To have not been effusive when colleague was waving her engagement ring around

[Thelaughingtonepoliceman]

Just been taken to task by a colleague for failing to be sufficiently excited when another colleague told us she had just got engaged and was waving a medium-sized rock around the office.

The colleague who has just got engaged has been with her partner for about seven years and on two separate occasions has been in tears at work parties because of his behaviour (on one of these he accused her of going out because she was trying to sleep with other men). She has previously said they usually sleep in separate bedrooms, she has thought of leaving him and he refuses on principle to do anything social with her at all and has no interest in doing anything other than watching rugby. In short, he sounds like a world-class arse and she could certainly do better.

She was showing people the ring and everyone was gushing over it and saying how happy she must be etc. A couple of the other girls made comments along the lines of "wait until I go home and show Bob/John the pictures".

Full disclosure I find the whole business of engagement and engagement rings pointless and utterly embarrassing at the best of times. If you want to get married, get married but this ridiculous charade of having to be asked by the man and having to have an expensive ring to wave around as a badge of honour is just cringe. In the best of situations I find the business naff but I'm very happy to overlook it if the people getting married are happy.

But I know for a fact that this is not a happy relationship and simpering over this was more than I could bear. So I gave a peremptory nod, said "congratulations, very exciting" and wandered off, leaving the rest of them talking about the ring for a further 20 minutes. Much later on someone took me aside and said it had been noted that I was lacking in enthusiasm around the engagement and why had I felt it necessary to be this unpleasant?

I honestly don't understand why it should be mandatory to be interested in the engagements of people you don't know all that well in the first place but particularly when everyone knows they aren't well matched. I won't be rude and I wasn't rude, but why should I pretend to be overjoyed?

*take you aside

@Thelaughingtonepoliceman - I suspect you made it painfully clear that you did not think congratulations were due. Tbh, as it sounds like concern was the more honest reaction, you did well to con them all into thinking you just weren’t interested. If, in fact, you thought the couple concerned sounded like a good long term match and therefore it was rather a nice thing that the engagement seemed to have made your colleague so happy, then your reaction probably would have have been genuinely rude.

I think you just feel the need to have a rant about engagements and women who are married. Why?

Is this woman your concern? No she is not.

You claim to be disinterested, but here you are ranting on MN.

Her life. Her decisions. Her mistakes. You have no idea what's going on as an outsider.

Is she on here conjecturing about why you are single? No she is not.

@Dumpruntime

it’s clear her behaviour was spotted by her colleagues and yes. They likely think she’s bitter and jealous.

They do think I’m bitter and jealous. As do a lot of people on here. And I expected that and honestly fine, you can’t change other people’s perceptions of you. As I’ve said upthread I would rather people thought I was jealous than thought I was just being spiteful.

I’m just asking some of you to think about why it is that everyone is called bitter and jealous if they aren’t enthralled by the prospect of a wedding.

Are we all expected to have some Pavlovian wedding gene which kicks in when people talk about weddings? Is there something wrong with me because I don’t have that yearn to walk down the aisle in a big white frothy dress? And is it demonstrably the case that a woman who isn’t interested in weddings or engagements is bitter or jealous?

My perspective on marriage is that it’s a very sensible tool which protects a spouse who has less money from exploitation or abuse. That’s where it starts and ends for me. I have never bought into the idea that’s a spiritual or a romantic thing. And I am very happy when nice people who love each other get married. But I don’t understand why I am expected to feel a non specific euphoria over someone else’s wedding. Particularly when I know it’s not a good relationship.

Why should I have to mask the fact that I think engagement is frankly a bit silly? Why can’t I, in a reasonable and respectful way, hold this position without people thinking I am dying inside?

By that logic, the fact that all the other somebody's felt NO need to take OP aside suggests that no rudeness was detected.

Sounds like you could be a bit jealous. You chose to be dismissive and not very polite and you were called out on it.

I think that if you are concerned that a colleague may be letting herself in for future unhappiness, then the most minimal politeness is fine.

If there's any degree of friendship involved I'd be tempted - at another point - to ask her whether she was sure about the step she was taking. Some relationships, after all, do work better if people remain legally single.

If a woman is being treated badly by a man, that mistreatment is likely to escalate when there are legal ties between them.

I don't think you're bitter and jealous.

I do think you're more motivated by a dislike of weddings than by concern for this woman, whose betrothed does indeed sound like an absolute shit. There's much more disdain and contempt in your posts than worry or concern.

