Cliquey friendship group

[Tursl]

My boyfriend set up his own friendship social group 2 years ago. He has gained a few thousand members. Hundreds of people have found friendships and found life partners. I met my boyfriend there.

The problem is once people form friendships they get cliquey and quite nasty saying they don't want the event putting on in the group as they have formed their friendships now. They just want to meet up without new people. This means new members don't get the opportunity like the original people did to make new friends.

Another member set her own group up behind my boyfriend's back and sent a threatening voice message to someone who had grassed her up. The woman tried to rejoin our group twice as hers flopped and her partner in crime got into a relationship so an admin banned her from rejoining.

There were 2 guys who had autism in the group who wanted to make friends. 1 was removed from the group because an admin found him 'creepy'. The same admin last night didn't want him in the group and complained to my boyfriend just because this guy has asked permission to message people for friendship and people said he could.

The guy left as he felt threatened. I messaged him to check he was ok as I felt awful as he is lonely and being ostracised. I sent him like to 6 other social groups which I personally think would be more welcoming for him. He appreciated my help and took it well. He said he was only wanted to make friends.

It just seems that some of these women who complain about men inboxing people if they are ugly and say they need to be removed from the group but if the guy has muscles and is good looking there are no issues.

My boyfriend has had health issues the past year and has not been able to attend much. These admins have such strict group rules there is no fun and people can't even message someone now even if they have been given the go ahead to do so. It is mad he is being told what to do with his own social group. The one time some of these admin 'friends' were slagging off my boyfriend in an admin chat. He had done nothing wrong and if it was not for him they would not have made their friends without his group.

I have never had issues like this at other social groups as people seemed more friendlier.

Sorry but this sounds really confusing. Did you boyfriend set up a company? Is he making money or did he have people sign contracts or agree to group rules?

Things like this always happen with groups that have admins. They feel they can run the group which causes other members to disagree with them. If it’s a group about making friends and extending social circles then surely you don’t have to attend meet ups and can instead meet up in smaller numbers?

Personally, I’d step away from the group. It seems
more hassle than actual fun and more of a toxic environment.
If your boyfriend is profiting from it then it will be harder for him to walk away but it’s his choice.

You need to explain the terms on which the ‘friendship group’ is set up. Is this a paid service?

My boyfriend set up the group for free. He makes no profit from it. He added about 12 admins and some of them are extremely rigid in their views. I think he should have just had 4 admins max as having to seek so many opinions is time consuming and ridiculous. The group seems so toxic and it is a shame these people are causing these problems and undoing his hard work.

It is a free group. No joining or admin fees. I can't believe the amount of time he and myself have spent on this group with lack of thanks from a lot of people.

If he's not happy with the admins, just take them off as admins and explain why?

One of them is an ex admin but for some reason still thinks she rules the roost. This is the one who said no more events for her friendship circle in the group and thinks she is too good to associate with guys who have autism.

The group has been a success but it's grown too big for the original model. Members have to much influence & unqualified people are making bad decisions.

Either time to call the quits - he's found his life partner and I'd guess lots of friends? He's done an excellent job by the sounds of it.

Or you make it more official with code of conduct, proper admins & policies and a small fee/advertising to cover the labour involved.

You can't keep things matey & breezy but still expect to control the way the group goes I'm afraid. Hate to bore everyone but this is what policy is for 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’m gonna be honest I joined a group local to me that was aimed at people meeting and making friends. But I left after I realised there were significant issues. As harsh as it sounds there are sometimes reasons that people don’t have friends, either because they are rude, overstep or are just not likeable. I also noticed that several people really weren’t just looking for a social opportunity they were looking for mental health or emotional support and posting concerning messages about how down they were.

I think a group with an aim to help people meet up is a really valuable and wonderful thing, but I do think it comes with its own issues to manage. The ones that I have seen work best are the ones with very clear boundaries and rules.

In a way it’s nice that people make smaller groups isn’t it. Isn’t the point to find friends and hopefully progress into a close friendship. Maybe that should’ve built in to the group. Can you do a meet up once a month that is open to all and facilitated by different people each month. Then there is one opportunity a month for anyone to come too, but also it’s ok if 3-4 people really get on for them to meet up alone too (I don’t see how you can stop this). Not everyone who comes along to find friends will be good at helping others make friends.

This.

So remove her from the group and take control.

Have another look at the group aims and rules. Send them out to all saying what the issues have been. Invite people to either stay and stick to the rules or leave and make their own groups. The. Be V strict about any breaking of the rules.

it's like any other organisation, when it gets beyond startup there needs to be significant attention paid to the culture. Who owns the assets - ie whose facebook account is it set up as, or who owns the website or is the named owner? If it's your DP he's able to make decisions about how he wants it to run.

I have always said he should have the final say on decisions but he gives in so easily to these hostile women. He has no control over his own group. When I have stood up to them they don't like it but I won't tolerate them bullying group members.

One admin woman called a few of us and group members racist because we said a fake spam account from abroad should be removed from the group as they were data phishing. The fake account remained in the group because people feared removing them they would be called racist. I just hope no-one was inboxed and scammed.

I started a FB group at start of lockdown with a couple of friends. It was brilliant to start with but it got bigger and bigger and needed more admins. Then the new admins started trying to call the shots.

Then more people started adding friends if friends of friends and it got out of control so I quit as admin then left the group.

That’s the problem. These things start with the best of intentions but invariably get too big and lose what they were originally about.