> > This struck me as odd, since I had been laughing at the joke along with the rest of them.
>
> The only thing I can think is that these people are morons.

I don't think they are morons. As Brunnen-G stated in her original post, these people weren't "close friends, they were all people I know pretty well on a work basis." Basically, co-workers with whom she doesn't know or see outside of work. With the "off-colour references to each others' personal lives, all that sort of thing", it shows that these are also people who socialize with each other outside of work. Our fellow Rinkie isn't part of their circle.

Now, I'm not going to think of anything else from outside this post about her or her working relationship with the others for this next paragraph.

Was she ever invited by them out to a bar after work and declined because she doesn't drink? Does she not associate with them during breaks because they all go to the smoker's corner where they can discuss non-work related things and she doesn't smoke? Does she have a crucifix on her desk, perhaps a poster that features a kitten about to fall off a tree with the words "Hang In There, Kid!" nearby and they have posters for local bands? Perhaps she always comes to work dressed professionally, in a conservative business suit while the others dress casually, with their torn blue jeans, tight t-shirts barely covering their overly-tattooed and pierced bodies, blue and green hair all askew.

Basically, she probably doesn't have some obvious things in common with the others -- doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, listens to different music -- that would perhaps lend them to think that they don't really have anything in common with her, despite them being the local LEXX fan club.

They're not morons, they just don't know her outside of work and simply formed an image about her based on what she's like at work.

> I'll take your word for it that in this case "nice" equates to "no fun," but if you have any doubt about that, you might want to think about that.

From what I do know about our friend, I would guess that she may have been invited to go out drinking with the others in the past but turned them down, either because of things going on in her personal life or because she doesn't like alcohol. These people like to drink, they ask her a few times and get turned down each time: no chance for socialization outside of work. After a while, they just stopped asking.

I would also guess that these people are smokers and our friend is not. When co-workers go on smoke breaks, they're basically gone from work for up to ten minutes, where they can socialize out of work. They're at work for eight hours, but get to have twenty, forty minutes doing nothing but socializing. She's at work for eight hours and doesn't get this free gabbing time. They develop closer bonds than the non-smokers. (Then they die of lung cancer together and leave behind a smelly yellow film-encrusted house never having seen Europe because of their $600 a year habit that makes them smell bad and cough up phlegm every morning.)

As lyricist, poet, thespian Adam Ant once sung, "Don't drink, don't smoke? What's a goodie do?"

She doesn't drink, she doesn't smoke, she probably never made a ribald comment in her co-worker's presence.

It is depressing -- and I'm probably not making Brunnen-G feel any better about it -- but here we get to a solution. She says:

"Nobody asks the "nice" people to their parties, or wants to get together with them after work.... I'm just ... not the sort of person anybody wants around when they're having fun."

"I feel completely confounded by what people want socially. And it drives me nuts that, at my age, I'm finding myself back in exactly the same situation I always hated at school, lurking around by myself on the fringes of everything. I thought I had come such a long way since then -- I'm not shy, and I have normal-to-good conversational ability. I guess I thought wrong."

The thing is you would be the sort of person they would like around them when they're having fun. If my assumptions above are correct, you haven't had a chance to show these people what you are like outside of work. People want some common ground to start from. When you're at work, that's not really You. It's You-At-Work.

The solution? Ask them what they're doing after work. If they're going out clubbing or to a bar, why not join them? Be the designated driver or just tell them you don't like beer -- or after that night in Bermuda, you swore off alcohol forever -- whatever. If they're going out to a bar, see if there's a porch or patio or someplace outside if the smoking is a problem.

If these aren't the types of people you'd like to hang out with, well, who the hell cares if the drug addicts think you're a nun?

> Some crowds are just the wrong crowds.

-Faux Pas