Friendship delimma

I thought I might get smacked up side the head with a metallic dildo for that--but.... what should he have done?

(And, trust me, I'm not pleading his case. Just wondering what he could have done that would have kept him out of the dog house.)

PS-- I was partially kidding....

heehee -- I know what you're saying, Sofia. Men get turned on by things that we couldn't possibly imagine, I'm sure. They're easy. I just figure that if I'm going to hold my girlfriend to high behavior standards, I'll do the same with the men involved (at least my husband).

P.S. I didn't mean to sound pissed at you -- I'm just pissed in general.

I *know* if I bitch enough about this it will eventually wear me out and I won't be pissed anymore.

I'm seeing a party and Slappy shows up and starts telling the ladies about his newest inflatable "friend" and all the wimmins is gathering around Slappy and giggling all evening.....

Whew!
Bless your heart. It is a Highly Pissy Situation. But, you stood your ground with both of them, and that's a good thing!

LOL dyslexia!

LibertyD, I said this before, but since things are kinda going in circles I'll say it again:

You're mad. Whether you are justified in your anger could go several different directions, but honestly, that's beside the point. If someone convinces you that your friend didn't do anything wrong, will you stop being mad? This is all going into the illogical, primordal part of the brain. Which is not to be discounted, it's just not always that logical.

The simplest approach is to toss all of this "do I have the right to be mad or not?" stuff out the window and just deal with it. Tell everyone involved that you're mad, why you're mad, and work towards a solution so you're not mad anymore.

I think that dildo in hand or not, this friend was not being innocent. It's not done like that in mixed company and she knows it. We all know it.

She's a slut... at least now you know. You can still be friends with a slut but you need to know in advance to protect your sensibilities. My daughter has a friend like that... this girl can't help herself and she is beautiful and apparently smart, too. But she has to turn herself into a sex object as her only way of communicating with men. Sad to see in such a young woman. She is almost impossible to stop... (which means it may have been very hard to get your friend to stop too). The only way is apparently to get her so drunk that she passes out, or to get some guy to take her away. You didn't mention what your friend's husband was doing... you'd think he might not have appreciated his wife's openness.

I used to have a "friend" like yours but I decided it wasn't worth it to be constantly fending off her advances on Mr.P, her husband's advances on me and listening to their excited and apparently vigorous sex talk. They just couldn't get over themselves. Who needs that? She was fun to be with when it was just girls, but get men in the room and she'd put on a demonstration if that's what it took to get attention... with her husband helping. No thanks.

It would have been nice if there'd been one man there at your birthday party with enough couth to say something that would have put her in her place. You might want to take that up with your sweet husband... there are lots of things that could have been said, but just a well-placed laugh at her expense might have stopped her.

I have noticed that the people who talk the most about sex don't really seem to be the ones who do it so much.

BTW -- Liberty -- Happy Belated birthday. Ahhh, to be 34 again.

Soz, I'm just having a hard time getting out of the primordal part of my brain. And yes, if someone could convince me that nothing wrong happened, then I wouldn't be mad. But I don't think my anger is completely illogical.

Piffka -- hahahahahaha Oh my god, I'm laughing so hard.

Your friend and her husband sound creepy!

Okay, I'm more chilled out about this now. I'm really grateful that you all paid attention to my thread and helped me see how irrational some of my anger was -- my other friends tended to just jump to the emotional side of it. Or maybe they were afraid to disagree with me, seeing how upset I was?

And it was a great party, aside from the personal sex convo, so not all is as terrible as I've made it sound (don't want to scare Eva away from any future get-togethers!)

Thanks, guys!

Great, LibertyD!

For the record, I don't think your anger is completely illogical, I just think it's mighty hard to tease out the logic from the illogic, and that we're not really the ones to do it. We can suggest some scenarios, but ultimately it comes down to you and your friend. We can say, "well she probably meant..." or "she probably didn't know...", but only she can remove those probablies.

You're right, Sozobe. I'm reminded of another conversation we had about friendship and how hard it is to deal with certain flaws (since we have none ) at the risk of isolation -- and even though this is different from your book club problem, maybe this is the gods way of seeing if I can put my money where my mouth is.

At any rate, it's good not to be *completely* po'd -- that's hard work!

I'm glad I got you to laugh! Luckily my "friend" moved away so it wasn't awkward around town.

You've had some great advice here. Are you going to write another email?

Thanks, Piffka! I think I'll give the little slut a few more days to apologize -- if she doesn't then I'll consider that maybe I was a bit harsh and I'll give her a call.

