RetiredUSNChief
Member
Looking back, I've discovered that simply moving on with life tends to leave these kinds of people behind.
Distancing yourself from stupid...or the art of unfriending idiots.
- Thread starter Creaky_Old_Cop
- Start date
- Status
JeffG
Member
These are the guys during domestics, during the initial interview where ol' boy is still pretty angry, and mouthy. Suddenly, the massively overweight wife, braless in a wife beater tee shirt, comes running full blast down the sidewalk ( oh, I didn't want to see that!) to tell hubby to SHADDUP with the cops, that he is only making things worse. He keeps it up, bluff charges the officer and others a few more times. ... goes in cuffs, and she lets him have a few drags on her cigarette before you haul him to jail. Ya, that guy.
Last edited:
Good Ol' Boy
Member
#Hermitlife
I had a pretty interesting 20's but since getting married and in my mid 30's now I only keep in contact with one friend from the "old days" who has his act together.
Aside from him my only other "friends" are gun enthusiasts/patriots who I see once a month or so. I don't feel the need to have a plethora of "friends" and prefer it that way.
Simple is smart.
I had a pretty interesting 20's but since getting married and in my mid 30's now I only keep in contact with one friend from the "old days" who has his act together.
Aside from him my only other "friends" are gun enthusiasts/patriots who I see once a month or so. I don't feel the need to have a plethora of "friends" and prefer it that way.
Simple is smart.
OP
OP
Creaky_Old_Cop
member
Good advice...but no, I have never been that guy. I was the first one to "opt out" of having that guy around and it was years and years ago.
How do I change the behavior of "That Guy" if I - and the other people who know how to behave responsibly - stop associating with him?
Remove all the positive influences in his life and that's going to help him become responsible? How is that even logical?
entropy
Member
Your making an illogical assumption that he can or will (or wants to) change. We just want to not be there or have him take us down with him when he does the inevitable stupid thing that cost him more than he bargained for. (His freedom, his life, someone else's life, etc.)
Change "That Guy's" behavior? That's way above my pay grade, and not my job. I will have tried to alter his behavior with advice before I divest myself of his company but if he hasn't learned after that.....
Change "That Guy's" behavior? That's way above my pay grade, and not my job. I will have tried to alter his behavior with advice before I divest myself of his company but if he hasn't learned after that.....
Last edited:
relentlessknives.com
Member
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2006
- Messages
- 56
Sooooo Spot On!
Officers'Wife
Member
It's not your place. The hardest part of living in free society is the absolute duty to allow others to do things you do not particularly approve of as well as not interfere in them suffering the consequences there might be from that behavior.
Berger.Fan222
Member
I disagree. I'm not gonna give a pass to my friends for illegal and destructive behaviors. If they look about to drink and drive, I'm taking their keys. If they are about to cheat on their wives, I'm warning them not to. If they cheat, I'm telling their wife - maybe even their pastor. If I'm the driver for an outing, I'm leaving at the first sign of trouble. If they want to stay, they'll need to find another ride home.
So while I cannot absolutely compel others not to do pursue illegal and destructive behaviors, I do have some level of influence. Sometimes it is more like, "Why don't you get your spouse's input on that?" or "Why don't you get your parent's input on that?"
Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
So nothing on the "art" of unfriending idiots other than to say, "just do it" because they are bad to be around?
Officers'Wife
Member
Exactly, you cannot compel others... Leaving at the first sign of trouble with or without them, taking their keys, advising the wife and/or pastor... Would those actions not fall under the heading of "consequences?"
Berger.Fan222
Member
Some are more consequences, some are more preventive measures.
Officers'Wife
Member
Tomato tomahto Five degrees is better than 90, go ahead and pin it.
OP
OP
Creaky_Old_Cop
member
These are the guys during domestics, during the initial interview where ol' boy is still pretty angry, and mouthy. Suddenly, the massively overweight wife, braless in a wife beater tee shirt, comes running full blast down the sidewalk ( oh, I didn't want to see that!) to tell hubby to SHADDUP with the cops, that he is only making things worse. He keeps it up, bluff charges the officer and others a few more times. ... goes in cuffs, and she lets him have a few drags on her cigarette before you haul him to jail. Ya, that guy.
