It's your last chance, honey, better (CALL YOUR MOTHER)
Now, if I had my way
I would leave you here to waste your final days
Buried beneath
(With the possibility of how things could be)
[...]
Don't let me find you hiding under the covers.
It's your last chance, honey,
Better (Call your mother!).
All hope is lost down in the gutter
Ever get the feeling that no matter what someone says or how far you offer to go to help them, they are never going to change? The thing about character development is that the character has to want to change, either to fit a new situation, or for their own internal betterment.
Yesterday was more D&D. All summer, there has been a lot of interpersonal tension because of one specific member of the group. It's been building for months. The rest of them have attemped to address it in the second campaign we have (we play on alternating sundays, and I am only in one), but none of them are really... well, tactful.
The one guy, Sketch, has been so aggravatingly standoffish and downright rude to everyone all year, and it got a whole lot worse over the summer. He was deliberately doing things to irritate and anger people in the group, and make our lives difficult, to put it in a quick summary. The rest of the group addressed it three times this summer in the other campaign, so unfortunately I was not present for those discussions, but I did hear about it from most of the group after the fact. Yesterday, however, was the campaign that I am in, and man did he throw a fit. His character died. Like, was totally dead. Keep in mind, we have two spellcasters and a scroll that could have all brought him back to life, but he was arguing that he did not want to be revived, and wouldn't say why. Finally, Draco flat out asked "Is it that you don't want to pay the resurrection fee, or that you don't want to play anymore?" Sketch stormed away from the table and that was our answer. Later on in the night, I was heading out and was saying farewells to Sketch and Brony, who were seated by the door. Brony noted that I had work to get to, and I made a passing comment that I do enjoy my job and look forward to it. Sketch retorted, "I feel like that was a sleight against me for some reason." Like, no dude, it was a general statement. Did I say anything about you or your employment in that comment? No? That's what I thought.
Draco walked me out to my car like normal, and he commented that he wanted to finally finish this whole drama with Sketch once and for all. I pointed out that tonight gave us the perfect jumping off point to start that conversation, and he agreed. We messaged the others to get their opinions, and it was a unanimous decision to just have it out right then, so back to the apartment I went. Draco, who is absolutely done with Sketch, started the conversation, and once the ball got rolling it went in a surprisingly well-organized fashion. The guys have a tendency to loudly talk over each other, but they responded well to my quiet mediation to keep everyone on track and make sure they each had a turn to say what they wanted to say.
One of the biggest questions, asked by Miku, was about what Sketch was hoping to get out of coming to D&D every weekend. Right now, he just shows up, plays Smash but never talks to the others, sits at the D&D table and only speaks to give his moves, then leaves without a word. He told us that he wanted friendship. He tried to feed a sob story about how he has never ben good at having friends or being a friend, and even worse was that he has had "a lot" of interventions like this. I'm sorry, but if you notice a pattern enough to say that this specifically happens "a lot", you REALLY need to reevaluate yourself. Besides that, he always talks down about himself, as though he is worse than dirt, and to be honest we all find it annoying and it is a huge reason why we don't like talking to him anyway. He did noticeably catch himself and try not to talk down so much about himself as the talk went on, which was a good sign.
We all went around and shared some personal stuff about ourselves. I won't go into the others, but I told him about how I have a very dark past, and it messed me up from a very early age. I used to be a very violent, angry, and downright mean person who just wanted everyone to screw off and die, and I was happy to help them along. As I got older, though, and physically hurt more people, I realized that something had to change. I gained a couple friends who helped me see that not everyone was bad or had ulterior motives. I knew that if I wanted to keep them around and meet more people who were not bad I would have to become a better person. Being in my late teens at the time, I couldn't just go out and get a therapist. No, I did my research online and looked into articles and self-help books. Yea, some may be corny or out-there, but at the end of the day they are about bettering yourself, and that was my goal. When I was in my early twenties, I relapsed hard. It was after I snapped out of it that I looked into CBT/DBT and that helped me drastically turn things around. I learned how to put myself in the perspective of those around me, and understand how my actions, down to even the smallest ones, affected others and made me look to them. It was eye-openeing. I will be the first to admit that I have a long way to go still, but I have come infinitely further than I would have thought possible even five years ago.
Us all opening up demonstrated not only the point of "friends open up to each other, listen, and don't judge", or that we all come from our own messed up backstory, but also that we're not heartless. We weren't kicking him to the curb then and there, as much as two of our group really wants to (though, they are entitled to their choice and we aren't going to force them to interact with him). Most of us want to see him make a change for the better and grow as a person. But to do that he has to want to change, first and foremost. We offered to help him, offered our advice, offered to lend an ear if he ever needed it, offered all of the things friends do for each other. But we all made it very clear that we are not coming to him. He has to come to us. I drove the point home when I pointed out that I have known him for a year and a half now (as opposed to the rest knowing him for 3-4 years), and I am exhausted. I am so tired and drained from trying to be friends and talk to him and socialize with him, only to have him slam the metaphorical door in my face and he didn't even have a good reason why for any of those times. Keep in mind, I've posted on here before about how I don't like people and want to be alone. But these guys are my friends, not just anyone, and I do look forward to seeing them every other weekend, and hanging out on the rare days that we all go out and catch a movie or some of us get together and wander the huge mall near them. I reach out to them because they are good people and I enjoy their company (I just also need a lot of time to myself to recharge because I'm an introvert). But I don't enjoy his company.
Draco and Jerboa basically said they are done with Sketch for good. Draco is thinking of bowing out of both campaigns, at least for a while, and I don't blame him in the slightest. If you're not having fun, why bother?
I'll be honest, the entire conversation frustrates me immensely, looking back on it. Sketch kept saying "I can't promise that I will change", "changing is hard", and "I can try, but I can't promise anything". I laid into him for all three because I am sorry, but it was 1:30am and my tolerance for bullshit was nil. We wrapped up with Sketch stating his action plan that he will work on communicating more with everyone and trying to be more aware of how he presents himself, in both actions and words. He said that he will try to be more social and genuinely get to know the rest of us. He also restated that what he wants out of D&D every weekend is a friend group, and he will try to become a better friend. Most of the rest of us offered one last time to be there for him and support him as friends, when he comes to us.
Miku wanted more of a form of punishment, and to find a way to quantify this character development, so as to put a time limit on when we have to see this change. While I can see where he and his frustration were coming from, it doesn't quite work that way. Brony managed to explain to him why that was not really possibly because it is not something that can be counted or necessarily tracked. Nor would this be a situation where we would see a big change right away. I explained that the conversation was Sketch's ultimatum. As of that moment, Sketch was in control of his own fate. If he truly wants friends, he will make the effort and we can move on and not have to ever risk coming back here. Should he opt not to change, or eventually regress, we are never having that conversation again. If it starts looking like a possibility, that is it. We are done with him. No more wasting anyone's time and energy on him at that point.
And by then it was 2:45am (3.5 hours later) and I had an hour drive home... Went to work on 3 hours of sleep and am proud of myself for staying awake and being productive all day! Anyway, I am not really posting this for responses, more just to have a record of the conversation, though please by all means feel free to share your thoughts because I am definitely curious as to what other people might think or have to say about this. It's kind of a half-assed write-up, my apologies, but I'm still runnning on that three hours of sleep and wanted to write it out before I inevitably forgot all but the vital details.