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

[Margerine78]

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!

@ThistlyPerf I am done with him. I had a really abusive relationship a few years back and now I have zero tolerance for people who purposely start arguments, talk down to me or gaslight me. It was bad all weekend (not just one isolated incident) there's no going back.

The book sounds creepy and your (hopefully ex) friend is a creep.

I've never read the book or even heard of it tbh. I've just looked it up on wiki and it says clear as day that the brother rapes his sister. Nothing subjective about it at all.

@billy1966 @Butterfly3105 I don't think it's a fancying thing. We've known each other for years just as mates so I don't think its some hidden feelings bubbling-up causing this as that would've shown itself before now and I don't get those vibes from him at all. I wonder if its a midlife crisis thing, insecurity coming out as arrogance? I swear he never used to be arrogant.

Aren't all of Virgina Andrews books based on incest? Be it her or her ghost writer who had written them? Also your friend sounds like a cunt

Out of interest margarine, how old is your friend?

And he's s bloke, right?

The question is why has he even read it?

(He hasn't. He can't stand to not know something. He's talking bollocks. You kindly invited him and he's saying you wash up wrong? Tip for the future. You cooked, he can wash up. He should. Any normal guest would offer. If you're washing up and he critices your method? Ok that's great. You wash up. Give him the sponge and walk off. Why is he even observing that closely anyway while you wash up? Nope. Well done on spotting that he was a dick. I mean if you like him then messaging/ having a drink is well and good but do not ever have him back.)

Sorry your friend is a total dick, op.

By the way, have you read any really interesting/ high brow books recently? If so, hit him with that. Ok so flowers in the attick whatever. I just read xxxxxx have you read it? Super interesting.

Watch him flounder ;D

Can I recommend a compilation of George Orwell essays? Just finished very good. Short book. Made my oh so superior male work colleagues look surprised and then terrified :D

I'll bung a link up if you want.

Smack him in the face with some political literature.

Hold your ground.

Watch him panic :D

(I actually enjoy stuff like that but it scares the shit out of most men :D)

@ShinyFootball. A bloke, yeah, 43 (same age as me).

This is the killer...I am an avid reader (social-political stuff like Orwell and all sorts). I love reading and analysing books, and discussing them with (non-dick) friends. He doesn't even read, says it makes him "tired" Flowers in the Attic isn't a book I love or anything, it came up really randomly (can't remember how) and caused him to be a massive prick to me.

To give you an idea of the weekend as a whole and his attitude, he also started an hour-long argument with me about how sexist The Walking Dead is when I mentioned it had strong female characters in it. (Transpired after he'd not even watched it). This involved him telling me (a feminist and a woman) about what's offensive to women and feminists. We also had about five arguments about how I was doing everything wrong with my cooking (which is veggie, I've been a veggie for 40 years and always cooked fresh so know how to cook). And an explosive one where he said I was wrong for leaving the grill door open and how 'he lived with chefs' and had never seen it before. When I got the actual manual up for the make/model of oven to prove how to use it, he told me 'I couldn't believe everything I read on the internet' again.

He also got really aggressive when I started talking about a single scene in a film I watched once (as it related to something else we were talking about) as he said he may want to watch the film one day and I had 'totally ruined it for him' (the film is terrible - that was the point of me mentioning it, I wasn't telling him the entire plot of a film I was recommending he watch). When I was baffled by the overblown angry response he tells me I don't get it as I don't love films. I then point out my degree was in Film and he literally laughed in my face and tells me it's a "shit degree".

Sorry, long rant, I'm getting more annoyed with each day I have the breathing space to look back at the weekend. As I type this I've realised he belittled me when I was talking about anything I know more about than him - books, films, veggie cooking. He flat out refused to talk about politics and shut me down when I started a chat about that (he doesn't follow it, I do).

He's a bloke, yep, 43.

I think I would distance myself from this plonker. His behaviour is beyond weird but deliberate and tailored to piss you off.

If he challenges you when you shuffle him sideways out of your life, deny that you are doing it. A beatific smile and denial will give him no room to manoevre. He will hate it. He will know what you are doing but you are giving him no toehold.

