Feel singled out and the butt of every joke in my friendship group

[tokidoki]

I left college about 10 years ago and have been hanging out with my friends in the same city. Some have gone to live in other places but largely the group has stayed the same. One guy in the group recently left the military and has moved back to the city. He was always the 'alpha' at college, always put himself in the position of 'leader' which some people really bought into, and others found un-necessary and a little overbearing. I'm in the latter camp. He's the kind of guy who will always want to lead and be followed, and if he isn't, can sometimes get a bit stroppy.

Since he's come back into the fold, he has developed a couple of jokes about me, about my dress-sense and what I like to eat. I value my individuality, and I'm not a particularly big fan of the things he's into, but I wouldn't dream of making fun of someone for their preferences. Anyway, most of the time I laugh along, or, because I am fairly quick witted, give him s*** back. Lately though, he's really ramped it up, to the point where we don't really have much to say to each other unless he's digging me out. The main issue I have is that he only really does it when he has an audience. He knows that a lot of people in the group really look up to him, so they all laugh and then they feel emboldened to join in. The whole thing has engendered this very cliquey kinda sophomoric vibe where everyone is in on a joke at my expense and I can't help but feel isolated and excluded. 

I've talked to people about it and they've said to just ignore it. I've tried this approach but I often feel if I sit there in a silent huff, It just seems like I'm having a sense of humour failure and I can't take a joke. What's more, I feel that that advice is kinda blaming the reaction rather than taking responsibility for the behaviour in the first place. I confronted the guy about it, he got a bit defensive and excused himself on the basis of his military background, where 'banter' is commonplace. That's as may be but I haven't signed up to that. i just want to have a good time with my friends without having to deal with someone trying to dig me out all the time. As of right now I haven't seen him since I spoke with him, so I'm just going to see if anything changes.

[ShyViolet]

Just ignore it?  That's bad advice.  You don't let someone be openly and blatantly disrespectful and insulting to you on a regular basis and just take it.  This person isn't your friend.  You already tried confronting him about it and he got defensive and refused to acknowlege it.  It's baffling why you are even staying this person's friend after that point.  It's time to cut ties with this person and find better friends.

This is more like high school behavior.... these people should be embarassed at how immature they are acting.  You don't need friends like this.

[Wiseman2]

If you feel like he's and obnoxious bully distance yourself as much as possible. There's no need to hang out with him this much.

[glows]

Yeah see if anything changes. Likely it won’t or you’ll see a break in the behaviour and then his old ways will re-emerge.

People like that with such a deep need to feel in control usually utterly lack self-control. That’s all there is to it. 

Be selective in your company and pick well grounded and stable individuals to hang around with. Birds of a feather.

[MsJayne]

When you spoke to him about it he blamed defence force culture, so not only is he bullying you, he's then insulting you further by making lame excuses for his obnoxious behaviour. Oddly, bullies are often popular people, and the social dynamics behind that are very complex, mainly to do with others within the group having an innate fear of becoming a target themselves if they don't play along with the bully, but also to do with you going along with the jokes and engaging with him. You have to take some responsibility for the way others in the group are perceiving what's going on. If they think you're OK with it they likely don't even think about the fact that his toxic behaviour's actually causing division among all of you. You've already done the adult thing and spoken to him about it in private, now, whenever you find yourself in his insufferable company, you have to follow that up with a refusal to laugh along with him, even if that course of action makes you unpopular.  Standing up to a bully isn't a sense of humour failure, it actually takes a lot of guts, and if others in the group can't see that they're not worth having as friends. 

[Wiseman2]

6 hours ago, tokidoki said:

 I confronted the guy about it, he got a bit defensive and excused himself on the basis of his military background, where 'banter' is commonplace. I haven't seen him since I spoke with him, 

It's great you stood up to him. Of course they make excuses, but he's on notice now.

[basil67]

Sounds like a bunch of adults acting like the high school mean girls.  

When you say that you've talked to people about this, does this include talking to members from your actual group?   Because if they know how you feel, I would expect them to take your concerns on board and have your back, responding to the bully's words with something like "that's not cool dude".   And to even go as far as expelling the bully from the group if he didn't start behaving.   Even then, if they have an ounce of compassion, I would expect good friends to step up and stop this without you having to ask.   

I think you really have to ask yourself if this whole group is worth being part of.  

 

[JTSW]

I feel you.

I look allot younger than my actually age so I've always been treated like a kid in an adult group.

I have good friends and family but I have always been the one that's never taken seriously.

My whole life I've felt like the outsider and just been an easy target.

