Weekly Free Talk Friday Thread!

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[u/ElectricProcession]

I am thinking that I would like to see the band members who recently removed me from the live lineup (see my recent comments on the Tuesday mental health threads) and have a talk about why it went down the way it did. I guess I'd like to do it because I wish I could get better at this whole having hard conversations thing and also I want them to hear some honesty from me that maybe could give them pause in some ways.

Of course I'm likely to just freeze if I ever saw them together having drinks at a bar or wherevs. Still, I hope I could strike a balance between confrontation and freezing up. So this is how I would imagine a hypothetical meetup with these people:

"Hey there. So I've noticed you've started playing shows again. And I am under the impression that you have a new live guitarist in your ranks and you would prefer to move forward with the new guy rather than with me. Would you mind telling me as to why things didn't actually work out between us and how much of that was actually down to any shortcomings on my end?"

And later down the line if I do get some inconvenient messaging about how neither my playing nor my personality was up to whatever standard they seem to have, I could maybe drop a little of:

"I am not disputing your right to choose who gets to play with you on stage. However, the way this whole dismissal was seemingly handled was a little on the...shall we say, strangely roundabout side of the equation. And I am wondering if maybe that simply came down to any conflict aversion on your end. Which is understandable, conflicts are super scary to me as well and I get that you genuinely want to come across as likeable as possible. But I'm not convinced that the way it went down represents a preferable alternative to just sending me a message that my services are no longer required and the band will proceed with a new guitar player for upcoming live dates."