Bullied out of the only group of friends I had

[JellyTot]

I'm having a really hard time at the moment. Sorry for the long post

 

I played in an orchestra for about five years and I was on the music committee. A new person who joined this spring wanted to join the committee but there were no available roles. So three people proposed her to replace me in my role. It was a surprise and quite upsetting because they hadn't even bothered to speak to me about it, they just sprung it on me. They said it was because I'm too busy. I said if they'd bothered to ask they'd know I lost my job several weeks ago so I have nothing but time. They tried to make several other unfounded excuses why I couldn't continue to fulfil my role, but in the end the chairperson said there would have to be a vote. I won by one vote.

 

But these people were determined to have their friend replace me, so over the next couple of weeks they (and several others) repeatedly complained about the vote. They complained that the chairperson's vote should be discounted which would make it a tie. They complained that I shouldn't have been eligible to join the committee in the first place. They complained that the vote was unfair because their friend hadn't been present. They said I had cheated by not asking for their friend to be present as I was present. They said I had cheated by not leaving the room prior to the vote. They requested a re-vote because not every member of the orchestra was present for the vote. In each complaint they loudly backed each other up. I had to defend myself and nobody backed me up, even those I know must have voted for me. I guess they stayed quiet to keep the peace and not jeopardize their own roles.

 

I felt victimised and isolated. Out of everyone, I was the one they chose to attack. I thought they were my friends but they said and did such mean things. At least 15 people must have voted for me but nobody publicly defended me. I heard they had contacted people privately before the vote to tell them what they were planning and get their support, and when they still lost they continued to contact people privately to encourage them to complain about it being unfair. I hadn't engaged in any underhanded tactics like that. If the vote had gone the other way I'd have just accepted it as a fair result, and I was upset that they wouldn't do that. They were being mean to me yet they were backing each other up in that behavior as if it was ok, and nobody was calling them out on it. They were shouting that I had cheated and I was the bad guy, and they were the good guys who just wanted it to be dealt with fairly. People were getting angry about the constant disruption because of these complaints and the anger was at least partly directed at me.

 

After a couple of weeks of constant complaints I decided that I couldn't cope with the ongoing bullying. I knew they would never stop until they got what they wanted. Half of the orchestra had voted for me to be replaced, and the half that had voted for me to stay didn't care enough to defend me from the bullies. 10 or so people had been so mean that even if I won, I honestly didn't feel I could sit in the same room and be pleasant to them any more. I was so upset that I resigned - not just from the music committee, but from the orchestra.

 

I don't think it was personal and I don't think they intended for me to completely leave the orchestra - they just they liked me the least out of all the people they could have targeted and they wanted their friend to have my role. Having said that, not one of them contacted me to apologize for having gone too far. Maybe they genuinely believe what they did was reasonable and fair. At least 15 people voted for me, yet only 2 people contacted me to express regret about me leaving. In the weeks since this happened, several people who weren't directly involved and who I would still have been friendly towards have un-friended me on Facebook. I now feel like nobody cares that I'm gone.

 

It's easy to say I'm better off out of it and I have other options. I know I've only lost one weekly rehearsal, one monthly performance evening and the occasional social evening. But I'm devastated. I've never been good at making friends and I wasn't the most popular, but for once I had felt like I belonged. I had talked to people during the coffee break and got to know them. I was part of a group and it was the most important thing in my life. Now I have nothing, and the bullies have their friend in my role. She's doing my solo in the concert we were planning because they asked me to mail her the sheet music. Last week they posted group photos of the latest social evening on Facebook and I cried my heart out.

 

I'm not sure what response I'm expecting. Sympathy perhaps, or reassurance that I did the right thing by leaving. Maybe some insight into why some so-called friends bullied me and others didn't defend me. Maybe I just want someone to say what nobody else had the courage to say: that they were mean and it was not ok, and I didn't deserve to be treated like that.

Edited November 13, 2016 by JellyTot

[darkmoon]

become a music teacher, meet new peeps

 

sometimes you do wind up alone, this is part of life.

