Sorry this is so long!
For years I’ve volunteered in a local museum, mainly in the shop/cafe. After Covid I was thinking about leaving anyway (long, irrelevant story). Then I got talking to DP through Facebook (known him for years just not well/didn’t know he was single etc), he’s also a volunteer at the museum although his family own an exhibit there so he focuses mainly on that, and he has a small team of volunteers who help him. We started seeing each other and now I’ve moved over to helping him instead of leaving the museum, and I get on really well with the few guys who help him out. Except one.
At first this guy was fine with me, a little sarcastic maybe but I quite liked him and his sense of humour. He hadn’t been helping DP as long as the others but he was the most consistent one (there every weekend- the others have partners, jobs that involve working weekends or hobbies or whatever and sometimes we only see them monthly). He and DP were quite close and when we met were spending every Saturday and Sunday at the museum, often staying until very late/going out for dinner afterwards etc. When I started going along it ended up being just the three of us quite often and I didn’t realise it would be a problem, DP was happy to have a partner who shared his hobby as it’s what he does every weekend and his ex wasn’t interested at all. Also if I didn’t go along at the start of our relationship then we wouldn’t see each other at all as I have DC from a previous relationship so we could only see each other on weekends when they were with my XH.
The friend started being quite nasty about DP (rarely to his face although he is quite rude and sarcastic to DP a lot of the time). He calls him incompetent, says he doesn’t trust him and the others dislike him, DP doesn’t work hard enough, doesn’t care about the museum, etc- some of it is plain ridiculous. He’s always been quite rude to me in general, hidden in sarcasm mostly, but recently it’s really getting worse and it’s almost constant. He regularly calls me a fucking idiot, a stupid bitch, he’s called me a useless c*nt and fucking boring. He tells me to move out of his fucking way and last weekend when DP asked me to help him with something he yelled “fetch” when he asked me to pass him a tool (in a really sarcastic way, like he was talking to a dog). I could go on and on. He’s worse when we are alone but does insult me in front of DP too. It’s only ever been verbal until this weekend and when we were alone he held a screwdriver in my face, close to my eyes and just stared at me, I didn’t move and just stared back (I didn’t know what to do!) and eventually he walked away. Then later on he was walking behind me with a trolley and hit the backs of my leg (I have some minor mobility/pain issues so I often don’t move as quickly as I should), I assumed it was an accident and moved slightly to the side, but then he did it again. After a third time he told me to speed up or move out of his fucking way, and I stood aside to let him past. I would’ve moved sooner but it was a narrow path and I couldn’t.
DP thinks that his friend might be jealous he has found someone, or even that maybe his friend has a crush on him (He isn’t gay that we know of though, although I’m aware that doesn’t mean anything!). But after this weekend I’ve started to feel like I’m being bullied, albeit in a low level way. I spoke with DP and he doesn’t think it’s bullying, just the friend’s personality and him “being silly”, he does admit the behaviour is odd though. There’s no way I could report it or anything (we are all volunteers anyway) because DP would be really upset if he lost his help, or if this guy quit because of me. Anyway DP is technically my “manager” so there’s no one to report it to. DP isn’t very good at confrontation or standing up for himself and there’s no way he would be able to address this with his friend. So I guess I’m stuck.
The only real option is to just stop going to the museum. This would be really difficult for me though as it’s been my only hobby for almost a decade, I love it there and I have autism and struggle to make friends or start new things.
It would be a massive loss to my life, especially as I found the museum when I was in a really bad place mentally (I have anxiety and depression) and it’s helped me so much. Almost all of my friends are there. It would also mean barely seeing DP (we live together now but he has other hobbies on weeknights plus spends at least one full day of the weekend at the museum, often both. If I don’t go, I’m not sure when we would spend any time together).
Would you see this as bullying or am I being over sensitive?
What would you do?