R is the name of the man in this story.
Back story info: Since I live in the buckle of the white jesus christian belt, the weekends downtown are filled with college party goers, theatre goers and your friendly neighborhood sign holders and street preacher screamers. The signs are things like, "It's a fun party here, but not while burning in hell" and "to marry a divorced woman is adultery". The screamer is on the actual square and has a megaphone that he shouts into. Isn't the point of a megaphone that you don't have to shout? He recently received a ticket for violating our noise ordinance.
Anyway, one of the group members started "Positive Presence" which is just a loose collective of people who also hold signs that say things like, "You're great", "I love you", "free hugs" and the like, while standing next to the meanies. She specifically requested that there be no anti-anything signs, especially religious, b/c it was about creating positivity, not an us-vs-them. (Interestingly enough this has caused some sign changes on the part of the meanies and some method changes on part of scream, but this isn't related).
The beginning of the meltdown: I happen to be online and catch a post from R posted into our FB group that says, "I just found out members of this group don't respect me and never have, so f*** you. And this isn't about VP stuff either, I'm done with this f***ing sh!t, I'm out". I delete it about 30 seconds after it's up and text him, "WTF? Inappropriate forum. What's going on?" The devolves into this stupid long phone conversation that basically turns into R went to the Positive Presence group and decided to dress in a provocative manner (provocative like clothing meant to start an argument, he himself referred to his clothing as subversive) and argue with the christians. It actually comes down to physical violence being threatened and he's pissed b/c, "No one had my back." R is at least 30. I talk him down and call the president to tell him what's going on.
This has continued to gain steam as a thing. Then the monthly meeting happens. He brings in his laptop and has his Skype open so his GF can attend by Skype. Whatever, who cares. Well, once he put the laptop on top of a chair and started rolling it around on the floor, while crawling next to it, IN FRONT OF THE SPEAKER I had lined up for the evening, I cared. The speaker had to take a break and I just told R that he couldn't do that. "Well, my GF can't hear". "I'm sorry, we can see about miking the speaker next time and work on fixing that problem for the next meeting, but you're not crawling around in front of the speaker and the audience anymore this evening". "I'm just going to leave then". "Sorry, you feel that way, see you next time".
R then posts on his personal FB that, "I've had to leave some groups that I really care about, b/c I've learned that I can't let things go. I'm not going to care about the bigger problems of the world anymore; I'm just going to care about myself". My eyes were already rolling, but I just hid the post from my sight and went about my merry way. Then, I get his next post, "Apathy is the way for me". The eyerolling became an unfriending b/c stupid. DH says there have been other posts and he's reading just to see how far it goes and if he names names of "the betrayers".