A little update on two situations in my life. I've been avoiding people I don't want to see anymore and only "cherry picking" those that I wish to see.
For context, I play tennis at a training centre and currently, there are more guys in this club than girls. Two weeks ago, one guy made a comment and kept telling me to do OF because I'd be "so good at it" and if my career doesn't take off this is my back up. There were two other very young boys that look up to him, so they joined in on the ridicule. One of them goes as far as to send me a tik tok about a girl working in my field doing OF. Anyways, I confronted him and it took him two days to answer me.
This week, I ran into one of the girl players while running errands and I told her I stopped going due to all of the "'male testosterone". She immediately knew and invited me to play with her sister at a country club that they now attend. I'm super excited because it's super exclusive and private; reservations are booked 3 months in advance for outsiders. In short, I will be going next week.
Today, I received a text from one of the younger boys and it's this very confusing TikTok that depicts the older guy as a pedophile or some kind of awkward loser. Keep in mind that the older guy has expressed interest in dating his younger sisters (in which he flat out said no) and has dated a girl his age (they're six years apart). It's almost as if it's his (the younger boy) way of asking for forgiveness and asking me to come back to play, but he's not being direct about it. I don't have any hatred towards this boy since he's young, but I don't excuse him for actions since he didn't stand up for me and let me be treated badly by the other guys. I think that they want me to come back play, but I think it's more so that they have an "emotional punching bag", and have the humiliation continue. Also, it's boring when I'm not around since the boys can't pick on eachother; I'm the anomaly. Imagine three guys standing outside in the cold shitting on girls until morning. Anyways, I hope those two boys know that it's fucking lame to just listen to the older guy spout nonsense.
I don't really know what to do since I like playing with the younger boy. It seems he has some sort of concept about respect and I know he won't bs me. I think he's in tuned to women having lived with his sisters and divorced mother.
Switching gears, another friend from another circle wants to reach out to me and make up.
For context, I liked her friend and in some ways he liked me too. She didn't like it. She got in the ways of things and kept asking me too much questions about the guy. At one point she cautioned me to stay away from him. She didn't like it when him and I were alone, so she would always prevent us from being alone. I got into this weird situation from another pick-me friend in that group and ended up asking him if he had feelings for me. It caught him off guard and he apologized for wasting my time. This would be her third time doing something like this. When we call her out on this, she gets anxious, and with friendship politics, it would be to forgive her. So I didn't forgive her and the group stopped talking to me.
A few months passed, I'm going to a Halloween party and I asked a girl I really liked from the group to come. She's agreed. The annoying girl took this message as that, since I'm talking to our mutual friend, I'm also on speaking terms with her as well; I'm not. She congratulated me on my recent achievement and I thanked her, but she kept trying to get the conversation going, and I just left her on read.
I feel so bad, since we were friends since we were close to eachother throughout many points of our life. We had a 10 year intermission as we had to leave for school and reconnected during Covid. She's just a different person from what I remembered her to be...
The purpose of me writing this was to ask FDS if I am doing the right thing. If I were to be in close contact with these people it would have to be in public and I keeping them at a distance since they're not good for me.
I'm at a point, where I think that I just found my "new normal" which is where I enjoy my solitude, life with my family, and friends that I see a couple of times a year. Is what I described healthy?
Definitely block those boys, and imo that ex-friend sounds not good for you, I’d stay away from her.
You can “grey rock” the mutual friend by being boring and not asking her any questions about herself. Be civil if she’s at the party, but what’s good is you can avoid her easily if there are enough people.