Reply to Breaking up with my toxic mom group (Ashley Tisdale essay)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Tisdale’s article appeared on my newsfeed today right next to the headlines about Tatiana schlossberg’s funeral and untimely death from aggressive cancer. A stark contrast and a reminder of how completely asinine and unimportant this entire topic is. It’s pedantic that cliques exist amongst grown adults and attention and validation seeking that tisdale would write an article about it. People lack perspective on what’s important in life. [/quote]

Of course it seems unimportant compared to someone dying at a young age from cancer. 99% of this website is unimportant compared to that.

But friendships, finding support as a mom, and just generally having community are actually very important. [/quote]

Which you can do without the friend “group” angle.  Your own mom, or other women who have raised kids and share their wisdom and advice, coworkers, one-on-one friends.  There’s so many ways to have the support and community, without the “group” part of it.  
[/quote]

Many, many women find themselves in Mom groups. They want to know other moms in the neighborhood with babies the same age. This isn't remotely weird or odd. [/quote]

The “group” idea is odd. Most people find 1-2 people they like in a group.

In a class of people you find 1-2 friends.
On a sports team you find 1-2 friends.
At work you find 1-2 friends.

The idea you will find a group where every single person is close friends is not real life. [/quote]

Ok? But in that group are people pointedly excluding you, being weird and sitting you far away from the rest of the group, making plans in front of you? We don't all have to be friends but some of these women went out of their way to be jerks. It's not that hard to be nice at a kid's birthday party and not you know, invite all the other girlies for something like a brunch the next day in front of the hostess and not include her.[/quote]

In a class we break into groups and yes I’m not part of every group. In school at lunch the lunch tables are harder to join than sororities. I’m not invited to every study group. In sports I’m not always invited to get food after practice, I don’t sit with certain people at pre-game dinners.

I go to birthday parties and don’t talk to every parent.

Your taking this not talk about something  too far. It reminds me of the movie Booksmart where nobody’s allowed to talk about what school they got into because it might hurt somebody’s feelings.

Here’s the reality people are doing things without you. Some people have more money than you. Some people go on vacation vacations with friends and you’re not invited. You’re not invited to every brunch.

Find your one or two friends and do something with them.

[/quote]

Oh please. This is about what Ashley wrote. If you want to talk about your own personal groups do that elsewhere. What she described sucks.[/quote]

We are in the relationship forum not the entertainment forum. This is talking about women groups in general.

Ashley, just needs to relax. People are mean I could write 20 articles about mean women I’ve met in the DC area.

Really? It’s not new. It’s not interesting.[/quote]

You're not required to be here if it's not interesting. You've totally discounted what she said and think women should suck it up. Pretty obvious you're one of the mean girls.[/quote]

You sound like a control freak. I can discuss women dynamics in general with respect to her situation if I want and if you don't like it don't respond to my posts.

She needs to learn, there are mean girls... it's not about you. You can't be part of every group, BFD, find your own group.

It's not hard to learn to deal with people who are mean. They are in your family, they are at work, they were in school, they are neighbors, you can't get rid of them, you can only learn to not let them affect you.[/quote]

DP from the person you are going back and forth with.

I disagree it's "not hard" to deal with people who are mean. Especially people who are mean in passive aggressive ways that may make it hard to deal with in a straightforward way. Also people are different. I really struggle with people like this. I especially struggle with this particular sort of meanness, where it's like this social undermining. I'm not built for it and I really work to handle it well and, as you say, not let it affect me. I've been working at it for 20 years. It's still really hard. I've had to go to therapy to deal with it and my therapist says she has so many clients who struggle with these issues.

To me I just come back to this: I cannot for the life of me understand why women engage in what they refer to as "friendships" with people they treat like this. It baffles me. I have known women who will say to my face that they *love* me, will compliment me and make a big show of how important I am to them (call me one of their best friends, talk me up to others, etc.) and then will just absolutely trash me behind my back, tell lies or exaggerations to make me look bad, etc. I had a friend like this once who started dating a guy I was good friends with and suddenly started making these little "jokes" about me making fun of my appearance, my education, my job. I was direct with her and told her the jokes hurt my feelings and made me not want to be around her, and this just made her meaner. But then she'd claim to other people that I was a "dear friend" and she was devastated to lose my friendship. In the end I concluded she's just manipulative and not a genuine person, but it wasn't easy and extracting myself from her friendship wasn't easy either.

So yes people want to talk about this stuff, commiserate, try to help one another. Why is that bad? If anything I share can help someone not go through what I have, I am very happy to have helped. And when others talk about these experiences, it makes me feel less alone and that helps me feel more resilient in dealing with people like this who, again, I just don't understand. It's such a weird, dysfunctional approach to human relationships. I'll never get it.[/quote]

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