Ok, Puppy wants me to give Ken another chance. (I almost said shot, but the pun there was too much for me.)
Here are the ground rules I am going to ask for.
1. Can he please keep the all Californians are stupid/rude/pathetic comments to a distinct minimum please? He is talking about me when he says them. He is talking about my family. He is talking about a ridiculously high number of my friends. I don’t appreciate it.
2. Can he either keep gun conversations to a minimum in my presence (I’m around him for 2-4 hours every two weeks) or let me know that they are going to start talking about guns now so that I can choose to leave the room. If I am unable to leave because we are in the car or something, can’t it wait? They see one another every day–surely it can be on ice for a short period.
3. Less important, but will still be brought up, don’t tell me that if I have a dissenting opinion he will “flame [me] with the most offensive language [he] knows, trying in every capacity to insult [me].” Because without resorting to juvenile swearing he have already insulted me and he really don’t need to go any further. {Insert generic swearword put down in his direction here.}
I think these are fair.
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In other news: I had a marvelous time with Bridgett. I am so grateful that I have such phenomenal people in my life. Yay!
Maybe pass on Conversational Terrorism
Ad hominem arguments are the ones that really bug me. As in, you don’t have to agree with me, but that doesn’t make me an… asshole, bigot, *insert profanity here*.
Good luck!
P. S. I know that we don’t agree politically, but I dig you anyway.
Y’know it’s funny – he seemed decent enough when I met him….
That was my first impression too. Then he started getting used to me and letting me hear more of what he thought. Turns out, I don’t want to know.
Funny that.
And he deserves another chance why?
Because he is Puppy’s best friend and it isn’t particularly nice of me to put Puppy in a position of having to choose between us.
If Ken will give me an ounce of cooperation on playing nice–I can go a long way towards putting up with shit.
Ah. Good reason!
Make sure Puppy knows your limits as well. In fact, you may want to express them that way. Explain that these limits(personal boundaries, whatever you want to call them) are things that are important to you and that you expect them to be respected by anyone you might consider a friend.
If Puppy knows them, he can help you to hold Ken to them. Good luck with it!
Seems to me you don’t have to give him a chance and you could still be cool with your Puppy being friends with him.
Sure one should’t have to lose friends when they gain a love but neither should they have to accept a new friendship if they don’t feel it.
Just my thoughts.
If Puppy is asking you to put up with an asshole who is his best friend (and *why* is a nice guy like Puppy hanging around with a prick?), then the person insisting that somebody make choices isn’t you.
(Yes, I read the other post. I just don’t get having a best friend who’s a bigoted fuckwad.)
In other news, it was great to see you and meet Bridgett. She seems really special, and it was nice to see you having such a great time with her.
ground rules
“I think these are fair.”
I think so too – one thing you left out of this post is what are you going to do if Ken violates 1, 2 or all of them? Or if he doesn’t agree?
Is there any problem with you not being present when Puppy & Ken hang out? I mean, I don’t think you mean for Puppy to ‘give up’ his best friend, you’re just making sure that your interests are being taken care of – as well as Phil’s.
Re: ground rules
Those are some really good questions. I don’t have answers. 🙁
The thing about me not being present when they hang out is, they would like to live in one another’s back pockets. They would like to hang out 4 or so nights a week and Puppy would like to see me sometimes too, so Puppy wants to combine us. erf.
Re: ground rules
Puppy is old enough to learn that not all of your friends have to get along with and spend time with all your other friends.
I missed how this started – is there another post I should read first to understand who Ken is and what happened?