Friendship with the Pattersons and its discontents.

[dreadedcandiru2]

One of the nice things about the look at the Early Years, no matter how distorted it might be is that it reminds us behaviors that we originally ascribed to the Patterson family having grown selfish, entitled, narrow-minded and clannish in their old age have been part of their lives all along. One of the most annoying things is the way they piss all over the people they call friends. So far, we've seen:

• Elly gossip with Annie about Connie when the other is not present to defend herself and vice-versa in order to keep them from becoming mutual friends. This is so that they not bypass the hypotenuse and leave her with no friends at all.


• John defaming his friend Ted behind his back; instead of asking if he lives with his mother because she needs a care-giver, he assumes that his bachelor chum is a pathetic loser that should be shunned like a leper.


• Mike forcing his friends to partake of his rancid literary greaseburgers because he's a world-famous-all-over-Southern-Ontario author and they're peons.


• Liz cruelly grinning about how, since she was always a bridesmaid at her friends' weddings, she deserves to avenge herself by consigning them to her teal-and-lavender Hell on Earth.


• The revolting way in which April pissed all over Becky rather than admit that she was jealous of her fame.


• The disgusting way in which they'd all let Iris down by not caring that she was in over her head and pretending not to understand her understated pleas for help.

It's things like that that make me appreciate how sweet it must be to be an enemy of the Pattersons; since they treat their friends like shitheels, it's a lot less humiliating to be someone they not treat with.

Comments

[hoppytoad79.livejournal.com]

Elly gossip with Annie about Connie when the other is not present to defend herself and vice-versa in order to keep them from becoming mutual friends. This is so that they not bypass the hypotenuse and leave her with no friends at all.

Gossips with one about the other, yes. To keep them from being friends? I doubt it.

John defaming his friend Ted behind his back; instead of asking if he lives with his mother because she needs a care-giver, he assumes that his bachelor chum is a pathetic loser that should be shunned like a leper.

Ted *is* a pathetic loser. No assuming needed. ;)

Mike forcing his friends to partake of his rancid literary greaseburgers because he's a world-famous-all-over-Southern-Ontario author and they're peons.

He doesn't force his friends, DC2. Remember, Mike's a good writer and they're happy to read what he writes and objectively critique it tell him how fabulous and perfect his novels are and how much they deserve a Pulitzer Prize.

The Pattersons have no intentional malicious motivations in what they do (except Liz going out of her way to make her b'maids look ugly). They just are who they are. Elly's a gossip, John sees himself as superior, Mike believes he's good because no one has ever told him otherwise, Liz is Elly 2.0, and April is prone to acting like those she's related to, though she proves herself to be infinitely superior to them in almost all areas the rest of the time (she does have a propensity for condescention and the need for token friends, both of which show when she's with Shannon).

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

When you see all the damage they do because they cannot think, it's not hard to imagine how bad things would be if they actually did do things intentionally.

[hoppytoad79.livejournal.com]

I shudder to think of the devestation that would be wrought.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

The only one who wouldn't would be Tom Batiuk.