 

[tokidoki]

I spoke to others in the group about it. One guy doesn't participate and I am closer with him than with others, and I have known him for longer. He fully empathised and agreed with me that the group dynamics had become very cliquey lately. I spoke with another in the group, a girl, who is always on the bandwagon and, in my opinion, is a little bit in love with the guy in question. She was defensive at first but when I explained my feelings she understood and was regretful that she hadn't realised.

I understand that if I laugh along or hide the fact it bothers me, then people are not aware that it's toxic and so they continue to do it. I don't mind 'banter' and in jokes but it got to a point where it was getting far too frequent and I was getting it from all angles, and that's when i spoke up. 

I'm going on a trip next month with 4 others from this group, that was organised before any of this happened. In fact, it was in the group chat for this trip that things started to get a bit unbearable. I was ready not to go but others in the group said that they would stop and were apologetic and understanding, and practically begged me to still come on the trip. I'm still somewhat in two minds but I think i will go and see what happens. 

[tokidoki]

UPDATE: So I went on a weekend trip to a different city with this same group of friends. There were a couple of incidents that felt like more of the same, but generally it was better. One swallow doesn't make a summer.

A particular thing was, the weather was incredibly hot, and I wanted to drink a coffee at breakfast. Sometimes, when you order ice coffee, you end up with some horrendous frappe thing made of ice cream, which I didn't want. So I ordered an americano with ice. They brought the ice separately so I the coffee over it which was a source of great amusement for my friends for some reason. They said it was 'typical me' and 'classic'. Not sure what's so weird about it and it did feel like they were falling back on old habits. 

Just feels like everything I'm doing is being scrutinised and laughed at, which I hate. Although in this incident the guy was like 'i'm not taking the piss but it is pretty funny'.

 

 

[Wiseman2]

30 minutes ago, tokidoki said:

They brought the ice separately so I the coffee over it which was a source of great amusement for my friends for some reason. They said it was 'typical me' and 'classic'. 

The remark about iced coffee is nothing to get too upset about. Some things are just teasing friends, some things are overtly bullying.

Try to determine which is which and stand up against bullying, of course, but the coffee thing doesn't really seem important.

Overall they seem like a pretty immature rowdy group so focus on making more friends than just this group.

By now hanging out with them seems draining and just about anything they say will seem ambiguous as to laughing with vs laughing at.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Wiseman2

[Acacia98]

24 minutes ago, tokidoki said:

Just feels like everything I'm doing is being scrutinised and laughed at, which I hate. Although in this incident the guy was like 'i'm not taking the piss but it is pretty funny'.

Personally, I find this kind of thing tedious. I mean, yes, I could become friends with someone who does things differently from what I'm used to. And, yes, perhaps I'd find their actions curious and ask questions about them. But afterwards, the person's curious actions would become part of the normal landscape and I wouldn't see any need to point at them and shout about them and make the person feel self-conscious about them.

I associate your friends' behavior with childishness or with a sheeplike mentality. It reflects the lenses through which they view the world. So, personally, I'd gravitate away from the larger friend group and just maintain friendships with the individuals whose company I enjoyed.

[tokidoki]

I guess the coffee thing is fine but its the same thing of making me out to be 'weird' over things that are pretty normal. 

[d0nnivain]

On 8/30/2023 at 12:50 PM, tokidoki said:

 I confronted the guy about it, he got a bit defensive and excused himself on the basis of his military background, where 'banter' is commonplace. That's as may be but I haven't signed up to that. i just want to have a good time with my friends without having to deal with someone trying to dig me out all the time. As of right now I haven't seen him since I spoke with him, so I'm just going to see if anything changes.

I'm a bit late to this party but I'm proud of you for speaking up.  

Everybody is entitled to be themselves.  The coffee thing wasn't meanspirited.  I think you are understandably a tad sensitive right now.  Under other circumstances before this military guy came back it might have been easier to laugh it off.  

Everybody has their quirks.  Over the decades all my friends have come to respect that I hate chain restaurants.  Sometimes my preference is inconvenient for them but  they generally just let me pick the places because I can be annoying.  They tease me about it but they don't dislike me.  We have also started some new traditions.  Somehow I always end up wearing a different color.  Red is my favorite color.  On two notable occasions everybody showed up in red and I wore something else.  They wore red for me.  I still ended up looking like the odd woman out.  If I was insecure or paranoid (not saying you are either) I could be led  to believe that they were doing it on purpose to exclude me.   

Try to reframe your thinking that they are teasing you more good naturedly because they do like you.