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?

Not gushing over an engagement is fine, the whole back story of her relationship and your opinions on getting engaged really don't matter. I assume you would have had the same response had she been marrying Prince Charming given your opinions.

I usually just ah nice ring and not make comment about the engagement itself unless they're actually a friend!

She's marrying someone who, by her own admission behaves like a twat. You smiled politely and congratulated her. Nothing more required IMHO.
More concerning is the fact that the rest of the office spent another 20 minutes gushing over the happy news. Don't they have any work to do? 😉

@TheOverlord

Are you being intentionally dense?

You’re bitter because you’re pissed off that she’s marrying someone who has treated her poorly in the past because you can’t forget and move on. You are unhappy because you cannot forget bad things that happened in the past.

I'm only dense by accident, not clever enough to be dense on purpose 😀

You seem to have a remarkable degree of insight into my psychological state for someone who hasn't met me. Have you ever thought of a career in therapy?

It's funny (not funny) this kind of post. ''Are you married?''. ie, if you're not, you're jealous. You must be jealous! There can be no other explanation.

This thinking is what drives insecure women in to clinging on to shit relationships with shit men because they know, and they're right, that there is (disappointingly) a certain kind of woman who thinks that any man is better than no man, and that if she's with a bastard people will pity her less than if she's single.

The two are a feed back loop I'm sure.

You have to know that some people will pity you and LEAVE THE ARSEHOLE ANYWAY. Then later, it all becomes clear. There are just some desperately insecure vacuous women out there who will put up with anything to avoid being single. They see life as musical chairs and if you're left without a man, you've lost. Never mind if the man saps all the real joy out of their actual life, at least they appear to have joy.

Often in the workplace I find it is best to get on board and be enthusiastic if the person is expecting that type of response to their news. And then you can carry on with the rest of your day without too much worry. It’s her life and she can crack on with it as she likes. You can hold your opinions privately and rant to family, friends and MN about them.

I think in the case of younger women, it's more likely to be about wanting kids and worrying that time will run out.

surely bitter would only apply to @Thelaughingtonepoliceman if it directly affected her? It doesn’t. She sounds more disappointed in her colleague than anything.

I don’t blame her, it’s exasperating to watch clever people make stupid choices with piss poor examples of the male of the species.

Oh don't be so ridiculous, of course it does not.

Its a perfectly sane and rational response not to fake happiness that someone is marrying a controlling arse who makes them unhappy.

.

I really don’t understand why you’re getting so het up about this. You meet the definition of the word and you thought you didn’t because you don’t know what the word means. Surely it’s a much bigger deal that you’re nasty and judgemental (by your own admission).

I don’t get it. You admit that you were nasty and judgmental but you think it’s unfair because you think you veiled it. You clearly didn’t veil it. Don’t be nasty and people won’t think you’re nasty and they won’t call you out on it.

You can write your OP as butter-wouldn’t-melt as you like but the truth is that your colleagues wouldn’t know you disapprove of her relationship if you hadn’t made that clear. They aren’t mind readers. You have no business inserting yourself into her relationship, even by omission.

I think you have a lot of growing up to do. It’s nothing to do with psycho-analysing you. You said words, from those words, I know what happened. It’s not psychic ability, it’s reading comprehension.

@xJoy

This thinking is what drives insecure women in to clinging on to shit relationships with shit men because they know, and they're right, that there is (disappointingly) a certain kind of woman who thinks that any man is better than no man, and that if she's with a bastard people will pity her less than if she's single.

This. See also I'm bitter (as confidently armchair diagnosed by @TheOverlord)

And you're absolutely right. This is all pretty trivial at heart but the reason this matters is that this sort of shit keeps perfectly nice, attractive, clever people like this woman doing absolutely everything in their power to keep a man.. Even a man several rungs down the evolutionary ladder from them.

Because she would rather stay with a meat-head whose lips move when he thinks than have other women look down on her for not having a sparkly engagement ring.