One of the last domestics I was on...this BIG heifer, I mean this broad was the size of an elephant's ass. If she was under 450lbs I will punch a baby at city hall.
Anyway, she calls 911 claiming that her husband beat her.
We respond, get on scene and she is sitting on the porch holding her eye like she got hit with a baseball bat and wailing about how he beats her. Meanwhile, her husband, who was all of 5'4" and a buck thirty was covered in welts and scratches.
SHE made the claim that he "beat her up".
Meanwhile a neighbor comes over with a cell phone video of the man sitting on a lawn chair drinking a beer, and heiferina comes thundering out of the house cussing and screaming and she starts beating holy hell out of him, I mean she was raining blows on his like a cumuloblubber thundercloud. ALL he was doing was covering up, trying to avoid the blows from her. He clearly threw up a hand to block a hit and connected with her eye. Not a punch, not a slap...it was purely defensive. Then SHE starts screaming that he hit her.
UGH.
She was surprised as all hell when he hooked her up (took a daisy chain of 2 sets of cuffs) and arrested her for domestic assault. She was too fat to fit in the back of a Vic or my Tahoe, so we had to have the transport van come and get her. Like stuffing a marshmallow into a piggy bank.
The neighbor who took the video said the woman was always hitting him and threatening kids in the neighborhood. I am surprised we never had contact with her before.
Charlie Horse
Member
Many years ago, as a teenager, I had a similar type discussion with my father, a retired Chief Pharmacist's Mate and wise man 51 years my senior. By this point he had started to look like John Wayne did towards the end of his career. I can hear his words all these years later, and they have as much impact now as they did then. "Son, when a man has bought and paid for a @$$ whipping, its best to let him accept delivery."
A mangled quote from Otto von Bismark has been offered as "A wise man learns from other's mistakes, a fool only from his own." We can offer good advice, pray for and with people, and do what else we can within the bounds of reason and safety, but in the final analysis, each of us are responsible for our own actions, and we WILL reap what we sow. If someone is determined to make a fool of themselves and self destruct, there is little anyone can do about it.
A mangled quote from Otto von Bismark has been offered as "A wise man learns from other's mistakes, a fool only from his own." We can offer good advice, pray for and with people, and do what else we can within the bounds of reason and safety, but in the final analysis, each of us are responsible for our own actions, and we WILL reap what we sow. If someone is determined to make a fool of themselves and self destruct, there is little anyone can do about it.
RetiredUSNChief
Member
Guy on one of my ships was a strange one. He had a penchant for older women...twice his age (30s) and older. Ended up marrying someone in her late 60s.
Whatever.
Anyway, one day I had duty and was standing watch as Shutdown Reactor Operator when I heard two clicks on the 1MC (1MC is the shipwide announcing system. At night, clicking the microphone switch was a quiet way to get the Belowdecks watch to pick up the JA phone.)
A few seconds later, two more clicks.
A few seconds after that I hear over the 1MC: "DUTY OFFICER, LAY TOPSIDE!"
I picked up the phone to find out what was going on. This guy's wife, little bitty thing, had showed up topside, drunk and obviously drinking more while there, asking for him. He came topside and she ended up going INSANE on him, just beating the tar out of him with everything she had.
He ended up being taken to the hospital. Not for life threatening injuries, but because he just had the bejeebers beat out of him and this required medical attention and documentation. She ended up being escorted off base by base security.
He had been showing up at the ship occasionally with scratches and bruises. Our corpsman would pull him aside, ask him what happened (always a story like out drinking and got in a fight). Corpsman treated him and documented everything in his medical record. Then the topside incident happened.
Sometime later, she divorced him and tried taking him to the cleaners for physical abuse. Fortunately for him, all his injuries, especially the topside incident, was well documented and he got out of that relationship without suffering any legal repercussions.
Whatever.
Anyway, one day I had duty and was standing watch as Shutdown Reactor Operator when I heard two clicks on the 1MC (1MC is the shipwide announcing system. At night, clicking the microphone switch was a quiet way to get the Belowdecks watch to pick up the JA phone.)
A few seconds later, two more clicks.
A few seconds after that I hear over the 1MC: "DUTY OFFICER, LAY TOPSIDE!"
I picked up the phone to find out what was going on. This guy's wife, little bitty thing, had showed up topside, drunk and obviously drinking more while there, asking for him. He came topside and she ended up going INSANE on him, just beating the tar out of him with everything she had.
