Being a bit of a petty aspie at times and one who, quite frankly, always bears a grudge, I thought that I'd explain the background to some of the issues I'd had with people and how I resolved them. Yes, that's how my cookie crumbles, so to speak.
The background: my husband, Mr Logic, had retained a few friends from the early days of him working in The Civil Service way back in the 1980s. These guys turned out to be, what I like to call confirmed bachelors and a few of them didn't find wives (sorry, this is sounding like some kind of bizarre Jane Austen parody ...) As you may or may not be aware, myself and Mr Logic met back in the year 2000 (not much has changed, but we live underwater ...) and married soon after. This annoyed certain members of the confirmed bachelor club and one particular drunkard, Mr Liar, was constantly waspish and rude to me, but I put up with it for a number of years because I wanted Mr Logic to maintain his friendships.
Another member of the confirmed bachelor club, whom for the story, we're going to refer to as Mr Pop, adored all things chart music, with a special place in his heart for 1980s hits. This guy was one of those bland, but secretly rather bitchy individuals that never bothered to move out of his parental home - you'll know the type I'm sure - a total Mummy's boy in his fifties. Absolute Radio has a show, broadcast on Sunday nights in the UK, entitled Forgotten 80s
where good, but by no means well-known, hits were played, much to the listeners' delight. Being a modern-day radio show, there were associated Facebook and Twitter feeds and very soon online friendships began to blossom; there was also a bit of a rivalry between the Facebookers and The Twitterers (like a rather crap version of The Sharks and The Jets) and I was a member of the former.
Time passed, all of the Forgotten 80s Facebook folk submitted their suggestions for forgotten hits and very soon a discrete Facebook group was started and befriending one another began. The show's DJ, whom I won't name, was well, a typical self-important member of that august profession. He wrote a bit of snarky comment about the Facebook group on one of the social media platforms and I reacted in my usual way, calling him out on Twitter and Facebook.
An in real life (IRL) face-to-face meetup was arranged for January 2015 and as we all hailed from different regions of the UK and Eire, London was suggested as a suitable venue. Me and Mr Pop were both paid-up members of the Civil Service Club, so we made a list of people who'd expressed an interest and duly submitted it to the Club's reception. I personally spent quite a long time co-ordinating everything, whilst Mr Pop, true to his nature, sat back on his bottom and did naff all.
The day came - one fine Saturday in the January gloom. I'd recently been on sick leave from work with depression and was gearing myself up to returning back to my home department in the middle of that particular month. I'd confided all of this to Mr Pop, a man who'd taken redundancy from the Civil Service a year or so prior to this, so who understood how the whole organisation had changed for the worse. He was quite nice about it. I also told him that I was almost certainly autistic and that I was still awaiting my full medical diagnosis of the condition, adding that I was very awkward with meeting new people and that I was slightly dreading the meetup, but didn't wish to let anyone down.
The meetup started well - if my memory serves me right of an incident that occurred four years ago, I was there early to sort things out and Mr and Master Logic were also in London that day, visiting relatives. At about 11am, the Forgotten 80s (F80s) members started arriving; at first, all was well and we were having a lovely old chat. There was, however, one particular guy who decided to wear a suit on a Saturday and kept pressing his body close up to me on the bench seating, although I politely told him not to. Also, people started arriving who were not on the original list.
As time wore on, a few F80s peeps were taking full advantage of the club's reduced price booze and started getting really drunk. Tempers got short and a very inebriated woman started shouting at me, saying that "I'd been out of order calling out the DJ like that and that I was a bit of a bitch." After sitting through this kind of behaviour, another member of the group started saying that my opinions about Bruce Springsteen's music were out of order and that Mick Hucknell from Simply Red's singing was crap. I'll admit that this all sounds like petty bollocks, but attend a meet up with what I like to call people from the Internet and this is what you'll find.
Finally, I could take no more - I departed in floods of tears. Mr Pop tried to stop me leaving the event when he caught up with me in the foyer, but I'd already called my husband, Mr Logic, and he agreed to take me home. Nothing more was said.
A day later I noticed that Mr Pop had defriended and blocked me on Facebook. I thought that that was uncalled for and petty, so Mr Logic blocked him right back (a bit like the rap artiste Frankie did). Time went on and Mr Pop was holidaying with other member of the confirmed bachelors when he decided to check his Facebook feed at the airport, in front of his other friends, like every mature sane person does. He discovered that he'd been blocked by Mr Logic and got rather annoyed about it. Mr Liar, another member of the gang, decided to speak to Mr Logic about it when they'd all returned to good old Blighty.
Mr Pop, in his usual cowardly weasly way, kept out of Mr Logic's way as the weeks and months rolled on - deciding to avoid any group meetups, but not forgetting to slag him and his wife off at any given opportunity. This of course, was to Mr Liar's benefit because he'd never been a fan of Mrs Logic, finding her too bossy and strident for his liking.
Let's speed time onto Monday, 26th November 2018. I'm up in London with my friend, who's a bloke called IndieMan, a gentlemen whose boyish good looks have attracted Mr Liar's attentions in the past. There's no seating available in the main bar because it's packed full of annoying old farts, so it's off to the back bar. Guess who's drinking a pint a deux in there then? Well, it's none other than Mr Liar (who's facing me diagonally, but has such poor eyesight and refuses to wear glasses, that I'm just a blur) and Mr Pop, who has his back to me. I can see them both, but really wish to ignore them, but then I spot Mr Pop gesturing backwards towards me with his thumb, like the immature twat that he is. The ensuing conversation went a bit like this:
Me: "Yes Mr Pop I can see you. Judas!"
Mr Liar: "Hello Mrs Logic, how are you doing? How's Mr Logic?"
Me: "He's fine thanks, despite being ignored by you."
and so on ... I attempt to whisper an explanation to IndieMan whilst using the C-Word on copious occasions. I'm literally shaking with anger.
Me and IndieMan finished our respective pints and decided to move to The Lord Moon of The Mall instead. As we were leaving both Mr Pop and Mr Liar said goodbye and this is how I reacted:
"I TOLD YOU THAT I WAS AUTISTIC AND YOU DIDN'T EFFING LISTEN. I'D BEEN OFF SICK FROM WORK WITH DEPRESSION AND YOU KNEW ALL OF THAT TOO. I ALSO SAID THAT I WAS UNCOMFORTABLE ORGANISING THAT FORGOTTEN 80S DO AND YOU DIDN'T HELP AT ALL. I LEFT THE EVENT EARLY IN FLOODS OF TEARS BECAUSE PEOPLE WERE GANGING UP ON ME. YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO DEFRIEND ME ON FACEBOOK, AFTER ALL - YOU'D ATTENDED MY WEDDING AND BEEN A FRIEND OF MY HUSBAND'S SINCE THE 1980S.
YOU'RE A TWAT. AND YOU LIVE WITH YOUR DAD."
IndieMan finally managed to drag me out of The Club. I was still shaking with anger. I told Mr Logic all about it on WhatsApp and he was very supportive of my actions, after all, he'd done nothing to deserve being kicked out of the confirmed bachelors. Although, to be fair, he wasn't a bachelor, or confirmed - you get my drift ...
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