My knitting group self-destructed sometime Friday night.
We had a yahoo group, and recently, the missing moderator/owner appeared with a new list of "THIS IS WHERE WE MEET, NO CHANGES!" and "THESE ARE THE RULES! NO TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING BUT KNITTING!" Hardly the group I joined, where we all had a hand in deciding where to meet, and could talk about anything, but I thought, "whatever".
Then the emails started about people getting their FEEEELINGS hurt when people talked about spinning, because some people didn't want to talk about it (didn't want to spin, didn't want to talk about fiber, didn't want to talk about spinning). But no one SAID anything during the actual meetings. Because they didn't want to hurt anyone else's FEEEEEELINGS. (eyeroll)
Repeat after me, people. If you don't tell people what you want, you shouldn't be disappointed when you don't get it.
SO, one of the members started a spin-off group for those who *wanted* to talk about spinning and needlefelting and weaving and whatever. Some people joined. One person left the first group (because spinning is a BIG part of her life, and she felt unwelcome) and joined the second. Most of us who joined the second group did so without the intent of leaving the first group. We had one email accusing people of finger-pointing and talking about others behind their back, which was thoroughly unfounded.
If there was ANY "talking about others behind their back", it was the "concerned people" who didn't have enough guts to speak up at knit group who went running to the founder of the group (who hasn't shown up in 4 months, mostly because of her knee replacement surgery) whining about feeling left out and having their feelings hurt. From my reading between the lines, there were two or maybe three 'concerned people' im'ing and emailing each other, the group owner, AND NOT THE GROUP talking about how left out they felt.
Because, you see, we OBVIOUSLY started talking about spinning all the damned time, and didn't focus on knitting (although if it was happening, it was a few side group people, and not a huge amount of time spent on it... everyone was talking about the damned log cabin knitting, which I found insanely boring, as I came from a quilting background and there's nothing new about a log cabin pattern).
There was a big "I can't believe this is such a big deal" brouhaha and then, sometime in the night, the group... disappeared. No longer existed. Bereft of life, it rests in peace... etc. It was a very "I'm taking my toys and going home" move. Not something that should've been expected in a group of women ages 30+.
Seven of us met at the place we were supposed to meet on Saturday morning. None of us understood why this happened. Whoever's feelings were hurt by the discussion of spinning didn't show up (as one of the 7 wanted to buy a drop spindle from me, and the others were all as confused as I was). We talked about the things we normally talked about (and I jokingly steered us back to knitting, as part of the new rules stated "We are a KNITTING group, primarily focused on KNITTING.")
I'm mostly frustrated because I thought that part of being a mature adult was being able to speak up for yourself when you felt uncomfortable.
With 26 members, we weren't a huge group, but we were a group. We had connections with each other. I thought that we could say anything in our meetings because certainly topics were brought up that were... let's just say "blue", along with the normal bitching about work, and being laid off, dogs, clothes, shoes, etc. There were usually 6-10 of us, and with that many people, there are bound to be multiple conversations. Topics enough for everyone to get involved with.
I know I didn't care about Crocs (the shoes), knitting for pets, knitting charity blankets, the log cabin craze, or some of the other topics that came up, but that's when you nod politely, pick up your knitting, and knit a few rows.
The split in our group may be a good thing, or it may not be. It will take time to heal. Time to fix hurt feelings.
I told one of the group (the one who left, actually) that this was to be expected when this many women got together. Someone was bound to take something personally that wasn't meant that way, and it was bound to blow up.
*sigh* All I really care about now is, "Where are we meeting next Saturday?" I don't really care who shows up, as long as I can spend some time with my friends.