 09:01

@echt I don't like being called an apologist so please stop it

I had no idea I was addressing you in particular, but since you plainly recognised yourself, if the cap fits...

AlmaCogansFrockFan · 15/08/2018 09:05

He needed to be told, OP. I think you have the best outcome in this as you've got rid of this annoying prat and have been dropped by so-called friend who enabled him and has taken his side. She appears to have ditched a decent friend and is stuck (hopefully not for long) with a prat.

70sShow · 15/08/2018 09:07

"I'm 4' 11. I hadn't realised it was such a big deal."

Haha @ferrymeoff

FASH84 · 15/08/2018 09:07

He was being immature but thought it was a little joke you had between you, you've not said before you were offended and then just unleashed a torrent of abuse... This doesn't paint you in the best light. If you'd calmly said, can you stop the short jokes, I realise you think you're funny but it's nothing I've not heard thousands of times before and it's getting a bit tired, can we drop it from now on' , you would've highlighted his behaviour without embarrassing yourself and affecting y your friendship

ShatnersWig · 15/08/2018 09:08

You were tarring everyone who didn't agree with you an apologist or a blamer. When actually, people were saying they would have handled it differently. Because, you know, we're all different. There are some people who don't mind what they perceive as "banter" or "taking the piss" between friends if they know there is no malicious intent behind it. We're all allowed to have different opinions on these forums and handle life experiences differently.

You brought up racism, but let's look at sexism. Quite rightly, things that were - bizarrely - considered acceptable in previous decades are now no longer considered acceptable. The reason being is that more and more people started speaking out when someone was sexist to them rather than accept it.

If we don't want people to make fun of us about our appearance, whether it is height, our ears sticking out, because it is inexcusable (although as you'll have read there are people on here who are below average height and say it wouldn't bother them) then it beholds everyone who feels it is inexcusable to say something and not laugh it off time and time again.

ClinkyMonkey · 15/08/2018 09:10

The thing is, it's only funny to him, isn't it? You might have laughed out of politeness, but it's really only banter if you're making a joke back about him and it's all good fun. When it's one-sided like this, he's either a bully or has very poor social skills. Either way, you reacted because you had had enough and were pushed to the limit of what you were prepared to brush off. It was a very human and understandable reaction. Not everybody is able to calmly point out that something is annoying them at precisely the right moment before their feelings boil over. We all react differently. It's not as if you beat him over the head with the nearest blunt object!

Mummyoflittledragon · 15/08/2018 09:11

To those, who say it’s not the same as being black. No it isn’t and yet it’s very similar. I expect you’d find people taking the piss out of the size of your very large or very small tits or nose offensive and yet both of those can be changed through surgery.

Do you want to continue to be friends with her and if so, how much?

YeTalkShiteHen · 15/08/2018 09:12

If we don't want people to make fun of us about our appearance, whether it is height, our ears sticking out, because it is inexcusable (although as you'll have read there are people on here who are below average height and say it wouldn't bother them) then it beholds everyone who feels it is inexcusable to say something and not laugh it off time and time again.

While I’m on the fence about racism comparisons, it is not the responsibility of the person targeted to speak up, it is the responsibility of the dickhead laughing at people’s physical characteristics not to be a dickhead.

Expecting the person who is the butt of the jokes to be the one to stop it is putting the responsibility in the wrong place.

But, OP did speak up. And I don’t blame her, for doing it, or for the way she did it.

It’s shite being the butt of jokes all the time, and even more shite when a so called friend is in on it.

ShatnersWig · 15/08/2018 09:16

@YeTalkShiteHen I do get what you're saying and of course in an ideal world people shouldn't be dickheads. But like sexism in the 60s and 70s, it took women getting the courage to speak up and calling people out on it to make dickheads change their behaviour. Telling someone you don't like what they are saying the moment they say it curbs it from the outset IF the other person is not a dickhead. If they are a dickhead, then they'll do it again, you then tell them to fuck off and have fuck all to do with them ever again.

echt · 15/08/2018 09:17

You were tarring everyone who didn't agree with you an apologist or a blamer. When actually, people were saying they would have handled it differently. Because, you know, we're all different. There are some people who don't mind what they perceive as "banter" or "taking the piss" between friends if they know there is no malicious intent behind it. We're all allowed to have different opinions on these forums and handle life experiences differently

The point I made that was that had the poster been posting about race, they would have been treated differently. The small don't attract the same support, so it would seem.

If we don't want people to make fun of us about our appearance, whether it is height, our ears sticking out, because it is inexcusable (although as you'll have read there are people on here who are below average height and say it wouldn't bother them) then it beholds everyone who feels it is inexcusable to say something and not laugh it off time and time again

Tell a black person to laugh it off, why don't you?

Part of being a thinking person is being able to generalise from the particular, e.g. not OK to take the piss out of women/black people for being what they are apples to all others in the same situation.