Edited November 14, 2016 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
removed language

[basil67]

I'm so sorry you lost this position.

 

However, I'm wondering if it wasn't quite personal. "You're too busy" could easily be code for "you're falling behind in the job". Did they ever say anything to you about how you were doing the job? Did they ever have to wait for things to be done by you?

 

You mention something about them not asking if you had time for the job...and that if they'd asked, you'd be able to tell them that you recently lost your job. But these people were supposedly your friends - so why did you not tell them already? This is the kind of thing friends share.

 

In your other threads, you talk about finding it really difficult to socialise. If you were functioning really well in the role, I'm wondering if perhaps you they found you as not a good fit with the rest of them. If this is the case, they weren't true friends.

 

I'm not blaming you and I honestly feel sorry for you in this situation. Just trying to get to the bottom of what may have happened.

 

Lastly, have you ever looked at Asperger's Syndrome? Quite a lot of what you write indicates that perhaps there's a good reason why you are struggling so much. If you want to know more, make sure you focus on women/girls Aspergers because it presents differently in boys/men.

 

hugs xx

[Arieswoman]

Hi JellyTot and I'm sorry you've had this bad experience.

 

I can sympathise because I also used to play in a music group and we did free concerts for garden parties, in the summer and old folks homes etc.

 

Some of the girls who played were just plain unfriendly, made sarcastic remarks if I didn't understand a section of the music or asked if we could practice it again. The organiser allowed them to get away with this behaviour.

 

In the end I left the group and several said they were sorry to see me go. The organiser asked why I left and I told her that some of the comments made "weren't very helpful". She didn't acknowledge what I said and didn't seem to understand that it was her fault for not keeping these people in order.

 

I missed it a lot at first but I filled my life up with other things.

 

You are absolutely right to leave your group - you need to surround yourself with people who support you and value you, not drag you down.

 

If you have a skill it won't be long before you'll be able to put it to use again.

 

Don't take it to heart - it's them who have the problem, not you.

 

Good luck x

[JellyTot]

"You're too busy" could easily be code for "you're falling behind in the job". Did they ever say anything to you about how you were doing the job? Did they ever have to wait for things to be done by you?

 

You mention something about them not asking if you had time for the job...and that if they'd asked, you'd be able to tell them that you recently lost your job. But these people were supposedly your friends - so why did you not tell them already?

 

I was sometimes late and missed a few weeks. No more than others missed when they went on vacation. I was very effective in the role and had never fallen behind with a single task. I had mentioned losing my job if they had bothered to take any notice, though I hadn't made a big fuss about it because I was ashamed of being unemployed. It wasn't about me being busy - it was just an excuse for replacing me with their friend. When I reminded them that I lost my job, they tried other excuses such as I'm maid of honor in a family wedding and they said I'd be busy with that, I've been talking about landscaping my garden and that's a lot of work, etc.

 

If they were genuinely concerned about me not having time for the role, they'd have approached me for a friendly chat about it. Not planned behind my back to propose someone to replace me and spring it on me as a surprise. Like I said, I don't think they hated me. They just didn't particularly like me - they saw me as an acquaintance who happened to be in their orchestra but who they never saw outside of that. And they wanted their friend in my role, and went too far to achieve their goal through bullying.

 

 

you talk about finding it really difficult to socialise. If you were functioning really well in the role, I'm wondering if perhaps you they found you as not a good fit with the rest of them.

Many of them were friends outside of the orchestra, but I never was. Not for lack of trying or wanting to. I was just never popular, among them or anyone else. I was allowed to stand on the edge of the group clutching my cup of coffee, smiling and nodding while others were speaking, but I was never the centre of attention. I loved having an important role; people would approach me to speak to me about sheet music or ask for tickets, and they might not have spoken to me otherwise. I loved social evenings where I had a group of friends to go out with, even though I mostly sat with them and listened to other people's conversations - I was just glad to be "out with friends". I guess I didn't think about it from their perspective, or consider that they might not like me. I guess that's why I went on official group social evenings but was never invited when people met up informally.

