Aaaaarrrggghhhh!!!!
This weekend, my partner’s childhood friend came to stay. After my hard week at work, I was looking forward to a nice leisurely time with good food and wine. It’s always nice to meet Julian’s friends, I adore everyone I have met through him so far. One of the reasons I fell for him was his social circle. If lots of lovely people gravitate towards someone, it’s a good sign of their character. Which makes it even harder to believe that this weekend’s guest, Marilyn, is one of the most reprehensible people I have ever met.
It started off innocently enough when she pulled up in her car and came in proffering a bottle of red wine. She said the drive was hellish and had located the corkscrew before she had even taken her coat off. I went upstairs to take a shower and left Julian and Marilyn to catch up. When I came back down 30 minutes later, Marilyn was already slurring. Julian looked at me and raised his eyebrows but it’s not the first time we’ve had to endure a tipsy friend - we like a drink ourselves.
We got to the restaurant for our 8pm booking and when the sommelier came over, Julian chose a nice bottle and Marilyn jumped in and ordered a Cosmopolitan. No problems there, it’s Saturday night, even if she was racing ahead. Anyway…
We ate our starters and listened to Marilyn - neither of us could get a word in edgeways. Her mouth chattered away with a sprinkling of expletives which weren’t really befitting our environment but me and Julian exchanged another grin and bore it.
Our main course came at which point Marilyn started to get ranty about women in the workplace. I didn’t disagree with anything she was saying but she started to get very argumentative. Twisting things. Then she said that it was impossible for me to truly understand feminism from my white male privilege so I dared suggest that feminism wasn’t all about white middle class women. My mistake, I gave a red rag to a bull with PMT (I’m aware that’s sexist - I’m being ironic) and she ran with it...
She was demanding to know my knowledge on female genital mutilation - hers didn’t amount to much more. She started to raise her voice in an accusatory tone drawing glances from our fellow diners. At this point, even though I didn't feel I was the one who should be apologising, I backed down. I tried to pull the evening back on course but she accused me of trying to control the conversation. Her word ratio to mine 500:1. Poor Julian didn’t know what to do. His lovely old schoolfriend and his partner just had a barney and the nice meal turned into a very awkward silence. We were less than halfway through our main - cringe.
We paid the bill (she actually didn’t attempt to pay so I swallowed it up - is that part of my white male privilege?) and we made a silent journey back to ours. She was clearly too drunk to drive herself home so I decided the best thing I could do, as I seemed to antagonise her so much, was remove myself from the situation. I left them chatting and had an early night. Julian came to bed 2 hours later saying she was still up and drinking whiskey. Come midnight she was making weird noises. At 1am, she decided to put music on. At 2am, it sounded like she was on the phone to someone or just shouting. Julian said he would go out and tell her to go to bed but I told him not to, she was clearly spoiling for a fight. At 3am, she finally passed out.
Reflecting in the morning, there was no two ways about it. She had behaved abysmally. She was beyond offensive, personally attacked me and put Julian in an awkward position. We had planned for her to stay tonight too but now we both want shot of her. We don’t want her here, especially as it may involve drinking again. Anyway, this is where it gets worse…
Julian got a call from work, he had to go in to service a short European flight and would be home by supper. Good. This solves our predicament. Marilyn was still in bed as Julian left. I wanted to get rid of her quickly so made a fresh pot of coffee and turned on the radio LOUD. She eventually surfaced with no apology, helped herself to coffee and dumped herself on the sofa. She then told me to turn the radio off as she wanted to watch the TV. I said No. She then started on me saying she found me objectional last night and couldn’t believe I was still this rude this morning. I snapped, I said she had to leave, she said she wasn’t going anywhere as she wanted to see Julian. I said that Julian didn’t want to see her and she said ‘Tough’. We are now at a stand off. I have asked her again to leave and she says no. This is a really weird situation. This is my house and there has been an irredeemable reprobate on the sofa watching TV for the last 3 hours and I am in my office typing this. What do I do? Seriously.
I reckon I have 2 options:
- Pick her up and manhandle her out - which I’m sure would be a criminal offence with the police on her side.
- Call the police on her - which seems like a total waste of their time as no real crime is being committed.
What do I do? HELP ME!
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