I’ll get to Joe in a minute, but the focus of today’s post is Michel, and keeping track of what is apparently an ongoing situation.
In the first post I linked to above, I explained how Michel ended up leaving the room in a huff during a club meeting when the tension between her and group came to a head. Within a week of her leaving the room, Michel’s mother came to the school and caused a fuss with Student Life, complaining about her daughter’s treatment by our club. Student Life asked to our President about what happened, and once they understood they didn’t tell us to do anything specific, they didn’t reprimand us, and they certainly didn’t tell us that we had to let her back into the room (though we weren’t actively banning her, so it really didn’t matter). After all, who in the world, with any common sense, would continue trying to interact with a group that was hostile towards them at worse, and tolerates them at best?
They thanked us for handling it as best we could, gave us a heads-up that Michel’s mother came in complaining on her behalf, and asked us to try to be a little less aggressive if it happened again (the implication being with someone else, as they too assumed that the issue was settled).
Still, a month or so later, Michel resumed coming into club. Mostly she sat towards the back of the room, avoiding conversation, but she had returned despite knowing that most of the group had no interest in interacting with her.
Why?
Well, I brought it up with Warden, who rolled his eyes and sighed. “You didn’t hear? She thinks she won.”
“Won what?”
“I heard her talking, she thinks that because her mom came in and made a big deal that we can’t kick her out again. She thinks she beat us somehow.”
I thought this over the next time I saw her. She did seem to be a strange sort of tentative smug, though since I’ve made it a point to ignore her to avoid annoyance, it didn’t matter much to me. Still, I had to admit, she’d gotten better about behaving appropriately. While it appeared to me that she still mostly comes in for the purpose of just being around people, I started to wonder if maybe we as a group had built up a false preconception that somehow she didn‘t fit in. Were we not giving her a fair chance? Was there a bias?
My doubts were dispelled when Ardelis, who comes in infrequently to hang out with the group, asked me following one recent meeting: “Who’s that weird girl who likes to interrupt?”
I knew right away who she was talking about, but I asked her to explain.
“Ibex and I were talking about mythology, right?” She said. “And we were talking about Leda and the Swan, you know, where Zeus turned into a swan and then raped her, and we were trying to remember who the resulting kids were. I thought one was Helen of Troy, but out of nowhere this girl came across the room and butted in, and started correcting us and telling us we were wrong. Then she left really quickly, it was weird.”
“Yeah, she’ll do that.” I explained that Michel has a habit of joining in conversations that are nowhere near her proximity. To be completely truthful, she seems to have little sense of proxemics in general. This social-awkwardness was actually how Adam and I first came to know her: we were watching a movie around Halloween in one of the large media rooms, and talking quietly between us. She got up, crossed the room, sat down in front of us, and joined in. Despite us making a point of getting up and moving, she followed and continued trying to participate. Far from being a unique event, it was one of the behaviors that has annoyed our club members the most.
Rambling aside, I’m worried about the next (highly probable) confrontation between Michel and our officers. There’s been a lot of joking on the subject - “What’s she going to do, tell on us to her mom?” If anything, the whole thing has made her look worse in our collective view. We - including her - are college students, young adults: if we run into an issue with a group of people, the correct response would be to either settle it for ourselves between us and them, go to the school authorities ourselves, or just avoid confrontation all together. Who sends their parents to fight their battles at this point, and then feels proud of it?
As for Joe, he too has returned to our club meetings. Though we as a group haven’t experienced any sort of confrontation with him, most of our number are still bothered by his mannerisms. Even his friendly extension of invitation to a party went completely ignored: none of us want to go to a party where we wouldn‘t know anyone else. Still, though he still kind of gives me (and others) a weird vibe, I’m willing to give him more of a chance because of how sincere he appears to be. But Michel?
I don’t know. She can feel however she likes - but it doesn’t change the reality of how she fits (or rather, doesn’t) within our group. I’ll continue to update as things happen, but it’s been interesting to me that what has been viewed as an awkward event that reflects negatively on Michel by the majority the club, has been turned around and viewed as a victory by Michel herself. The human mind is a funny thing.
In any case, since it’s become pretty routine to do whenever I’m feeling unsure about a complex issue, let’s turn to the cards to help me dissect my feelings on the issue. As a quick reminder of what I assign to the Celtic Cross spread positions:
1) the key issue of the reading
2) Obstacles in the way of resolving problems related to the issue
3) Subconscious traits
4) Conscious traits
5) Past
6) Present
7) Who the querrant is to the people around them
8) Who the people around the querrant are
9) hopes and fears
10) Probable outcome (if things continue as they are)
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| Click the image for a full-size view of the spread |
1) The Main Issue: Five of swords (reversed) - success, victory and joy. In its normal position, this card is about defeat and dejection, and learning humility - reversed, this card is about winning out. My first thoughts when it came up, however, were about the image of the successful victor upside down, dropping the swords instead of picking them up. The main issue, then, is feeling a sort of temporary victory, but having to deal with a slippery situation. This card actually came up in the last reading I did regarding Joe specifically, when it then indicated that a confrontation may be the best choice.
2) The Obstacle: The Three of Pentacles - authority, leadership and skill, being someone that people can come to for advice. I’m not sure what this means, as an obstacle: perhaps it means that I’m trying to let the reasonable side of me get in the way of seeing a solution. Or, maybe, this is a reference to the rules and regulations set in place by Student Life for clubs in general being an obstacle to just reaching a resolution as people, rather than a group.
3) Subconscious: The Queen of Wands (in reverse) - another queen in reverse for my subconscious! Bother. This Queen is usually about finding the path of action that’s best for everyone. In reverse, this is about being narrow-minded, vindictive and manipulative - even spiritually under-developed. Ouch! Is it true? It smarts because it’s probably at least a /little/ true. Something to keep in mind, I guess.
4) Conscious: The Tower - hmm… topsy-turvy, things getting shaken up, walls getting torn down, getting knocked off one’s high horse. I’m definitely not comfortable with the situation, and the group is definitely feeling some rumblings over not having as much authority as we’d like to just eject people without completely definable causes.
5) Past: The Eight of Cups - feeling weary, moving on, abandonment, leaving things behind. The positive interpretation of this card reads as someone leaving gifts behind for the querrant, though I don’t think that applies much to this situation. In the past we’ve been more resigned to just dealing with annoyances, but as this moves behind us, we’ve become more aggressive as a group.
6) Future: The Sun (in reverse) - bad conclusions, disorder, bad information, and general unhappiness. It’s about things not being quite thrown into chaos, but definitely not working out to the best of everyone’s interest.
7) The Querrant (me): Queen of Cups (in reverse) - Again! I guess I’m still being petty and not trying as hard as I could be to keep an open mind and heart to the situation.
8) The People around me: The Page of Wands - a helping hand, someone wanting to take action and move things forward. I think the opinion of the group is unified (we all want something to be done) but we don’t have a direction to go in, or the power to do it at the moment. The Page being a youthful energy might indicate that there is an immature undercurrent to our group mood, but it means well.
9) Hopes and Fears: The Knight of Swords - I want swift and decisive action, for a choice to be made and for things to move forward, but I’m afraid of being imprudent and moving /too/ quickly, charging into a situation before having an exit strategy and making sure it’s the right thing to do.
10) Probable Outcome: Nine of Cups (in reverse) - emotional dissatisfaction, blocked potential, not getting what you wished for. Fairly self explanatory.
Interesting comparison to the reading the came up in “Un-home-like,” and definitely good food for thought. I guess until we figure out as a group exactly what needs to be done and when, we’ll just have to keep waiting things out.
*For the sake of protecting identities and privacy
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