Tuesday, August 09, 2005
For some reason I'm feeling a little melancholy today... I miss my Girls. No, no, I'm not talking about my boobs (though I have been known to refer to them as The Girls). I mean my Cyber Friends. Yes, clearly since I keep a blog, it should be pretty obvious that I'm a big internet geek, and like most internet geeks, I have--or should I say, HAD a little corner where I could visit a group of people and chat. Sort of an Online KaffeeKlatch. We've known each other for years, having met on another board and bounced around different areas over the years until setting into a private message board. The thing I liked about The Board was that I could talk to several people with one post--I am a crappy Email Friend. I take forever to reply to emails, sometimes not replying at all. Why?? I honestly don't know. And on top of that, I don't initiate much in the way of email communication because I think it sounds stupid to write and say, "Hey. Oh, my kid said something funny today. Nothing else going on. Bye." Maybe it's genetic: last week, I got an email from my mom: "Great news! John is back with his unit!!!" Huh? Well, my brother John is in Iraq. I scroll down from the email, which she had forwarded after getting a response from him, and all I could glean from it was that he went somewhere, and he's really tired now. So. "Back"? Does she mean "back in the U.S.A."? Does she mean he went out on a mission somewhere and has returned to his unit in Baghdad safely? Perhaps she didn't email me previous to getting this information because she didn't want me to worry. At least I finally got his email address. So I emailed him and asked, "What the HELL is she talking about?" Still haven't heard back from him. See, it's genetic.
Anyway, I said I miss my friends. I miss them because I had to leave the board. Well, I felt I had to leave. I had unloaded about some problems I had been having with Rusty in a post during a time when I was feeling frustrated and helpless. He was going through a bad spell of depression and I was frustrated both by his behavior and by the fact that there were so many obstacles in our way to getting him help. I got a couple of helpful responses, and after a couple of days, the crisis had passed. I posted about the resolution in the same thread. A few days later, from out of nowhere, comes a post from Person A: "Run. Don't Walk. Run." There were so many things about this post that pissed me off--where to start?? First, the fact that this person waited a week before baiting me in this way. She had been on the board and posted to other threads during that time, so it wasn't because she had only just seen my post. She obviously only posted to poke at me for her own personal entertainment. I expect that sort of behavior on public boards where you don't know everyone who is reading, but on My Board? I've known every one of those ladies for at least 4 years, some for almost 8!! So where does she get off playing with me like that? And such helpful advice, too: a horror movie trailer to describe my relationship with the man I love. And then to top it off, this person has a strikingly similar history of depression herself, and almost lost her marriage because of it. So to advise me to do something that she was almost the victim of? You would think she, of all people, would be the most understanding of his side of the issue, and encourage my support rather than abandoning him. But because she had been so flip, I responded in an equally flip manner, pointing out that had her husband taken that advice, she would be in a much different situation. Could I have handled it better? Sure. Was I wrong? No. Of course it erupted into juvenile vitriol. I could have handled even that with no lasting bruises, but then other members had to start jumping in and defending her. I still try to figure out how it is that she can pick a fight and I'm the bad guy for defending myself. