A
male
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:Tonight I attended a party my cousin was holding. There were a few members of the family there, but it was mostly friends of my cousin. Anyway, there were a lot of drunk people there, while I was acting as designated driver for my parents. I figured "it's just a family party, no point in me drinking, I'll chauffeur them around for once."So anyway, it's nearing the end of the night and a girl I'd traded glances at throughout the night intentionally bumps into me while she was dancing. She apologised and asked if I'd like to dance with her. As we were dancing I noticed she kept turning away and looking in the direction of her friends who were laughing and smiling. One of them kept pushing her closer to me. I saw all of this, but I thought "rise above it, show them that I'm not fazed, I can take whatever they can dish out" and just had fun with it. Anyway, my parents saw what was happening and called me over to the bar. They said that they were obviously taking the piss out of me so I should just walk away. It was at that point where I started to think "Oh God... I've been made a mockery of!"I don't get the joke. Yes, they were drunk and stupid, but... why me? I'm a fairly good looking guy. I was just minding my own business, enjoying what was a fairly boring, alcohol-less night. They had no reason to target me, so what the hell was that about?Admittedly I've struggled with confidence when it comes to women, and it's something I've actively worked on over the past several months, but I really see this as a setback. I've been made a fool of. I don't understand why and I feel infuriated. My pride is hurt, my confidence is wounded and I just wish I could turn the clock back, tell them all to go to hell and leave with my dignity in tact.My only solace is that I didn't show my anger. I rose above it and showed no signs that it had affected me whatsoever, but on the inside I'm feeling hurt in truth. Where do I go from here? Am I being too sensitive about the whole thing or do I have the right to be angry? If this should happen to me again for whatever reason, should I react differently?A girl and her friends made a fool of me at a party and now my confidence is shot. How do I recover from this? Any advice would be of help here. Thanks.
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female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (4 September 2011):
 Oh I see :). Then you think that the girl was NOT making fun of you, and she actually was tryng to hit on you.... but your parents told you differently and influenced you, spoiling the fun.
Was she making fun of you, or was she into you ? is what you want to know... No way we can know, we should have been there. But anyway my advice is : next time... leave mom and dad at home ,and if you want to meet girls, go on your own, and figure things out by yourself !
A
reader, anonymous, writes (4 September 2011): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionHmmm, I see opinion is somewhat split on this one. I did suspect that my parents were making more of it than they should have, but then again I can understand why they would feel the way that they did after they described what they saw. Maybe it was a case of misinterpretation, but they said that when she turned to her friends she was screwing her face up, like she didn't really want to be doing what she was doing. But who knows? Maybe it was because she liked me? I guess it doesn't matter any more, I doubt anything would have come of it anyway.
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A
female
reader, TasteofIndia  +, writes (3 September 2011):
 Yeah, I agree with the others - I think it was your parents who jumped to conclusions. This sounds like drunk girls, who think a guy is cute, so one starts dancing, the others are drunkenly trying to push her closer, everyone things it's freakin' hilarious... drunkies turn into middle schoolers. I really think that they were probably turning into giggly messes because of the cute guy dancing with them. Your parents are the ones who were looking at the situation and turning it into something it wasn't. Don't worry so much, and definitely don't turn into a negativasaurus like your parents!! Good luck!
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A
male
reader, Sageoldguy1465 +, writes (3 September 2011):
 From the "tone" of your submittal, I'd say that you are 'way too smart to give this incident even one iota of time in your head.....Good luck...
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A
female
reader, CindyCares +, writes (3 September 2011):
Darling, they were DRUNK. Drunk people do not make a lot of careful,thgoughtful planning, they just do what feels like fun in the moment ( which is in general pretty lame and tacky ). They chose you- draw of luck- it could have been anybody else. And do you really care about what a bunch of drunken strangers feel about you ?
Plus, being a slightly overprotective parent myself, I think that your parents probably were a bit overprotective, and knowing that you are a tad socially awkward and low in self confidence, saw a malicious mockery in what was probably not meant like that, but just as a moment of harmless romping around. Many parents of sensitive ( or hypersensitive ) kids are permanently on red alert for this kind of stuff.
Anyway, you handled it perfectly. Why should you have stormed away in a huff and made a big production out of the episode. That would have been giving too much weight to their sillyness . Dignity is not stomping your feet or making scenes, it's more graciously ignoring whatever is not worthy of your notice. And also , of course, being able to take a joke and to laugh at yourself occasionally .
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (3 September 2011): I agree with Youwish, girls do tend to do that, when one of them likes a guy, the others push her so they would have something to laugh about.
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A
female
reader, Moo's Mum  +, writes (3 September 2011):
 At the end of the day you have nothing to worry about because if they were having some kind of private joke on you it was between them only and because you didn't rise to the bait and fly off the handle they now look more stupid than you. Hold your head up high and be confident you have nothing to worry about.
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A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (3 September 2011):
 Hold on a second. Am I missing something here? How did they "take the piss out of you"?? Just because a girl's friends smiled and laughed while you two were dancing could mean many things, not the least of which was that their friend liked you and was nervous, hence them pushing her closer. It could (and was most likely) have been their friend they were goading, not you.
It's interesting that you jumped right to the "they're making a mockery" and that your parents (what were they doing there again?) jumped to that conclusion as well, because when I read what you wrote, it doesn't come across to me like that was their intent.
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