Isn't Gary the one causing the problem here?
 

People online seem to all be on board of the 'Gary's being bullied' bandwagon but are people sure that's the case?

Even though a lot of people will follow the crowd, isn't it weird that almost all of the house apart from Frency...who is a troublemaker herself, seem to dislike Gary.

I understand that Gary has a mental illness and might react in a different way to one of the other housemates but in all honestly, why would you want to be around someone who you're living with for 24/7 when they constantly tell you to be quiet so they can speak or make you sit there for ages while they explain to you about how they've lived for 32 past lives. It might be okay if you could disagree and add input but Gary doesn't let people do that.

I think Gary is the main problem here and I'm not really sure if he should be put in. I dislike James and find him a little bit too eager for an argument but the other day Gary was going on and on to start an argument and it was very clear what he was doing but people on twitter still claimed that James was bullying Gary? :shrug:

I personally do not think it is a case of bullying, it is a case of having empathy and understanding. Of course he should be in there, he is, so far as I am concerned, the star of the show. Because he is 70 does not mean to say he is 70 within, age is only numbers. He has a disability which makes him sound aggressive at times but he has a lovely way of turning everything around to his own advantage.

He enjoyed the scrap heap because it was less noise and he could chat to the others on a one to one basis, he felt safer than the main house. It is a very difficult thing and the others should feel blessed that they do not have the same disability, mind you who knows where any of them will be in a few years time. Will they be healthy etc. etc. no matter what they will want the support of those around them, sadly what goes around sometimes comes around.

I dont know where the bullying comes from but i wouldnt say it was bullying. It is more that they are lacking any tolerance or care of someone who struggles with some things. He has difficulty hearing when in a group situation and when he is talking he has to tell people to listen because they speak over him. Yes he can say some things that dont sound nice, after all he isnt perfect. James is gobby & argumentative, he has said not so nice things, Kellie has said some awful stuff, Stephanie can say nasty stuff as does Leslie. Have any HM's ignored them, called them names, deliberately tried to belittle? No they have not.

It's not bullying at all.. If anything, i see this situation with 'Gary vs the house' as a bunch of people struggling to put up with an insufferable man who thinks he's always right and knows everything about the world.
Yes he's 70 years old, yes he has brain damage, yes he is a legend, yes he might be a bit slow on the uptake because of all these things, but none of those things excuse the fact that he is rude and obnoxious.
If he has so much life experience as a 70 year old, how does he not know how to behave and speak to people properly? idgi.
Gary reminds me a lot of my Bampy who died a few years ago, he was a gentle person.. but he had no social awareness at all and thought he could get away with it because of his age and hearing problems, people always tried their best to deal with him, to help him with everything that he needed or wanted, but in the end he'd turn round and say the wrong things to people and upset them and never apologise because he thought he didn't do anything wrong, it's incredibly hard to deal with, so I, in all honesty can see why the housemates are getting annoyed by Gary, they have tried to help him and talk to him but he just doesn't seem to understand that his attitude is a major problem.

Isn't it also a bit of cultural difference as well as the previous points made in this thread. I agree that James is so quick to take offence and then wants to carry it on and on.

Gary needs time to adjust to British ways and with diminished hearing, he is struggling.

I think James is aware of this but with his volatile nature cannot give Gary some leeway when he struggles.

James was volatile in SCD, given the boot for it at the end, so it is not just the Gary situation which pushes his buttons, it is his nature and it is not a pleasant thing to watch when he ridicules a man with mental and health problems.

I don't think James is bullying Gary, he's just being a d**kh**d :tongue:

But I do agree with the paragraph above. Gary is no saint. I don't know if it's due to his brain injury, but he does seem unwilling to let others speak sometimes, and quite opinionated to the point of not listening to others' opinions.

On the other hand, some of them are being mean to him when he's not being like this, and have a constant attitude towards Gary. So while I think Gary is partly a source of the problem, they are completely intolerant of him. Nobody seems to have an attitude with anybody else (apart from Frenchy but she's something else!) when surely they'd have all rubbed each other up the wrong way living together 24/7. They only seemed to "turn on eachother" when Gary and Frenchy were sent to the scrapheap and they all had to pick somebody else to be pissed off at haha.

No. There's nothing more to say.

I cannot see that he is insufferable, he seems to listen, didnt he shower when he was told to :cheer2: He just needs someone to understand and not make fun of him. To be deaf is to not be able to understand a conversation in bulk, as we know, it is a very lonely thing. He is better on a one to one basis but they seem to walk away. Remember Sam who won against Dexter, I didnt like him at all but he said that no one would talk to him, now he was a young person. He felt left out because of his disabilty. Very sad but he won.

I know many keep on saying mental health problems but, I do not think he has. He wouldnt have been allowed to take part I am sure, either by his agents or the powers that be in BB.

It shows the depth of misunderstand of hearing loss to assume Gary must have mental health issues.

