I typically stay out of internal situations unless called upon or unless it begins to affect my working environment. Both of those conditions have been met. It's both affecting my friendships and my income, so I am stepping in.

Hi Robert and Maria, thanks for seeing me on Friday, all things considered.

I will be writing this message as if we were speaking personally, so the subject of each paragraph might swap from person to person.

Maria: regarding interaction with you and Sammi, Robert had always been pushing for interaction between you and Sammi in voice chats with me. He would tell me about how it would be 'a good thing' for the two of you to become friends, because it would mean a lot to him if you got on. He told me that he would try to get the both of you talking. One day, I remember him saying that he had asked you if you were up for talking with Sammi, and that you said you were ok with it. Later that day, I remember him being angry and upset because he had made ‘a mistake’, and you had become uncomfortable. I was largely out-of-the-loop with that situation. That was some time ago now.
More recently, last week, I do remember Robert saying to me that: "Maria said she would like to come along on one of the days we are out". I said that would be fine, since it would provide an opportunity to see you in person. We didn't speak any more about it from that point on.

Over the weeks preceding the trip, Robert had been getting more distant, our whole active online group had noticed behavioural changes in him. Most of us pointed out his overly reserved and the fact that the general effort put into responses had significantly lowered.

**Every single person** of the six people who came along on this London trip had spoken to me, personally, about how **strange** Robert had been acting and whether it had registered with me as well. This involved wondering off without saying anything, being hyper-defensive to mild physical contact, avoiding communication with people serving us, complaining about walking, prices, and being completely indecisive. Another anomaly in his behaviour was the fact that he gave different stories to Noel (the other visitor who came on the trip but left before Friday) and Sammi about what his plans were for the evenings relating to whether or not he would stay out or see you.

A trait about Robert I've noticed over the years that I've known him, is that he lies. **A lot**. Not lies in regards to changing or inventing facts, but lies in regards to bending truths and withholding information to manipulate a situation. He will choose to leave out specific pieces of information which make him look bad in the eyes of who he is talking to. A result of this is the creation of uncomfortable situations which are doomed to fail from the start. I am saying this in front of him because he knows that this is true - he's gotten into a lot of trouble with it in the past. These were times when I've had to put all my work aside and pull him out of a ditch that he had dug himself into, and I expect this behaviour will create more issues in the future. Do not think for one second that you have been exception to the withholding of information. I am not going to quote the things that he has said and done in the past, but knowing him, I do not believe he has given you all of the facts.

I will preface this next section by saying that I am certain that the two of you share knowledge about each other's messages to Sammi - as such, for the sake of fairness, I had requested that Sammi show me what you two had been sending her since I was now going to put my weight into this.

So, Maria, I will now break down my opinion on the matters of your incompatible personalities.
I'm going to let you a titbit of common sense - **everyone** has difficulties talking to new people. Don't use anxiety - something everyone feels - as an excuse for uncomfortableness and then follow it by telling them that they 'can't begin to imagine' how you feel about the situation. *Yes they can*. You're not any more special than the next person on the street. A moment of sonder will enlighten you to that.

As an online group, **we** have been a very tightly knit, going back many years. The closeness of relationships in this group is likely more-so than I expect Robert would have told you because I imagine he chooses his words around you carefully to not make you uncomfortable, and always shine you as the most important person in his life. This is why I believe he has softened facts about his previous attempts at relationships with other people when explaining them to you.

Unfortunately, I am drawing many parallels with the issues that are appearing now with those that appeared when he last tried to be in a relationship (with 'Teegan').

In the past, the situation was dire. At the risk of sounding big-headed, I must stress the importance - the only reason Robert is still a part of this group is because of **me**. Robert's life was about to head in a very different direction, likely a dangerous one considering Teegan had a violent past, and it is quite likely that the events surrounding his life from that moment onwards were a direct result of my intervention. On that note, the two of you would not be together if it had gone another way. In a more modern context, before you two were going out, Robert would tell me about you - he described how the two of you behaved around each other and I pushed for him to engage with you more because it sounded like the two of you shared a shy puppy-love. I think I told him to 'reach for it', specifically. After the two of you had started going out, there was a conversation raised about the Teegan situation, where Robert thanked me for showing him what he had done in the past was wrong, because now he realised that what he felt for her was not as strong as what he feels for you. The primary lesson that Robert should have learnt that day, was not to be manipulated by blind-sighted relationship bias. Which brings me on to the following point...

Maria, one of the things that Robert had told me about you was that you were catastrophically afraid of being seen as 'clingy', because someone had hurt you in the past by accusing you of being exactly that. As a result of being told that by Robert, the expectation I had for you was someone who was quiet, respectful, humble, shy - generally someone who does not want to be seen as judgemental, jealous, protective or insecure. For the most part, on first impressions, I would say on first glance alone, most of those would be true. However, there are a couple of contradictions that have thrown that image of you out of balance.