He ended up being taken to the hospital. Not for life threatening injuries, but because he just had the bejeebers beat out of him and this required medical attention and documentation. She ended up being escorted off base by base security.
He had been showing up at the ship occasionally with scratches and bruises. Our corpsman would pull him aside, ask him what happened (always a story like out drinking and got in a fight). Corpsman treated him and documented everything in his medical record. Then the topside incident happened.
Sometime later, she divorced him and tried taking him to the cleaners for physical abuse. Fortunately for him, all his injuries, especially the topside incident, was well documented and he got out of that relationship without suffering any legal repercussions.
OP
OP
Creaky_Old_Cop
member
I tell my beautiful thirteen year old daughter that "Whomever you choose, had better treat you as well or better than I treat Mom, and as well or better than I treat you".
She isn't a bitch, but she's damned well confident, self assured, and operates on a high level of self esteem.
Officers'Wife
Member
I won't repeat the advice my father gave me on the subject as there were just too many. The only recurring theme was should I be "manhandled" remind him that Dad has a rifle, a backhoe and 3200 acres where nobody would notice fresh digging. All these years later I'm still not sure if he was as serious as I am when I tell my daughter the same thing(s).
Sounds like something out the Lawdog files.
OP
OP
Creaky_Old_Cop
member
In 27 years...you see it all, and I mean all of it.
A transvestite little person hairdresser arrested for DV on his/her boyfriend who was 6'4" and 300lbs. Yes.
A 5'4" 110lb female officer jumping on the back of a 6' 180lb pimp and nearly tearing his ear off.
Me getting stabbed in the back by a prostitute with a steel rat tail comb while arresting her pimp after he beat her so bad, she lost the three decent teeth she had.
A desk bound lieutenant nearly shooting off my kneecap in a squad bay, playing with his new Walther PPK/S and letting a round go out of his office and into the arm of the naugahyde couch I was sitting on, missing my kneecap by less than an inch. It took everyone in the squad bay to stop me from killing him. I was a rook, fresh off FTO and I was transferred out of that division the next day to the one I really wanted to work in.
Going on a DD call in a gay bar, where the complainant was the bartender. He was wearing leather chaps...and nothing else. We were greeted by his weenie when he turned around.
Yeah...you see it all. Some good, some bad, some funny, some tragic...but you will see it all. You will meet "everyone" in your career. Every personality type, from very point on the spectrum.
OP
OP
Creaky_Old_Cop
member
He was. Trust me, he was. A real Daddy always is when it comes to his little girl. Nothing in your life is the measure of being a real man (as opposed to a mere male) is how you take care of your family and especially your children.
SSN Vet
Member
I weeded out all of the "that guys" from my life soon after I became a commissioned officer (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away). Fortunately, this was easy to do, as the Navy moved me all over the place in rapid succession, and as a bubble head and a nuke, the Navy had screened most all of the "that guys" out of the work environment for me.
Post Navy, I used to get into political debates with coworkers, and though we always remained friends and showed each other respect, it dawned on me one day that nobody wants to work in a cubicle next to Rush Limbaugh. So I backed off, lest I become a different version of "that guy".
In more recent times, I've done some management training and have learned to distinguish between my circles of concern, influence and control (three concentric circles), and I try to not waste my time and energy on issues outside of my circle of influence.
I've also learned to keep my social media exposure very light and my friends list short.
In summary... "that guy" has the potential to have more negative influence on you, than you might have positive influence on him.... don't let "that guy" turn you into another "that guy" yourself.
Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” (1Cor 15:33)
Post Navy, I used to get into political debates with coworkers, and though we always remained friends and showed each other respect, it dawned on me one day that nobody wants to work in a cubicle next to Rush Limbaugh. So I backed off, lest I become a different version of "that guy".
In more recent times, I've done some management training and have learned to distinguish between my circles of concern, influence and control (three concentric circles), and I try to not waste my time and energy on issues outside of my circle of influence.
I've also learned to keep my social media exposure very light and my friends list short.
In summary... "that guy" has the potential to have more negative influence on you, than you might have positive influence on him.... don't let "that guy" turn you into another "that guy" yourself.
Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” (1Cor 15:33)
- Status
