Sometimes we need to do things that just aren’t nice. How do we know when that is, though? What if no one is actually being hurt, physically - is it better to just stand aside and let something continue?
I’ve been trying to be a ‘better person’ (whatever that means) - and a big part of that is trying not to be ‘unnecessarily cruel.’ That is, don’t gossip, don’t hurt people thoughtlessly, etc. Even if someone raises my ire, better to ignore them and move on than get into an unnecessary conflict. But what is the right course of action if there’s something or someone bothering me, or me and my friends?
Every week, I gather with friends to watch movies and shows of group interest. It’s an official club recognized by the college we attend, with a club ’mission’ and everything - in not so many words, the purpose of our group is to hang out, watch things, and have a good time. Sometimes we play board games or cards, but for the most part, it’s just a place for us to get together. Most of us have classes or work schedules that prevent us from meeting all together for the rest of the week, so it’s like a weekly reunion.
Our club has been changing and growing for some years, and gone through splits, unions, and changes in leadership. I consider most of the people who show up pretty good friends, and most of those friends I met in club - and we get new people moving in and out of the group all the time. But, it being open to anyone in the student body, sometimes people who don’t exactly ‘click’ with the rest of the group show up.
For the most part, none of us really mind. Some of the people are pretty awesome, even if they don’t come every week, and we usually hang out at one of our houses at the end of the night after club is over, so anyone who proves to be a bother isn’t a huge issue - they just don‘t get invited along. Any annoyance we deal with during club is just an annoyance at club - and that’s all. Even then, we don’t typically run into any huge problems.
It being a gathering where we watch things on a single TV - typically recently released movies or new episodes of series we’re all following - the greatest annoyance is background noise. We have club rules (posted, as well as in a binder for anyone to look at) against playing videogames with the sound on, loud conversation, loud, unrelated talk or discussion (that’s what the student center is for!) and general distraction. Anyone who breaks these rules doesn’t just get kicked out of the room without a chance to stop being distracting - they get Warnings. After a number of Warnings have been issued to the same person, the Officers of the club meet and discuss what action to take - usually this ends up in some sort of confrontation, and if it’s really bad, a month long suspension. Multiple suspensions may result in a Ban, but this has yet to happen - and we‘ve only ever issued one suspension. Depending on how distracting or inconsiderate a person is being, warnings may range from 3-10 or not even counting. After all, we’ve all been excited by something or laughed inappropriately loudly, or forgotten that there aren’t subtitles on if it’s an anime, so it’d be wrong to give someone a Warning because of a small slip up. But, when it’s a constant issue, like someone who comes in every club meeting and is known to make a lot of noise or be generally disagreeable to the majority of the room, it can be a little difficult to deal with. We’ve had to deal with such an issue a number of times, and it usually follows the same steps:
-The person comes in and rather than sit and watch what’s on the screen, will attempt to strike up loud or unrelated conversation.
-They are asked to please quiet down or leave the room if it‘s really bad. This may happen multiple times before a warning occurs.
-Feeling like the people who issue the warning (typically one of the top three officers of the club) are ‘mean‘ or ‘unfair,’ the person being Warned will sit in the back of the room and complain to anyone who will listen about how rude and hateful we are.
-The person being Warned will continue to attend the club, every week, and continue to complain from the back, or carry on having loud conversations or being distracting, and receiving warnings.
-Tension will eventually reach a head, and the person is confronted by our ‘Warden’ - aka, the Officer responsible for dealing with people who are being a constant bother.
-The person storms out and may return at a later date, more subdued, or not at all - though they may continue to complain about us outside of the group.