Gary wouldn't be easy to get on with. He can be rude, arrogant and ungrateful but he gets away with it (with the public) because he's Gary Busey, he's 70, he's hard of hearing and he's a fascinating character - and we don't have to live with him. :hehe:
I don't see any evidence of mental incapacity, in fact, he's as switched on as any or them, if not more so in many ways. He is elderly, so maybe he's not as quick to take things in and move about as much as the others, but he's savvy and has a lot of cunning imo.
What puzzles me (at the risk of being called sexist) is that none of the women of the house are being more solicitous and caring towards him. They don't seem to bother with him at all really.
James is accused of bullying him? - yet he is the one who seems to find him fascinating and talks to him and gives him attention. Unfortunately, James has this belligerent, 'jokey - argumentative' way about him which masks quite a kindly and insecure person. imo The other day when James was encouraging Lauren, Gary was butting in and obviously trying to wind James up, yet people were saying James was being awful to Gary again!!! Most of the others wouldn't have given him the time of day yet James stayed and talked to him even when Gary kept pushing his buttons. I think James loves interacting with him even though he annoys him. I think it's the most interesting relationship in the house right now. They are my 2 fave HM's at the moment purely for the dynamics between them and the entertainment value.

Not in the sense of mental illness but in his thought process, his hearing and his being out of his normal environments.

They all play a part but I can see he sometimes can retaliate immediately but this maybe because there is any periferal noise going on around him.

If he was interviewed in a room with one to one contact, he would seem far more normal, but quite honestly I don't believe that BB are that concerned about contestants health or Kellie and Gary wouldn't have made it on at all.

I don't think Gary's causing the problems no.

I do think it is showing how intolerant people (some people) are and can be to other peoples difficulties, I do not think it's bullying at all Gary can be awkward and annoying at times just like everyone else can but he is in no way 'insufferable'

They just can't be bothered to deal with Gary's hearing or other problems so the easy thing for them to do is isolate him, when they do need to repeat themselves and things like that they get annoyed about it as if it's a waste of their time.

Take the conversation with James from last nights highlights as an example. He was annoyed at Gary before they have even started having the conversation, he looked at Gary in disgust as if he wasn't entitled to join the conversation, the man is entitled to have an opinion and try to interact with the group.

The nature of man is so strange and unwarranted sometimes, I have a disabled daughter with children of her own but, because she is in a wheelchair people tend to chat to the person with her even about her as though she were invislbe or stupid! She gets so annoyed.

I agree this is why his vts are so revealing. I do believe that the powers that be do have a code of conduct as to the welfare of the HMs, if they dont then they should. I still do not see why Kellie or Gary wouldnt have made the show, they are both entertaining in their own way. Am wondering whether Kellie is still sticking up for Gary now that she is back in the main group though?

Yeah, I imagine that must be frustrating for your daughter. It makes me mad... it's not like becoming disabled couldn't happen to any of us at any time. You'd think people would be a bit more understanding. But as you say, the nature of man is so strange.

Of course Gary is no Saint - nor have I thought he is being bullied.......as we have seen, he is more than capable of holding his own and is even a bit of a wind up merchant

However, the majority of the house are so far up their own asses, that they are showing their own lack of ability to be patient etc and are working in a narrow minded pack mentality. It's their own downfall and makes Gary a brilliant hm to watch

I was just going to say something along these lines, thanks :)

I didn't notice that. When did it happen?
Do you see no blame in Gary at all? What about when David brought him the ice pack and he was rude and dismissive of him for example...Gary is a brilliant HM and he isn't the sole cause of the problems obviously, but he contributes to them.

Of course Gary can be to blame at times, I mentioned in my post that he can be awkward like everyone else but from what we have seen he has barely done anything wrong and certainly not to the extent of being insufferable.

I disagree with you that he was rude with the ice pack thing Jet, a little abrupt because he was in pain perhaps but he wasn't rude and certainly did not resort to insulting anyone but David did..

I was talking about the conversation with James, Lauren and Gary btw above, James looked at Gary with that nasty expression he has before Gary had even properly joined the conversation.

James may even think he is helping Gary at times (and that's only because he was told to IMO) but he said himself to Stephanie that Gary (and Frenchy) were like animals and it's better when they are letting them out of their cage, telling them when to eat and so on. That is a despicable thing to say and think.

Yeah I agree. When Gary first said "that one ice pack won't be enough" David could have easily just said "yeah true but it might be worth a try", but instead he turned it into a debate about how ungrateful Gary is. They have such a sensitive trigger for Gary and are ready to jump on him for any little thing.

What David said in retort, which was backed up by both Leslie and Stephanie was 'well if you go lay on your bed, i'll do some more for you'

I agree that he isn't 'insufferable'. Far from it. But I think that he was certainly rude when David brought him the ice pack. He complained that one wasn't enough and didn't even thank him. Now, if Rikki or James had acted like that would it be rude?
The convo with Lauren - James was encouraging Lauren in something she wanted to do and Gary was mumbling away about not 'pushing' her at the start of the scene - that is what I saw anyway. :shrug: He likes to wind people up imo. But I love him, he's great to watch. :laugh:

And isn't Gary allowed to have an opinion on things then? because that's all it was, an opinion. Do you think James would have reacted the way he did in reply to that had George or Stephanie said it? I honestly don't.

excellent post :clap1: I fully agree that gary has done himself no favours, it must be a nightmare living with him.