 

I could never quite grasp why they would arrange to go out and invite others who were badly behaved or who had done some really mean things, but they didn't invite me even though I'm basically a kind and decent person who is no less deserving of being treated as a friend. I don't know what they have that I don't, or why they're "in" with the group and I'm not. Maybe there's something wrong with me that I don't realise.

Edited November 13, 2016 by JellyTot

[Arieswoman]

No JellyTot,

Maybe there's something wrong with me that I don't realise.

 

There's nothing wrong with you at all. These women are what we call in UK "cliquey".

 

In the music group I was in some of the women had been friends since their kids were little, taught at the same school. etc etc.

 

It's hard to break into a "clique" as the people in it are wanting to keep it the way it is. This isn't your fault, it's just group dynamics.

 

I had a friend who was qualified in psychology and one I asked her about group dynamics. She said " Groups are $h!£" ( ! )

I asked her seriously if that was her opinion as a psychologist.

She said that it was, and she avoided groups as much as possible because of all the power-plays and other dynamics that went on, that were, in a lot of cases, just plain petty..

 

So now you have it from an "expert".

[JellyTot]

It's hard to break into a "clique" as the people in it are wanting to keep it the way it is.

 

So why, when I've been there for five years, did they bully me out in order to replace me with someone who joined only a few months ago? How is she suddenly in the clique? She's been there five minutes and they're inviting her over for coffee and scheming to replace me with her. Why pick on me to be replaced anyway?

 

Basically they liked her and I was the least desirable group member so had to be removed to make way for her. They didn't care about my feelings and weren't bothered how viciously they treated me in order to achieve their goal. And these are not cruel children - they're respectable adults who no doubt think of themselves as good people.

 

I still can't believe anyone would do what they've done, because I'd expect common decency to make them stop and say: No matter how much we want our friend to have her role, we just can't do that to her! But apparently not. I'm even more shocked that nobody else stood up for fairness and decency by defending me. I'm disgusted that their own self-interest in keeping the peace apparently outweighed their sense of justice and doing the right thing.

Edited November 14, 2016 by JellyTot

[anika99]

I'm so sorry you lost this position.

 

However, I'm wondering if it wasn't quite personal. "You're too busy" could easily be code for "you're falling behind in the job". Did they ever say anything to you about how you were doing the job? Did they ever have to wait for things to be done by you?

 

You mention something about them not asking if you had time for the job...and that if they'd asked, you'd be able to tell them that you recently lost your job. But these people were supposedly your friends - so why did you not tell them already? This is the kind of thing friends share.

 

In your other threads, you talk about finding it really difficult to socialise. If you were functioning really well in the role, I'm wondering if perhaps you they found you as not a good fit with the rest of them. If this is the case, they weren't true friends.

 

I'm not blaming you and I honestly feel sorry for you in this situation. Just trying to get to the bottom of what may have happened.

 

Lastly, have you ever looked at Asperger's Syndrome? Quite a lot of what you write indicates that perhaps there's a good reason why you are struggling so much. If you want to know more, make sure you focus on women/girls Aspergers because it presents differently in boys/men.

 

hugs xx

 

The facts are that there was a vote and the OP won, so at least half of the members were happy having her in that role and didn't want her replaced. I also suspect that some of the members who voted for the other person were convinced to do so by the members who wanted their friend to get the role. Even so, the OP won the vote and that should have been the end of it. To make matters worse the people who wanted the OP to stay in her current role then abandoned her when she needed them to publicly defend her.

 

OP that sounds horrible and I'm sorry that happened. It's a shame when something that should be fun and enjoyable becomes tainted with politics and power plays and people get hurt. People should have defended you but maybe some of them just didn't think that an extracurricular activity was worth that much drama in their lives. I mean if I were part of a group that was supposed to be fun and focussed on a certain activity and then it got bogged down with politics I could see myself becoming exasperated by that and saying "I don't freaking care who does what, just pick someone and let's get on with it already!"

 

Again so sorry you became the target of some really heartless and selfish people and that other people didn't defend you. It sucks but it happens. Don't let this ugly incident take anymore from you.