**Contradiction 1)** Robert had told me about a situation early on in your relationship, where he was at your place, and you were getting agitated and uncomfortable when he was messaging Sammi. As he told the story, you got so worked up about it that you asked your friend if it was normal to feel that way, and your friend responded by saying: "if you can't handle it, then you probably shouldn't be in a relationship." This story throws the possibility of 'jealousy' and 'insecurity' into light. Alone, this isn't significant, but from what I hear, in a group conversation between the 3 of you, you went on to intentionally make it clear to Sammi that you 'wanted him to focus on you as well'. The fact that you put effort into planning the response and executing it, to me, means that the jealousy was more than a fleeting thought.

Friday was certainly uncomfortable - generally, the kind-hearted thing to do when people are uncomfortable, is to adapt the situation to make them more comfortable, rather than push harder them harder into it. That is what I tried to do by taking on the responsibility of our guests and moving them away from the whole group because I could tell there was no synthesis. The sensible way to react after having an uncomfortable time with people who have different personalities, is to accept it and move on. That is what I expected from everyone.
I spent Friday night messaging Sammi, helping her get her cab booked because I didn't want her to miss her flight - her parents were waiting back in Sweden and I wanted to help her remove any obstacles that would prevent her from getting back. She had severe pains that night, so I helped her diagnose her issue and tried to keep her spirits high for the journey ahead. I do this unconditionally, because she is a close friend to me, as Robert has also been.
I believed that Sammi was a close friend to Robert too, but then the next day came around.

Sammi has just boarded the plane - I knew she was nervous about flying, but I was thankful that she made it on okay. I loaded up the flight tracker and started to relax into my work. All of a sudden, I get a message come through from Sammi, showing me that Robert had sent her messages saying how angry he was at her, how disappointed he felt - he said that Maria had called her 'toxic'. All of a sudden, all at once, just as she was leaving on her flight - the two of you went full bitch-mode on our friend and guest.
The messages went quiet after that because the flight took off – I could not work coherently during that flight. Upon landing, I discovered that she spent the whole flight pouring her sadness out to me.
Put simply, I am appalled.

**Contradiction 2)** Robert is not an angry person by nature. He has never gotten angry at Sammi, nor Nadine, for being quiet. That is simply out of the question. They are basically his family. This is not normal behaviour for **him**. Everyone knows what you two have said about Sammi now. The question was raised: Why? Why the hell would he say that?
Facts arrived quickly: Robert stayed at Maria's. The timing was too coincidental. Robert knew Sammi was on the plane - by himself, he would never say such harmful things. He would **know** that now was the worst time to do so.
There was only one conclusion - the reason Robert was so angry, was because Maria was pushing him to feel that way.
Maria must have felt embarrassed about Friday and decided to externalise her shame by blaming all the shortcomings on Sammi, taking the opportunity to make Robert agitated towards her, and hopefully push the two further away because of Maria's jealous bias against her. Robert, blinded by a relationship bias, wrapped around Maria's fingers, felt as though the situation made him inadequate, and also decided to externalise the blame of his shortcomings on Sammi, not thinking about the impact that doing so would create.
Maria would then be happy, because she had successfully pushed Robert away from Sammi.
This is the running theory that's been adopted by everyone who now knows what you two have said.

And in case there was any doubt as to the motivations behind all of this, Maria, you couldn't help but try to dig at Sammi one more time:
"Anyhow... I am not the kind of person to stay upset. But in the future, I might not show consideration for Robert's friends, knowing they are not going to do that in return."
That sentence is a contradiction.
Another note on something else you said: "it didn't seem as though I was wanted there, as you didn't even seem to want to talk to me". I know I am not Sammi, but I will say: when I tried to compliment you, you turned and walked away faster than anyone I have ever met before. I got the immediate impression that **you** didn't care about interacting, not the other way around.

I am incredibly disappointed in the two of you.
I will protect my honest friends in any way that I can. I have encountered so many manipulative people in my life, to the point where the signs are blinding lights.

The reaction you two have had and the way you tried to shift all of your own shame onto another is absolutely **unacceptable** and quite disgusting. Robert, this is ‘Daniel Smith’ level behaviour right here.

You have crossed a line. I am not going to help you out of the problems that you create any more. In the end, all of this struggle comes down to me. I am the reason you were still part of the friend group after Teegan. If I had let you get on with your fuck-up then Sammi wouldn't be put through this pain today, and maybe you would have actually learnt something.

I don't want a response from either of you. I'd only expect it to be an attempt to shift blame, illicit guilt, or just to justify how 'you don't know me'.

I expected so much more from both of you.