When you REALLY screw up!

Subject: When you REALLY screw up!
From: GUEST,losing sleep!
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 06:05 PM

It's either spill my guts here or call Dr. Laura. Last week a friend invited me to a session at someone's home. During a break in the action I got talking to a woman about some of the music that we were playing and I mentioned a person who was not only a bad player but out of tune as well. She seemed to agree with me,-well I thought she did anyway- and it was only later that I was told that I was criticizing the HOST! To his WIFE!

I don't have the faintest idea how to handle this, and for all I know everyone at the session has probably heard about my gaffe because most of them have been playing together for years. Even my friend who took me there is acting strangely, making me think he's been warned about any repeat visits.

Simply has anyone got a suggestion for when you REALLY screw up?

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 06:09 PM

Flowers and an I'm-sorry letter (or card) to the wife, and an I'm-sorry letter (or card) to the host.

If they are gracious, you may end up becoming fast friends and looking back on this and laughing. If not, no great loss--who wants to be friends with ungracious people?

Good luck!

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 06:27 PM

Write a song about it. Another bridge burned, another lesson learned.

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 06:41 PM

Learn when to talk, learn when to walk........

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: campfire
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 06:49 PM

Oh my! I've been on the "wife's" end (but I was just a girlfriend of the "victim"). I ended up appreciating the honesty (because there was some truth to the comments) but never shared them with the performer boyfriend, or at least never attributed them to the person making the comments.

I guess if I were in your shoes, I'd lie low and learn from the lesson.

campfire

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 07:24 PM

If it was me in that situation, I would apologize as openly and honestly as I could.
Remember most thing always appear worst than they really are. We magnify situations way worst in our heads.
This too shall blow over.
Maybe this was not just an important lesson for you. Maybe it was something that was really important for the other person to hear.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: sophocleese
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:05 PM

Apologies are useful here. Approach the friend that invited you to the session for the best way to make them. Then get a copy of Stephen Pile's Book of Heroic Failures. Other people have screwed up in even worse ways and its cheering to read about them.

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:14 PM

Didn't we we have a thread a few months ago about a similar problem-- someone makes a huge gaffe at a party-- it was about turning down someone's loud background music at a dinner party... well it had a lot of great advice in it!

For this-- go in abject humility to the wife and see if she told her hubby before you apologize to him! If she had good enough manners not to embarrass you when you made the gaffe, she probably is too kind and too smart to tell him what you said, and it will pain her to go over it with you but she will accept your need to. It's that ladies' code thing.

~Susan

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: kendall
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:20 PM

If what you said was true, why does it call for an apology? Who needs friends who play out of tune?

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:26 PM

Hoo boy, I can identify! Sometimes bad music is just TOO much to take, and you boil over....especially when you think you've got a sympathetic ear. Despite the good advice so far, I'm not sure you're going to come out OK in this situation....and my guess is that you DO want to be a part of this group or it wouldn't trouble you so. If there are any other good players there (and once again, I'm assuming that YOU aren't a weak spot, skills wise) be comforted in the knowledge that they too knew what the problem was (and secretly admire you).

OK, here's a suggestion, and it's just off the top of my head. Volunteer to have a session at YOUR place and see how many turn up. Or maybe flowers and cards like our good Mousethief suggests, AND get the book that Soph recommends.

Tricky situation, I can see why you're losing sleep.

Good luck

Rick

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Bugsy
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:36 PM

If he's THAT bad, someone else has most probably done the same thing before, or wished they had. I'd forget all about it and carry on as normal.

If you're really worried about it, ask your friend if anything was said.

CHeers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Bugsy
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:38 PM

I was just thinking there, What if you go and apologise to the guy for saying his playing is crap and his timing lousy, only to find that his wife has not mentioned it to him and he is oblivious of your original comment.

BAD MOVE!

CHeers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: WyoWoman
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:58 PM

Yeah, this one requires a little delicacy -- certainly more than you demonstrated in the first instance. But, having made some just gawd-awful gaffes like this in my life, I think you can live over it and maybe even get to some higher ground.

If you know the wife, you can apologize from the bottom of your heart -- and you don't have to take back what you said (I'm too much of a truth-teller, too, so it sticks in my craw to say "I didn't mean it" when I actually did). You can say you're sorry that you talked out of school and you know you don't have any business diss'in' people behind their backs.

If I were the wife in question, I wouldn't have breathed a word of it to my husband, unless he were an arrogant butthead and I'd been trying forever to get him to get the point that he plays lousy and he's out of tune and anyway his breath stinks. In which case, you might have given her ammunition and gained a friend. Of course, he might be gunning for you. But a conversation with her will help you sort this out.

HOWEVER ... if you don't really know her at all and it would be even more awkward to try and reconnect, you can delicately approach your friend and explain the situation, and explain that you didn't want to alienate anyone... and suss it out that way. And see what your friend thinks would be the best way to approach it, given that the friend knows the people involved better.

AND ... sometimes, stuff happens and we can only let it inform us for the next time. We don't always get the opportunity to erase the board, which is why it's important to learn to keep our little moufs shut sontines. Unless you're a Sagittarius, and then ... well, you just can't help yourself so, give up.

Just kiddink.

But remember... this kind of misery only lands on people who give a rat's patootie. If you didn't care about people, you would be sleepin' like a baby, and maybe even feeling a bit proud of yourself. So, see what a nice person you really are? Tact-challenged, but decent.

Go and sin no more.

ww

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Matt_R
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 09:12 PM

There are times in a man's life when he knooooows he's wrong
And he must get down on his knees, beeeeeeeeeg for mercy
And face the bitter truth...

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Gypsy
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 09:16 PM

Humble, abject apologies work the best. And then in the future we were given two ears, and one mouth for a good reason. (from a person who all too often forgets that very piece of sage wisdom. Crow can taste pretty good with catsup, i hear.)

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: John Hardly
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 10:45 PM

...uh...you...uh... know that ear infection I was telling you about last week? You know...at that last sing when I was telling you that I thought that guy sucked 'cause I couldn't hear very well?


...well you'll be glad to know that problem's cleared up with the shots I was getting for my little VD problem.

Okay then, try it your way.

John

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 03:45 AM

I was playing at my wife Sue's school abot twenty years ago (and I really have improved since then!), when a conjuror who was lower down the bill said to Sue, "This bloke really is crap, isn't he?". Sue replied with the indignant tone only a teacher can achieve, "This bloke is my husband!", at which the conjuror made himself vanish.

Fair enough; but I've always wondered why she told me about it ...

Steve

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Lena
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 06:28 AM

Go to Lourdes to get the devil out of your way,i've hardly heard something that unlucky...

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: Grab
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 08:31 AM

Tell your friend about it, and ask him if anyone's said anything. If the story has gone round, start damage limitation. If not, stay mum and don't stir the hornet's nest any more.

Grab.

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: kendall
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 08:46 AM

Rick is right , actually

Subject: RE: When you REALLY screw up!
From: GUEST,Losing sleep
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 07:59 PM

I thought I'd better fill you in since everyone was so helpful.

I went the Flowers and card route as Mousethief suggested and haven't heard back from the two people involved. My friend says nobody said anything to him, and he's already been over there for another session. I'm not losing anymore sleep, but I still feel like a jerk. I WAS right about the lousy and out of tune playing though. In the future, if I have one, I'll just keep my mouth shut. Thanks people.

L.S.