A lot has been going wrong lately in the support group I’ve been attending for more than 20 years.
I wasn’t going to write about it, of course. But then a fellow member stuck her iPhone in my face at a meeting and filmed me. So rather than sitting here waiting for the footage to turn up on the internet, I thought I’d explain.
I’ve been objecting to the banning of a long-time member who has helped a lot of other members over the years, but he’s chatted up too many women and now the safeguarding procedures of this strange new era have kicked in and the younger female members, in particular, have flexed their muscles and decided to throw him out.
I am one of the older generation members who have stuck up for this 64-year-old man, who is of an age and social class that have left him completely bewildered as to why he cannot flirt with women without being accused of harassment. I have been standing up in meetings and saying that while this chap can be a pain to deal with sometimes, his history is very unfortunate, and I do not believe we should ban him.
Well, the snowflakes have gone tonto. And now one of them has filmed me in a meeting sitting next to this almost pensioner trying to defend him while they were shouting at him to leave and not come back.
So I suppose I will have to explain that I was one of those Fleet Street hacks… until I decided, aged 29, that I should knock it on the head in a timely fashion. I found I couldn’t do it on my own. And these meetings were fantastic: unlimited group therapy in return for a pound in the pot.
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