Have you ever had a situation where you went to the person “in charge” and others, and asked them for help with someone, basically ran to mommy? And instead of helping the people watching turned on you?
Now, this is an adult speaking and I am going to the heart of adult matters, but I am drawing a lot of parallels to childhood because it’s the same idea. Why do people turn on you when you take a problem to them?
Because you’re making it their problem to deal with, and they resent it.
Jurys hold it against Plaintiffs and the Prosecution when they are stuck on a case for weeks (especially if they’re sequestered!) and the person you pull in to play judge and jury (the bystanders with some power) do too.
Two years ago I was on a cruise with my family. By my poor dad’s extremely poor judgement, he put me in a cabin with my brother and his then fiance’s son. The cruise line let him add a third person to a two person cabin for free and the son couldn’t afford the trip, so my brother and I got stuck with him.
He made my life miserable. He came in in the middle of the night, turned on the lights and TV and woke my ass up every night, and then I couldn’t go back to sleep. I got maybe 3 hours a sleep a night, if that, for a week.
Kind of took the fun out of what would have otherwise been a great vacation. Of course I talked to him the first time he did this. Told him he couldn’t do that, he was waking me up and could he cut it out. He did it again and again, using the excuse that he thought he was being quiet and/or he was drunk and didn’t know better.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you a little bit about myself 🙂 I don’t handle being robbed of sleep well. People tend to die. After talking to him didn’t work after three nights, I took it to my dad and his girl and the rest of the group.
Not only did they not do anything, some of the peanut gallery turned on me, blaming me for interrupting them with my silly problem. They made me think I was at fault, basically gaslighted me. I had to take the problem outside that group to find out I wasn’t being completely unreasonable.
Yeahhhhh, you know who hasn’t gotten a Christmas present since then 🙂 My dad tried to deal with it, but he didn’t have authority over someone else’s kid (and yes, I use kid on purpose, if you act like that, you’re not a man, you’re a boy). And the mom wasn’t much help, she didn’t want to get into it, and my brother slept like a log so he never woke up even with the lights on.
Luckily going to the cruise line helped and they gave me my own room. (By the way, random recommendation here, if you’re doing a cruise, check out Holland America Line, they rock 🙂
And I actually got some sleep, but I wasn’t too friendly towards the group besides my dad and brother after that and the son is still lucky I haven’t found a way to kill him without leaving a trail.
So what’s the point of this little rant, besides to tell the world about a guy (and some others!) acting like assholes?
Because you see this behavior all the time in the real, adult world. They just won’t own up to it. Especially when the people in power are the ones being called out. I will leave to you to figure out what certain award I am talking about here, but when you hear about the bad people who are making life difficult and are (insert your favorite insult for people who are categorized as right wing even when they aren’t here), take a minute and think about who’s flinging the poo and why before you blindly believe them.
The people in charge have flung a lot, but people not even in it, or who are voting or could be, and just watching have joined on. Why? Because it’s been pushed onto their plate to do something. To think for themselves. To vote. To tell the ruling dictators that they don’t think this kind of circle jerk is ok. It’s asking the people in fandom to stand up and do something.
It’s been made “their problem” and a lot of people, no matter the injustice, subconsciously don’t like that.
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