1. Your "Best Friend" didn't make you mad, you decided to get mad. People don't make us mad, they do something that we decide to get mad about.

2. You have defended her in the past for similar things, why should she expect less now. Was her behavior really the issue or was it what people might think of you for having a friend like her?

3. Best friend, Like a sister? I doubt it if you are ready to dump her after on bad episode.

4. An e-mail blasting your "Best" friend? An e-mail? Busy schedule? Not enough time to have lunch with your "best friend" and work it out?

5. Bottom line: Did you hear from anyone that they would, in no way, ever consider coming to any party of your's again?

6. Best friends may dissapoint but then, best friends forgive and get on with it.

Hi Morganwood!

You're right, I decided to get mad -- but I don't feel that I'm wrong in choosing to get mad about her behavior. I see now that I should have taken more initiative in putting a stop to her conversation, but whereas I have defended her in the past about things like taking over a conversation or interrupting people or being too frank, to ME, talking about dildos all night long merits anger (unless it's a lingeree party or girls party, etc.)

And I'm not worried about what people will think about me having a friend like her -- otherwise, we wouldn't be friends. I was more concerned with the topic making people feel uncomfortable, and knew that no one would have complained about someone who was just a bit drunk. They complained because they felt uncomfortable hearing about a woman and her sex toys -- and many of them didn't know her very well. In fact, several were meeting her for the first time.

They weren't judging me -- just letting me know that she probably needed to be made aware of what was good behavior at a party. And one of the things I'm proud of is that my hubby and I are good at creating a laid-back, relaxed atmosphere in our home -- but depending on where my friend was at the time, a lot of people weren't laid-back or relaxed. No one wants anyone to feel uncomfortable in their home, right? And if anyone ever said they wouldn't come to my home again because of that, then they're jerks. No one said that.

I sent her an email because she has an unusual schedule, and I couldn't reach her by phone. And she lives 20 miles away, so would be kind of hard to drop by to see if she was home (she rarely is) so I could tell her how mad I was. Perhaps I should have waited until I could meet with her in person, but I didn't.

And like I said in an earlier post, "writing her off" was a very poor choice of words. I wouldn't write someone off because of that. I said that out of irrational anger, and meant it at the time but I wouldn't dump a friend for something like that.

However, I feel that I am right to be mad -- this wasn't one little inappropriate conversation among close friends. It was, quite literally, an all-night, top of the lungs, gonna tell people about my dildos whether their eyes are glassed over or not problem. And even though I should have stopped at some point and pulled her aside, I also felt pulled in all directions (not a complaint) and had a lot going on. There were fourteen other people there, some from out-of-town, some I didn't get to see often and wanted to take advantage of them being there.

And it didn't help at the end of the night -- finally a chance to just sit with the few still left -- to be interrupted in the middle of a nice conversation to continue with the sex talk. I don't care how zen-like a person is, you can only take so much.

I'm confident that we'll both admit our mistakes and work things out. One of the reasons I asked for advice here is because I wanted different perspectives on it, knowing I was looking at it from a very emotional view. I'm hot-headed, but not unforgiving.

But even if you think that I'm being the bitch here, I think that anyone in the same shoes would be at least a little bit irritated. Imagine a man doing the same thing at your party -- how would you feel? Again, yes I've known about her big mouth for years, but she also has known that I'm not one to talk about dildos all night. And she never would have behaved that way around her family, what made her think that it was okay to be that way around mine?

She can't be totally excused.

"And she never would have behaved that way around her family, what made her think that it was okay to be that way around mine?"

Exactly.

I don't think you are being a bitch and I just had a different view. I have numerous acquaintances but few friends that I would describe as a brother. If one of my friends conducted themselves in the manner you describe I wouldn't dump them. I would not have the least hesitation in taking them aside and saying "This has to stop." I might even ask them to leave. Yet, our friendship would not end and I'd deal with it person-to-person.

On the other hand, my friends would stop. If they were drunk, I might have to take them home but, because we are friends (a two way proposition) they they would stop simply because I asked them. It doesn't sound like this is a new behavior for your friend just louder and more of it and a bad topic. If she refuses to stop, what is she saying about her feelings for you as a friend.

Beyond that, she did get attention. Bad attention is better than no attention. Maybe her need for attention is a bit stronger than your need for a pleasant atmosphere at the party.

I understand your intent in the behavior comment but family behavior has little to do with public behavior. Again, I didn't think you were being a bitch. Pissed? Yes, and I don't blame you! Just a different view of friends. I have few and if they murdered someone, I'd turn them in and then still visit them in prison. They would do the same. People I just know and like, ah, that's another thing.