living with the Flamingo Dancer within

Have you ever been drawn into a conversation, just to be polite in a social gathering where, as it progresses it takes on a turn that makes you feel comfortable, but once again, out of politeness you maintain a presence?

Well, that happened to me last night and even hours later I am upset about it. Last night was Daughter1 and The Boy’s engagement /housewarming party. It was at their home, I just had to supply most of the contents of my kitchen. The person who delivered this distress upon me is MrFD’s  Rotating BIL. We call him rotating because he had an affair [after 25 years of marriage and it was more a symptom of a bad marriage than the cause if you get my drift], Mr FD’s sister threw him out for over a year,  took him back, then wanted to throw him out again but he refused to go so they lived in separate parts of the house and now after another year she has taken him back [ to what degree I don’t want to know].

He is very tall, very loud and always negative and competitive. She thinks everyone thinks he is a god. We know everyone is just being nice for her sake. In 25 years of knowing him, we have never come close to being able to stay close to him for any length of time. Mr FD bristles with him very fast, so it always fell to me to spend time with Rotator – of course Mr FD paid for it later, as he does whenever I am lumped with quality time with MrFD’s father also. I think his sister just married a bigger version of her father but that is another blog.

ANYWAY, Rotator is a burned out teacher and has gone into an unsuccessful career in real estate. He was talking to another person, also a long time teacher though semi retired. One thing I have found in this age group is that they don’t like change... mention powerpoint presentation to them and they grow pale and shake. They are the type of people that should have left teaching a long time ago as they are not willing to equip the students with the skills they need for today. And while I am mentioning this, let me be clear that there are a lot more teachers in this age group who do embrace change and technology and are exactly what the students need.

Rotator thinks he is an intellectual giant too – yes has an opinion about everything and always negative. So he launches into a tirade against the government and outcomes based education and starts asking me questions, because obviously I have the most recent information on what is happening in the field. I tried to answer the questions honestly and fairly with the knowledge I have, but am honest that I don’t understand it all as yet, maybe never will. Rotator always has his negative agenda working though and so starts to twist the questions so that I have to answer things in a negative way about teaching, the education department and the university I attend. Now, not that there aren’t negative aspects but there are some really positive ones too, and as we all know that some issues have multiple parts to them.

After awhile I noticed that the people around us had stopped talking, probably because Rotator has such a BIG VOICE. They are listening and some are sitting with heads on the side to listen better....I feel embarrassed that they may think that the opinions being addressed are really my own. They aren’t. Rotator is working to put down something that I appear to be achieving that he failed at doing...agenda item 1. I was also trying to be polite as this is the first time we had seen him with Sister since last year – for her sake, because she will tear flesh from Mr FD otherwise we remain polite [ MR FD was collateral damage in the first break up due to no fault of his own] .

As the conversation went on and I exhausted myself trying to put a positive on the negative I gave up. I said I was feeling ill, not untrue, and Mr FD and I left. Other people were leaving so we felt that it was ok to come home – Daughter1 understood.  

Well, Daughter understood to the point that Rotator and wife were the last to leave, bar Daughter2. Apparently they led them to the front porch in the hope they would go home but they continued talking and talking until Daughter1 was going to say WILL YOU GO HOME ALRIGHT!

So today, I am feeling horrible. I was drawn into participating in a conversation that was not me, and I didn’t say , you are full of crap, to someone who is full of crap. Someone should have said that to him years ago. And someone should have said that to Mr FD’s sister too, except she has a vicious tongue – one of those people who can dish it out but won’t take it in return. I did it out of loyalty to Mr FD, to maintain family harmony, and to be polite. So if all those things are so honourable, why do I feel so bad today?

I guess that I don’t want people to think that might be the person that I am. I don’t want people to have received information that is tainted.  I would hate if Daughter1 and The Boy’s friends thought that I was a horrible old battle axe. Sigh.  Can’t win this one I know, but I am angry that Rotator is back in the fold and causing issues again. Luckily we only socialise at major family events... and if lucky they may be separated by the time Daughter1’s wedding comes around!

On the up side, as Mr FD and I were leaving the party we were able to reunite a lost dog with its owners, so maybe that will balance my karma for the day. I suppose in my own heart I know that I am a better person than that and maybe that is all I should worry about. I can live with me.