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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Weird gaslight-y thing from visiting male friend...

248 replies

Margerine78 · 22/06/2020 19:30

I already know IANBU and my ‘friend’ behaved badly but this post is more for my sanity…

Has anyone read ‘Flowers in the Attic’ and do you agree there’s a subtle storyline about the brother and sister having an incestual relationship. I mean, the sister is pregnant with her brother’s kid in the prequel so…Sorry for the dark book choice but it came up in conversation somehow and my friend point-blank told me I was wrong as he couldn’t remember it happening.

This friend stayed over (support bubble thing) this weekend, I was so looking forward to it after being on my own all lockdown, but he spent whole weekend telling me I was wrong about literally everything - books (as above), films, TV series, how I washed up, how I cooked, how I mixed drinks, my music taste, even how my oven worked! He's normally a nice guy but he turned into a chauvinistic arrogant, argumentative and gaslighting douche this weekend when I most needed to have nice company.

For some reason the book thing pissed me off the most as instead of admitting he may have missed that subtext as he read it 20 years ago and taking my word for it as someone who reads a lot, he instead spent hours making me feel like I imagined it and I’m losing my mind!

OP posts:
Brabera · 22/06/2020 19:48

He sounds like a knob but I was an innocent 12 when I first read it and the sex went completely over my head!

june2007 · 22/06/2020 19:49

Don,t know if I call this gaslighting I mean would you if it came from a women? But unreasonable totally. Maybe he is fed up and you were just happened to be available for him to take his frustrations out.

And yes said the links fro the books and films to prove he is wrong.

CarterBeatsTheDevil · 22/06/2020 19:50

I hated those books so much! Everyone was obsessed with them at school mainly because of the incest theme. Your friend is a tit.

cantarina · 22/06/2020 19:50

Oh dear, you found out your friend is a complete dick! Hopefully it's a phase and the effects of lockdown have got to him but he'll recover. Can't see how you can enjoy his company much in the future if he's like this.

LaurieFairyCake · 22/06/2020 19:50

How did you not Google it while he was there and go 'what you on about'?

Or call him out on it? How did you put up with this all weekend?

Mawbags · 22/06/2020 19:51

It really wasn’t subtle!!!
I was appalled but I was also 9 and had no business readying that
Book

PicsInRed · 22/06/2020 19:55

Incest was THE storyline, right through the series. Three generations of it, plus a step dad for good measure.

Very odd books to write for children. Extremely...odd. 🤔

ScabbyHorse · 22/06/2020 19:57

Was he maybe hoping for sex?

Original poster
Margerine78 · 22/06/2020 19:58

Thank-you all, this has made me feel so much better. I read it 2 years ago so I questioned my own memory of it. My friend even implied I was some weird pervert for reading it that way and starting banging on about "art being subjective" in this unbearably patronising way. I think me using words like 'subtle' and 'subtext' is doing that annoying empathetic thing to my friend (trying to get how he completely missed it) when actually he's an idiot and should've respected me when I say it's in there and he's mistaken (as I would if tables turned).

He used to be a lovely guy, we've gone on holiday before, hung out for days on end many times. He's never acted like this before. Midlife crisis? Lockdown affecting him? Who knows.

OP posts:
Somethingkindaoooo · 22/06/2020 19:58

I can't believe some people list it as their favourite book. It's disgusting!

SignOnTheWindow · 22/06/2020 19:58

We all passed it round the class as 12 yr olds for the delight of being grossed out by the incest storyline.

DKanin · 22/06/2020 19:58

I think the incest theme is well known, being what anyone who had read or knows about the book would think of first if it was mentioned. Maybe he missed it somehow, but he's been acting like an absolute twat.

I'd pull him up on his behaviour and ask him if there's something going on in his life that's causing him to behave like that.

I suspect that he's good at putting on a nice guy front in a friendship context but he's a patronising and unpleasant chauvinist, which once you were in more of a cohabitating situation with him, it became impossible for him to hide.

MillicentMartha · 22/06/2020 19:59

They weren’t children’s books, though! Maybe aimed at mid teens, perhaps.

Haffdonga · 22/06/2020 19:59

Why didn't you just Google it and prove him wrong?

I hope you have ended the friendship. Not for forgetting a book but for being a tosser.

morethanafortnight · 22/06/2020 20:02

None of the behaviour that you describe is appropriate for a guest in someone's home. What a horrible experience for you.

SlatternIsMyMiddleName · 22/06/2020 20:04

I have never read the book, but even I know about the incest storyline. That’s why the book is so famous.

Unless he was having an unusually bad weekend sounds like the friendship has run its course.

Original poster
Margerine78 · 22/06/2020 20:05

@LaurieFairyCake....this is where the weird gaslighting thing comes in. We did Wiki it. He read the plot and as it's not mentioned directly on there he claims this backs up his point. I scroll down and read the massive section below about the controversy surrounding the book (it being banned etc). and he tells me that part is irrelevant and "you can't believe everything I read on the internet", and starts on with his "art is subjective" bullshit...at which point I said 'Gone With The Wind' doesn't happen during the Civil War as that's a 'subjective reading' (and other silly examples) and he still doesn't back down.

OP posts:
blutoo · 22/06/2020 20:05

Typical mumsnet responses I see. Maybe he's not normally like this for a reason - haven't we all just been through a lot of stress and enforced change becuase of covid. Maybe he didn't realise he was disagreeing with you / telling you you're wrong etc Surely it's worth having it out with him not just ditching an otherwise good friendship.

Apossibility84 · 22/06/2020 20:05

What?

I read it years and years ago and that element completely slipped my mind, I can’t remember it now but will take your word for it.

There just have been lots of other examples because on the basis of this example... well I don’t know quite what to say I’m so baffled that you’d read so much negatively In to it!

Anonymoussumo · 22/06/2020 20:07

I think he always was a knob and lockdown has showed you his true colours.

Don't engage with him any further, unless you want him convincing you that your Clitoris is in your ear.

Even if he truly did believe it, he's not even nice but dim.

NotSuchASmugMarriedNow1 · 22/06/2020 20:09

Your friend was being a twat. Just out of interest, where did you meet him.

And yes FITA is about incest. Has your friend actually read it?

bringincrazyback · 22/06/2020 20:09

He sounds like an arrogant cockwomble. I don't think I could continue a friendship with someone after they'd acted like this.

diddl · 22/06/2020 20:10

What's your definition of "subtle" OpGrin?

As soon as I saw "Flowers in the Attic" I thought-oh, the incest book!
(read it about 40yrs ago!)

Iirc the "kids" were the product of incest as well as committing it?

Couldn't he just have googled the plot?

diddl · 22/06/2020 20:11

Oops, sorry ,just seen the post that you googled it!

Thinkingabout1t · 22/06/2020 20:12

Poor you, OP, what a lousy weekend after you'd been looking forward to it! Lockdown is having weird effects on people. But I'd still avoid spending much time with this man, unless he changes a lot when lockdown is over.

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