We had a particularly awkward instance of this this past week, with a girl who’d been coming in since the past summer. She didn’t exactly ‘click’ with any of us, and quickly fell on the bad-sides of most of the officers for a number of reasons - and I don’t mean to badmouth, but I have to admit that she was personally annoying to me as well. Things like talking through or over dramatic scenes, spoiling plot moments in movies that other people hadn’t seen (while they were about to happen on screen) and being generally distracting. It’s one thing to talk quietly about the show that’s on screen - it’s another creature totally to be loudly discussing fan-fictions on completely unrelated shows or movies. The position of Warden is currently occupied by my BF, and it’s a difficult job - like I said, you have to be confrontational. It’s the Warden’s job in our group to be the Bad Guy so the rest of us don’t have to deal with ‘being mean.‘ We had already agreed as a group, outside of club, that if this particular girl (who we’ll call Michel) actually spoke up or tried to call him out on giving her warnings, then he had the go ahead to do something about it as Warden.
And it happened - more or less.
Quick, messy, awkward, and completely unpleasant.
Michel had been (pretty quietly, granted) chatting with an old club member from a year or two back who had been unable to come in until recently, and so wasn’t familiar with her and didn’t realize there were reasons the rest of us didn’t sit near her. In her disregard of what the rest of us were doing, she started talking through an interesting scene the rest of us were paying attention to. She was loudly shushed by the Warden (hey now, I just realized this may be a good nickname for my BF here - Warden) - and when the older member jokingly asked “What‘s his deal,” her reply was,
“Oh, nothing he just hates me.”
Her tone was completely derisive and dismissive of the previous warnings she’d received. This wasn’t the first time she’d been disrespectful, but it set something off in me. I turned around in my seat and spoke up.
“Do you think he’s the only one?” I regretted it the moment I said it, but things moved fast.
“No, I know the rest of you don’t like me.”
The rest of the group sat facing rigidly forward, a heavy tension filling the room. She turned to start talking with the guy sitting near her, and a few quiet murmurs traveled around the room. Don’t quote me on what I put here, as I’m paraphrasing, but things escalated further:
“No, no, I’m going to address this now,” Warden said. “Why exactly do you come in here?”
“To hang out and talk to people-”
“That’s what the student center is for. But you know that none of us actually like you?”
“Yes.”
“So let me get this straight - you know that everyone in here doesn’t like you, but you come in anyway?”
There was an awkward quiet. I looked over at our president, who was sitting with his eyes closed, fingers at the bridge of his nose. No one was turning to face Michel, or give her any support. No one was taking sides - but in doing so, were letting her get thrown under the bus, as it were. “This is really awkward,” said the unfamiliar member from the past, trying to lighten the mood with some laughter. “Like painfully awkward. Feels sort of like it a club for just ‘some’ people.”
“No,” said Warden, “This has been a long time coming.” He turned his attention back to Michel. “Well?” He asked sharply, snapping his fingers. “I’m asking you a question.”
“I don’t have a response for that.”
“You could leave.”
After a very tense moment, while I looked away, uncomfortable, I heard the door being yanked open quickly and then shutting slowly by itself: she had walked out.
Not too long afterward, we’d gone back to watching shows and movies, laughing, cracking jokes, and acting as though it never happened. I felt - and feel - a little weird about it.
Was I wrong to speak up in the first place? Was I wrong for not trying to mediate the situation? Was I wrong for not defending Michel, though I didn’t really care for her? Or was she in the wrong for knowing she wasn’t welcome, but continuing to come in anyway? Granted it’s a public space, but during club hours, its our space, and if she knew, as she said, that she wasn’t welcome and had no friends among our number, why come in?
I don’t know how to feel about the whole thing - after my last post regarding morality, I feel completely wrong. The situation could have been handled better, no doubt, but I don’t think that there would have stopped being a ‘problem’ with Michel without some severity coming into play. After nearly a year of warnings and general not-getting-along, it seems partially like this situation was inevitable. I just wish it could have been handled better. For my part, I probably won’t be extending a hand to invite Michel back - I find her personality disagreeable, she has completely polarized opinions to mine regarding religion and politics, etc etc etc. I have no reason to ask someone who rubs me the wrong way to come back to a place I gather with friends.
But if I see her outside of the club, I may apologize for the harsh treatment. If she gets offensive, I’ll remind her why it happened, but I won’t go out of my way to be cruel.
I feel like I already did that, with my angry blurt, and I don’t wish to do it again.
No comments:
Post a Comment