Calibration question on reputation management in social circle

[Animatronic_Squirrel]

Minor issue with a jealous male who I live with. He got drunk a few nights ago and started trying to tool me (barging into my room, trying to manhandle me 'playfully', dumb shit like that).He also made a drunken (but good) play for the girl I'm seeing.

All of this I can mostly laugh off, because a) he's majorly jealous of a girl I'm seeing and generally insecure of my fundamentals and b) he was drunk.

The other night however; I was out and he apparently sent me a message saying 'hey man... I've made a fool of myself, havnt I...' Cool.

Because my piece of shit phone was out of battery however, I only received this when I got back home and didnt get a chance to reply. The irritating part, however, is that he was apparently simultaneously spending the night shit-talking me behind my back to my girl and her friends.

So. My question - do I talk to him or ignore him? I've never really had to deal with male challengers before. Ignoring/laughing him off seems in keeping with the LoLE - but I'm not sure if he's crossing the line where I need to tell him to cut that shit out.

Also; if I DO talk to him - any tips on how to handle it? I wont back down if he keeps being disruptive/attacking my reputation and I could care less if he dislikes me. But I'd rather make him an ally, if possible (he's got good conversational skills and a sense of humor I could learn from).

 

[ray_zorse]

He sounds like a dick, he could be an acceptable person to have in your social circle but I would definitely not live with him. Your personal space and the influence of the people in your personal space on your mental state is too important to risk dicking around with. Get this guy out of your life pronto.

How are the logistics in your current apartment? How paid up are you? Could this be an excuse to move to somewhere with better logistics and tons of hot girls to approach / bring home? Alternatively can you evict this dude?

TBH you may have missed an opportunity, as soon as he came into your room uninvited you could have told him to get out, if he didn't you could have complained to landlord / rental office or whatever and had him warned or evicted.

Once you reach the point you can choose whether to see him or not, problem solved -- you may have further problems that he is in your social circle but these are much more manageable, you could cut down contact with that circle to a manageable level as well.

Having said all that... the only real boss way to handle problems like this is totally ignore them and live your life, I mean do you really care what this dick thinks or what he is saying about you to others? Chances are it won't impact on your life cos others will know he's a dick too, but if it does just address the specific issues with others who are less of a dick.

BTW are you the dude who was burning it down with recently-moved-in housemate & earning the approbation of others in the house, if so how did that play out, & is this the same girl & one of the dudes who was freezing you out because of it?

-Ray

 

[Animatronic_Squirrel]

Hi Ray, thanks for the response - I always appreciate the perspective.

Having said all that... the only real boss way to handle problems like this is totally ignore them and live your life, I mean do you really care what this dick thinks or what he is saying about you to others?

Well, no - my initial instinct was to roll my eyes at the entire situation (figuratively). A drunken guy trying to make fun of me to face, but slurring so hard that I can barely understand him? Not really worth the time.

The part I was trying to decide though has to do with Chase's article 'Killer Reputation Management for your Social Circle' - in it, Chase recommended that social faux pas/challenges be ignored UNLESS it's getting excessively rude, in which a confrontation might be necessary, as their words can affect others opinion of you (at least, that's how I understood the article). The dude was trying to isolate my girl, then when that failed, spent the night being disruptive.

To no effect - she still came with me, apologized for the weird-ass situation and I still had a passionate night with her until well after the sun was up. Nonetheless; I have a history of being way too non-confrontational, and I'm still trying to re-work my calibration to be able to defend myself (or cut out disruptive males) when (absolutely) necessary - so I'm wondering how serious this incident stood on the scale of male challenges.

I realize this has no clear-cut answer, by the way - but I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to assess this, so I just wanted a few outside opinions on the matter.

Regarding getting him removed; I guess I hadn't thought it was serious enough to warrant this, but its definitely plausible. I'm on friendly terms with the dorm warden - I'll meet him later today and mention the incident.

BTW are you the dude who was burning it down with recently-moved-in housemate & earning the approbation of others in the house, if so how did that play out, & is this the same girl & one of the dudes who was freezing you out because of it?

That's me, and yeah, its the same girl (though there's been another). It played out pretty cleanly, in the end; I ignored the entire situation and carried on as normal, shifted the amount of time I spend in social circles to a new one, and basically just acted much cooler towards everyone who was acting up. Didn't cost me a dime of extra effort. Everyone is pretty chill now (albeit, spending much less time with each other); the two I'm living with next year aren't being catty anymore, the girl has basically dropped off the radar (she has her own social circles and her own girlfriend).

The guy is actually the one I had a drink with, and who I had originally thought was more chill than the others - my mistake. Huge surprise, turns out the seemingly 'nice' guy wasn't so nice after all.

By the way; 'burning it down'? Does the phrase imply 'messing things up'?