My sister is like him. She cannot be in the same room as me without putting me down about my grammar, my dress sense or something from our past. I used to be upset by it but then developed a thick skin and learned the head tilt, the "Awww" and I would focus on something in her hair or on her clothes as if there was something there that shouldn't be. The silent version of 'Is that the look you were going for?' I am then always terribly interested insomething or someone on the other side of the room or make like my phone vibrated in my pocket and go outside to 'answer' it. If you show a chink of light with these types they will send in a mortar bomb OP. My sister loves to do it. It feeds her soul. Often as I walk away from her I hear her doing it to someone else. She has no friends and her husband stays because he couldn't bear to lose half the house and his possessions.

I'm sorry you had a shit weekend and lost a friend OP. DH and I were talking this morning about how relived we were to have given up on a couple who were similarly difficult and obnoxious when we went to stay with them for a weekend four years ago! So I get the increasingly annoyed and upset feeling you get as you play over the intricacies of a horrible visit.

At least you know never to both with him, ever again!

I haven’t even read that book and I know there’s incest in it!

God what a bellend he is.

I’m totally going to re-read all FIVE of the Dollanganger Saga books now my granny gave them to me when I was about 13! They’re trash but so entertaining. And yes, incest and lots of abusive men and women, including (IMO) Dr Paul, the saviour of a teenager

@ThePollutedShadesOfPemberley sorry to hear about your sister, I have a friend who has a similar sister she has to endure at family dos. At least (and I cling to this), my ex-friend has now sodded off and I do not plan to ever speak to him again.

@TerrorWig ha! I'm tempted too. I might give it a few weeks so I can read them without getting angry flashbacks to the weekend!

Poor you OP! You plan a lovely weekend of actually seeing someone and he turns into a massive knob! What a dick! Sounds like he’s spent local down turning into an incel!

I don't think it was a subtle subtext. They DID have an incestual relationship.

It’s hardly a subtext - in my recollection it is literally a book about incest!

@Shoppingwithmother yeah I think I said that as I was trying to be kind to my friend when actually he was a massive rude dick and I shouldn't be downplaying my memory of a book to make his little man ego feel better about not understanding it. Also at the time of talking to him about it, I couldn't remember the exact passage about the incest directly but I told him I remember clearly the subtext of history repeating itself within the story as a way of proving to him (when I shouldn't need to) that I am not an idiot and I understood the book. All very frustrating!

He sounds like an absolute dick - don’t have him round again!!

@WinningEveryDay just saw your post about him disagreeing with me not gaslighting. I don't use the latter word lightly. He still told me I was wrong when I brought up proof of the book's storyline online (tonnes of it). We weren't arguing about a character motivation or some abstract part of a book that was open to interpretation, he was denying a fact about the book's storyline for the sake of arguing/upsetting me, and it made me feel like I was losing it. I had an abusive ex who did the same regularly so I now see the signs.

Sounds like he was a dick and you argued all weekend. You insisted you were right about everything, so did he, neither of you would back down or move on so it was a shit weekend and I doubt either of you want the friendship to continue.

That doesn't mean it's gaslighting though I appreciate due to your previous experiences, you felt triggered.

I had a similar situation with a bloke about the "Dice Man" by Luke Rhinehart. The bloke denied the novel made any mention of rape. I literally got the book out and showed him the passages where the main character considers raping a woman.

Then came the whole, "you're reading it wrong, it doesn't mean rape like that" etc. Complete denial despite the evidence. Troubling thing was this bloke was a police officer!

I look back and this was indicative of his personality and he really wasn't worth knowing at all. I do wonder whether some men struggle having debates with literate women.

I think you should end this friendship with this guy, he has shown complete disrespect to you. Onwards and upwards to better friendships.

@Fishypants totally agree men struggle to debate with women about literature or anything when the woman knows more. It's like their ego/validation is based on knowing everything.

Scary he was a copper!

@Fishypants...I should say some men not all.

There is a graphic sex scene in it, the brother rapes his sister, its described quite clearly. nothing subtle about it.

The books end with the sister agreeing to be sterilised and they live together with her kids as husband and wife.

I read it in my teens eons ago and I remember that all clearly.

Your friend meanwhile is a dickhead, and I'd be giving him a wide berth. If he tries telling you you're wrong on anything I'd just sigh and say what my teens do 'whatever' and walk off whilst he's mid rant.