What advice do you guys have for when you realize you've gone full bitch-eating-crackers over someone? What if they're part of a project you'd really like to get involved in if not for them? What if they seem fairly popular in a group that's become important to you? I want to go all "OH MY GOD shut up about your OCs and your pet theories" but I'm like 99.9% sure this person doesn't actually deserve to have that said to them, and I want to not be an asshole more than I want that. I'm just not sure how to manage these feelings.
that's definitely happened to me more than once in a few groups in one case, the guy in question was actually at my work, and I felt as though we were such diametric opposites that I could not stand him. eventually he actually left the job, (Not because of me, but if it had been another week, I might have made it a Him or Me thing, and probably would have left), but because my usual policy is to say nothing at all and just avoid people who grate on me, I ended up having a legitimate panic attack on the phone to my less than sympathetic dad. that's the worst it's ever been, though. I do tend to adopt a probably sort of irritating policy online, where if people wander off subject into their own thing that I am not interested in at all, I just go quiet for a bit and then continue talking about my actual point. which either makes me irritating enough that they go away, or we get to the actual point again. not sure if any of that's good advice though witnessed?
Witnessed. Unfortunately, I´ve never found any solution other than avoiding the person like the plague, which doesn´t help you.
hmmm... this might be a bit idealistic, but... i think people would understand you not interacting with that person, and would be able to find value in your contributions, even though you disagree with the popular person. 'cause, while popular people can have good ideas, popular people aren't the only ones with them, and multiple perspectives is actually rather valuable in a group. and maybe, when you're tempted to argue with them, you should instead try to work on and post your own stuff - your own writing, your own drawings, your own meta and whatnot, with no reference to them - and see if the group appreciates that. and just yeah, try to interact with everyone else in the group on your own terms. don't let the way you feel about one other person control you.
@unknownanonymous It's not that I think other people are going to dislike me because I don't like this person. It's that I get pissy whenever I see this person and it's seriously damaging my enjoyment.
oh, sorry. you could try blocking or ignoring them, maybe. that should work. whatever option the site offers.
I could try that. Still leaves me with some problems, though. Like the RP I'm not likely to be able to participate in with a significant player on ignore, for one thing.
that's a very good point, actually. maybe you should make sure your character doesn't end up in many scenes with them or something. or if it gets too bad, you could leave the rp - i mean, if you're in the rp. if you're not, you could simply just not join it.
So this may not help much, but I've been in the same situation with someone in an RP group that you really want to join/continue being a part of but they are like nails on a chalkboard to your brain. If they're a super major part of it, you might not be able to interact with group as a whole, but blacklisting their ooc tag (assuming this is all ooc chatter/they're polite enough to have one) might help. If a lot of shit goes on in a group chat or something, seeing if you can find friends who aren't directly friends with them can help, because there is probably at least one other person who finds it as aggravating, even if the things that annoy you are pretty inconsequential. Since you're pretty sure they don't deserve to be chewed out, that's definitely something you want to avoid, but maybe keep an eye out and see if there's anyone else who just doesn't interact with them much/goes quiet when they start talking and see if they'd like to interact with you instead. (It's really mean, and I freely admit it, but the last time I was in this kind of situation, I had a group chat with a couple other people so we could do the "look at this bitch eating crackers" and get a response, without actually saying it in the open/sniping about it to people who'd be likely to pass the word on and be hurtful with it. Passive aggressive and kind of gossipy, sure, but it helped us a lot and kept a lot of the resentment from building with no outlet.) It's a tricky situation, especially since experiences change from group to group, but I def feel you on getting annoyed to the point of my mood dropping every time I see a particular person's name show up.
I've never figured out a solution for this problem that lets me /not feel/ the annoysance. It probably helps (or hurts in the long run) that I have somewhat whiplashy emotions overall, and I'm used to /not/ expressing what I feel the majority of the time. Sometimes one of my roommates lets me use them as a venting wall about things. I do the same for them when their rp partners get to be too much, and we both have a "okay, no more" signal for when we can't handle listening or offering perspective. It helps to vent to somebody who knows the general issue (personality conflicts between people in a game) but who isn't in it, so they don't have any emotional investment in it, and there's almost no chance of gossip trickling back to them.
