Totally Inappropriate

Went to a holiday party Friday night with my husband and 14-year-old daughter. There were lots of people from work there - it's a smallish specialized scientific community. Most people were acquaintances but a few friends from 20+ years ago have also ended up living here and were at the party.

One such woman, I'll call her Karen, was there Friday night. Back in school, she and I and my husband were part of a large group of mostly grad students who went out every Wednesday night (we called it "hump night"). We did all different kinds of things, saw movies together, went to clubs sometimes, had potlucks, etc.

Karen was always a real flake, always letting her friends down. You could never rely on her to follow through with anything she said or did. She ended up hurting a lot of people as a result. I should mention that she started seeing a guy whom she eventually married and had a daughter, but when we were students she was seeing him and also sleeping with one of the professors.

Since then, I've seen and talked to Karen once, at a party about 3 years ago. Our daughters are the same age, and they found each other at the same party and hung out together for a few hours.

Anyway, Friday night Karen and her daughter were at the Christmas party. I saw Karen, tried to nod hello, but she ignored me. I saw her daughter and pointed her out to mine as the girl she had seemed to enjoy visiting with before, so the two girls got together and went somewhere to talk.

I found out later that Karen went to the room and talked to my daughter. Some of what she told her "I know ALL about all of your mother's boyfriends when we were in grad school. Definitely the best 'pick of the bunch' was your dad. She also used to have a lot of animal and bat-themed parties, too, I could tell you all about those." Then she finished with the classic, "Don't tell your mother I told you these things."

None of this was true - before I met and married my husband, I dated ONE guy during the time I knew Karen. I had only ONE party (it was a Halloween costume party and I made myself a bat costume). The party was hosted by four of us because we were too poor to afford a party alone!

This woman made me sound like I was a sleep-around party girl to my teen daughter, when in reality I was working to obtain a second degree, was 100% self-sufficient supporting myself, and was dating one guy who is now her dad. UGH what a stupid woman.

No matter what Karen told your daughter, I'm sure she didn't believe a word of it.  She knows her Mom to well to believe this.  Don't let it bother you, looks like she didn't change her spots at all over the years.  She sounds to me like she should be pitied rather than believed.

Few things in life leave me speechless, but this story is one!

I don't know what would motivate that woman to do something so childish and hurtful to your daughter.... and you, but wow, like you said, inappropriate. I'm sorry she did that to you guys.

LOL, yeah, who's she going to believe--some random near-stranger, or her own experiences with her own mom? Don't sweat it.

Just tell your daughter that your friend's perception of you as a party girl is... a little off. As in, completely incorrect. If you are currently a person who doesn't throw parties left and right, it'll be logical that you weren't when you were younger, either. If this lady's memory is bad enough that she's completely undependable, she may well have skewed her own memories of you, perhaps because she remembers that one notable party and one notable boyfriend and has mentally multiplied them because that's the way she was at that age.

Besides, either your daughter or somebody else in that room was smart enough to know that when somebody says "Don't tell your mom", the best thing you can do is tell your mom.

At least your friend's stories were simply incorrect and not defamatory. Having boyfriends and throwing parties is not exactly something you would be ashamed of if you had done it. It's just annoying because it's not correct.

I would say there wasn't any harm done, and this is just one of those annoying people we all have to deal with.

Call me alarmist, but this woman screams personality disorder. If I were you I would avoid this person at all costs, NEVER get in a situation where you are completely alone with her, and NEVER leave your child in her care.

Seriously, these people can be dangerous.

aeevr said:

Call me alarmist, but this woman screams personality disorder. If I were you I would avoid this person at all costs, NEVER get in a situation where you are completely alone with her, and NEVER leave your child in her care.

Seriously, these people can be dangerous.

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Got to disagree here. I've known people with personality disorders, and sometimes they can be dramatic or neurotic or get mood swings or whatever, but I've never gotten an impression that they're any more dangerous than the average person. Granted, the average person is capable of some pretty nasty stuff, but statistically, personality disorders don't make you dangerous, unless you count ASPD (sociopathy), which is pretty much your criminal personality type by definition... this lady doesn't sound like a sociopath. She just sounds kind of scatterbrained and unable to think ahead.

I feel like I have to correct people on this whole mental illness/dangerous person thing whenever I can, because it's actually not true, and people with mental illness have a hard enough time as it is without being thought of as potentially dangerous. Statistically, mentally ill people in general don't commit more crimes or more violent acts; there's an increased rate among people with schizophrenia, but the increase vanishes if you account for the fact that they are also more likely to have a drug addiction (so the real connection isn't with their schizophrenia but with their drug use). Of course occasionally a mentally ill person will do something violent--but so will people without mental illnesses, and at about the same rate. The insanity defense is almost never successful because practically every mentally ill person who commits a crime can be shown to have made a choice to do so, just like non-mentally ill people do when they commit crimes.

I think we like to pretend that people who commit crimes must be "crazy", because it's comforting to think that a sane person could never do horrible things. But sane people do horrible things all the time. People are capable of great good and great evil; that's just the way we are. Human nature. It doesn't take a mental illness for a person to make a choice to do something truly harmful.

Anyway... uhm. Yes. She sounds like a rather annoying person. I would understand if you didn't want her to chum around with your daughter; an unreliable person who tells random stories about you is not really somebody you want to mentor your daughter. But I don't think I would go so far as to say "stay away, dangerous!"

I hope that wasn't offensive to you or anybody else here. I don't think this woman's behavior has an excuse, and I know this is off topic; it's just something that's rather important to me that I really feel like I need to say.

Natalie_ca said:

Few things in life leave me speechless, but this story is one!

I don't know what would motivate that woman to do something so childish and hurtful to your daughter.... and you, but wow, like you said, inappropriate. I'm sorry she did that to you guys.

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She really is very childish. I can't understand how a grown women and mother would say anything like that. I am so sorry she did that to you and your daughter.

And I have to wonder, is it possible that this woman had been drinking? That might have contributed to her bad judgment.

Obviously your daughter told you about it, even after the woman told her not to. That makes me think she (your daughter, not the woman) is mature enough to figure out when someone is trying to cause trouble. I assume you told your daughter how it really was.

SwampWitch- Here's an interesting article.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/prescriptions-life/201201/dont-try-reason-unreasonable-people

I stand by my original post, but I will add that by dangerous, I didn't necessarily mean physically violent.

You don't really want to find yourself fighting false accusations privately or, god forbid, in a court of law.

For some reason this person has it in for you. Do you really want to find out how far she is willing to go to exorcise her ill will?

Natalie_ca said:

Few things in life leave me speechless, but this story is one!


I don't know what would motivate that woman to do something so childish and hurtful to your daughter.... and you, but wow, like you said, inappropriate. I'm sorry she did that to you guys.

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Stunning behaviour, I have no idea why a grown woman would do something like that!

mbjerkness said:

She really is very childish. I can't understand how a grown women and mother would say anything like that. I am so sorry she did that to you and your daughter.

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And thank goodness your daughter did tell you, so now at least you can deal with it.

Oh...my....goodness....   

People like that...makes me want to grab them and scream "what the **** is wrong with you????".