And I think you're also motivated, like many others here, by an idea that it's somehow admirable not to give a shit about the lives of the people you work with. Except clearly you do give a shit, as do they.

Do you let the person know every time you find someone a bit rude? In my experience it's very rare for anyone to feel the need to say anything at all.

You're getting a hard time here @Thelaughingtonepoliceman but it's to be expected. Some women are their own worst enemies, he gave her a diamond ring so he must love her really, even if he's been a complete arse up until then.
Everyone else made all the right noises but you were honest, you have doubts about his character so you didn't feel you could be all happy and enthusiastic about her engagement. Congratulations on not being a hypocrite.
In a few years if it all goes wrong the others will be saying "I never liked him"

There’s a reason most people don’t say anything - it’s because we’re all responsible for our own behaviour, and it’s not up to anyone else to police it. If a colleague felt that he or she could “call me out” on something like this, they’d find out differently very, very quickly.

I’m fairly sure his friends and colleagues were congratulating him too yes, back pats, questions on the wedding etc . Gushing is a horrible put down little word isn’t it. Used to belittle. As the op is trying to do to the women who were making a fuss over the woman who got engaged and congratulating her. She’s trying ro belittle them. Her phrasing is scornful and belittling.

you really think his male colleagues woild spend 20 mins discussing it and asking questions (beyond "nice one dave. when is the stag?"
i really doubt it.

Lets say this is a slightly different situation - a pregnancy announcement and the OP is someone who can't have kids. Would we expect anything from anyone in that situation beyond a "oh congrats" and a smile (if possible) and walk off to do something else? (like work).

I’m happily married but I 100% agree with the OP. She said the polite thing, done and over.

I too don’t understand the expectation to show ‘excitement’ about a Co-worker’s engagement. Or the expectation to fake positive feelings where you have none. It sounds like OP controlled her true emotions, said polite things and left it there. Why is that not good enough? Why do we owe relative strangers (OP describes this person as a coworker not a friend) the effort to lie and be disingenuous beyond holding back negative views that can hurt them?

Op while I might not agree with all your sentiment on marriage I really don't see that you did anything wrong.

I'm married but agree with you OP. I also have DCs and hate it when people bring their babies into the office.

I offer a polite that's nice and move on as fast as I can, I just think it's a bigger thing for the people involved and I don't do the fake gushing.

YANBU

But she was pulled up for not being excited/effusive enough not for being rude. They’re not the same thing.

She was asked why she felt the need to be ‘unpleasant’, which I would consider a close synonym 🤷🏻‍♀️

Look, it’s perfectly possible that OP really did do nothing wrong, was perfectly pleasant, and has the misfortune to work with a bunch of twats. Equally, in my experience it is vanishingly rare for one adult to take another aside to address their language or tone and it’s therefore quite possible that OP was ruder either than she realises or that she has described on this thread.

The cynicism has become an end itself though, the anti marriage stuff is just words, words that are helpful in judging your colleague but the cynicism is not something that will have any meaningful impact on finding solutions to what you deem is a problem. You are perpetuating ideas of patriarchy by thinking in this way as it suggests your colleague cannot think for herself and you are infantalising her.

I’m just asking some of you to think about why it is that everyone is called bitter and jealous if they aren’t enthralled by the prospect of a wedding

Men are never called bitter and jealous if they are not enthralled by a workmate’s prospective wedding. This is behaviour that’s expected of women. We’re meant to squeal and whoop and hug as if marriage is still a woman’s life goal. In some circles anyway- I’ve never been in any social or professional group where this happens, thankfully.

@Daleksatemyshed I agree.

Give me a ring to gush over than a new baby to look at (or worse, ‘cuddle’) any day of the week.

Yes I completely and utterly agree with this anyway.

It did make it worse that she endlessly complains about the children she has being too much for her though.

Which is IMO similar to someone being open about their boyfriend being a lying cheating abusive nasty person and then happily announcing their engagement to him and everyone being socially compelled to be extremely demonstrably enthusiastic about it...

I wouldn't worry about OP,it sounds like everyone else was more than gushy enough.

I just smile and nod and say congratulations and they move on to the next person. I understand their excitement, but its their excitement and certainly not mine

Thank you @FictionalCharacter . I think you're quite right about women being supposed to be the ones who are all dewy eyed about weddings, men just see it as one day with a good excuse for lots of beer and shagging!

Expected of women by women judging by some of these posts.