'It's just too painful. He feels tormented by some of the other guys in the group. Apparently they tried this some time ago and the chat descended into bullying him like we were in school, except now we're grown up everyone thinks it doesn't hurt anymore.'

This sounds like a similar situation with some of my family. Individually they are OK but as a group they revert to to their childhood personas and can be quite unpleasant and hurtful to be around.