Yeah, i can't get excited over diamonds to be honest

Just a stone

The definition is right in front of your face… what does “sane” or “rational” have to do with it? You can be sane and rational and bitter all at the same time.

Being childfree by choice, I have zero interest in babies. I do, however, have the social graces & basic good manners to smile & pretend to express polite interest for a few moments when proud new parents bring their offspring into the office. No, I don’t want to hold it, though.
If people were noticing your lack of interest in your colleague’s ring enough to comment on it, perhaps you need to work on your acting skills, OP. Sometimes we all have to do what’s expected while we are at work.

but that sounds like exactly what OP did @ClassicLib - It would be the equivalent of somebody telling you you were rude for not wanting to hold the baby when you had been perfectly polite. I also have no interest in holding other people's babies and don't understand why anyone would want to pass their baby round strangers like a parcel!

How very strange that you’re the one being horrible about her and then playing the “if only women were nicer to each other” card. You’ll defend to the death her right to choose but then harangue her if she chooses the option you dislike and then complain that it’s so unfair that society is so judgmental of women’s choices when you’re the one exhibiting that behaviour.

Oh I completely agree with you, @Thelaughingtonepoliceman
If he sounds an arse NOW.They will likely divorce down the track.

There are just some desperately insecure vacuous women out there who will put up with anything to avoid being single

to be fair @xJoy women who end up in abusive relationships are rarely vacuous. They have self esteem issues, probably unhealthy childhoods, and are often targeted and gradually groomed to accept the abuse of men like this woman’s fiancé

Surely that would be more in the case of older women. Why would younger people be more worried about time running out?

@TheOverlord

You're entitled to your half-baked psychoanalysis and I did invite this by pointing out what an arse he is so I'll take most of this... but I'm really not inserting myself into this woman's (dreadful) relationship. She's the one waving a ring around and going "Look at my lovely ring" from a bloke who two months ago was calling her a slut down the phone in front of colleagues.

I do have to be polite but not buying into this romance hook, line and sinker doesn't make me bitter. Just at least give me that.

this really made me chuckle

OP I totally get it. Firstly although I feel huge joy when a friend announces they're getting married, I can't string out pretending to look at a ring (what am I supposed to be seeing in it? a vision of the future?) for more than 10 seconds. Doing anything like that in a group always makes me feel like the more excitable ones have it covered and I'm free to wander off til they've finished. I'm the same if a colleague brings a new baby in etc, happy to give it a quick look/cuddle and then let everyone else at it. (I do genuinely feel happy about these events but I'm better at supporting/expressing joy one to one or in a small group.)

But secondly it's a completely different kettle of fish when someone is marrying someone you think or know is a complete twerp. It's very hard to feel enthused about someone tying themselves legally to a jealous twat, I really sympathise.

Completely agree with you, OP

I quite like an engagement OP but I’d defend your right not to feign interest.

When I was pushing my firstborn in his pram a school friend and her dm came over to chat. The school friend, a confirmed singleton, looked at my to me adorable baby and said ‘it’s a nice little thing isn’t it.’ And went on her way.
I wasn’t upset, I found her exchange very amusing and rather refreshing.

And for anyone who needs to hear it, I've had an engagement ring and a wedding and I'm happy married - it hasn't affected one iota my ability to enthuse about/have interesting things to say about other people's engagements!

Not really possible to say whether you were rude- it's all in the delivery.

I do think that part of being at work is maintaining good relations with your colleagues and feigning (or even taking) some level of interest in their lives. What you think of engagement or her relationship is neither here nor there- you're not being asked for relationship advice. Being snippy and dismissive is a bit unprofessional, whether a colleague is telling you about her crappy engagement, her boring holiday or whatever. So if you were that then I think you misjudged it. But maybe you weren't. Not really possible to tell from your post, although all the surrounding info you give does suggest you wanted to convey that you weren't interested.