Avoidance

I should be working on this morning's Sunday School lesson, or at least settling on what I'm doing with the (probably small turnout) class today, but I had a thought.

You know when you get together with a friend who brings along some friends of his* own and it brings some deeper understanding of your friend? You get to see how he^ interacts with others, you get to meet some potentially cool people--I mean, after all, they are people someone you like has chosen to spend time with so you should have stuff in common--and maybe make some new friends of your own. This is the expected outcome, I think, in gatherings of this sort.

So, what does it mean when you come across someone in the Friend of a Friend situation that you absolutely loathe? Like, on sight. And then he^ opens his* mouth and confirms that he^ is worthy only of being swatted or ignored at best. And once you've been introduced he^ ignores you and prates on and on about how wonderful your mutual friend is in every way. Which, technically, of course is true. I mean you both like this friend, right? But suddenly you are questioning your friend's judgment in the friend-making department and wondering if you also are a complete jackass.

It's even worse when you have a good friend who is married to an asshat. Or, in my case--though this is NOT where this thought originated--a sister whose husband needs to be dropkicked into oblivion.

What does one do when one sees a friend being toadied to? Agree with the toad? Ignore the toad? Argue with the toad? There's no win-win solution and I just end up feeling weirdly distanced and disconnected from my friend and sort of jealous and weird and insecure and middle-school-y.

Which brings me full-circle to the need to do some work on Sunday School stuff.

________
* or her
^ or she
Both done for ease since having to write "he or she" in every case would be ludicrous and I just can't deal with "they" all the time. In this case, it got kind of convoluted writing "they" anyway.