The Kerfuffle Meeting

Apparently I'm drawing some weird energy towards my little 12 Step meeting.  It probably doesn't have anything to do to me, actually, even though I'm sure it's all . . . about me.

Last week one of the women members asked to speak to me privately.  She complained mightily about the other guy that attends the meeting, suggesting that he behaved in an inappropriate way towards her.   She told him that she was going to share this with the other men at the meeting as a means of protecting herself.  I'm the only other man who attends regularly so she clearly wasn't being too subtle.

I like this person but I'm a little on the fence about her emotional sobriety.  She's somewhat volatile, mildly confrontational about things.  I speak my mind, too, but try to use some diplomacy when I'm discussing anything edgy or controversial.  I want to helpful and I'm not helpful when I'm combative or insensitive.

I had plans to call this guy - whose story I tend to believe, to be honest about it - but hadn't gotten around to it when I heard from this woman's sponsor that he had texted her asking if her sponsee was trying to get him kicked out of the meeting.  I've known him for a few years and never had one thought of him as a sexist, macho dude.  I would have put him in the Safe Guy category.

So I ring him up.  I spoke carefully for a moment because I don't want to discount anything anyone says, especially when I'm only getting one side of a story that involves two people.  Or I'm hearing about a situation anecdotally from a third party.  I'm not going to toss anyone under any bus

Boy, that did not work out well for me at all.  He was having none of it, none of anything.  He became quite angry.  He interrupted, he disagreed, he confronted.  I did not diffuse the situation when I explained that I was calling to offer my support, to stress that I make my own determinations of people all by myself and not as a result of what someone else says or doesn't say.  No dice.  "There is no side here," he kept saying.  I never did get to point out that when one person says one thing and another person says something else that is the polar opposite that there certainly is a side.

I am rarely at a loss for words.  All of my public speaking, sometimes in oppositional sales situations, has made me pretty and calm and deliberate, even in volatile situations.  This dude came at me, and forcefully.  I could have defended myself but the idea of the call wasn't to make things fucking worse it was to make them better , to diffuse a situation before it spiraled out of control.

I'm aware that when I stick my nose into someone else's business, unbidden, that I risk bloodletting.  So be it.  I don't do this randomly and without forethought so I'm not going to stop doing it.  I can handle the occasional bloody nose.

My motives?  Good.  The results?  Sheesh.