Loyalty, teenagers and feeling grumpy

I'm grumpy. I shouldn't be but I am. I should be able to let this roll off my back and say, "Not my problem." I can't.

A member of my family (who shall remain nameless to protect whatever innocence he may still have) is being a dork and a disloyal dork at that. I have failed miserably at making him understand what I see as disloyalty. Thus my grumpiness. I don't like to know that someone I have to deal with on a daily, familial basis, is behaving in such a manner and is unable to see it.

Let me tell you the story for the purposes of which I shall use the initial J. to refer to my family member, and A,B,C. to refer to others in the story. (And no, J is not his first initial).

Okay, so J. has a group of friends that have hung around together for at least the last two years. The group grew larger bit by bit over the last four years. One of the friends in this group, A., has known J. for at least six, perhaps seven, years.

One of the members of the group, B. has turned out to be rather obnoxious, whinging when the group does not go along with his ideas, sulking and generally being tedious. Through it all, the group has put up with his childish behaviour and never shunned him. Heaven knows why.

Somewhere along the line, B. developed a dislike for A. to the point where B would not invite A when the group was meeting at B's house. Would deliberately not invite A to various activities to which the rest of the group was invited - camping trips organized by B's parents, trips to chocolate factories organized by B's father, overnight parties at B's house, etc. He knows that J and A have been friends for much longer than he and J.

You might be asking, "So what? B has a right to invite whomever he wishes to his home."

And you'd be right. I really don't give a rat's ass whom B sees or doesn't see. What I do care about is how J is treating A. Whever B invites J, he goes. Never sticks up for A and says, "if A isn't invited, then I'm not coming." I can't believe he would do something like this. When I confronted him about it, he says that B has the right to invite whom he likes and that he, J, has to right to do things without A.

I counter with "But it's not that simple. You're not just doing something with B. You're doing it despite the fact that B has shunned A. And you haven't showed any loyalty for your friend A."

I can't believe that he could do something this insensitive. He seems not to believe that he would feel shunned if he were in A's shoes.

A still sees J as a friend, comes over whenever J asks him to, etc. Doesn't seem to see it as a problem, or if he does, he's not saying.

I still think that J is behaving very badly and if a friend of mine did that to me, I'd probably not be friends with him or her very long. I certainly wouldn't value the friendship much.

Perhaps I'm wrong about this. If you think I am, let me know.

Meanwhile, I'm still grumpy. Although, on second thought, maybe I'm grumpy because my skills at convincing someone that I'm right seem to have disappeared like summer in the Arctic. I know one of the reasons I'm grumpy is because I'm letting this get to me.

But I see it as a matter of principle. I have a hard time respecting someone who would do something like this, whether or not the supposed 'victim' of the piece doesn't seem to mind.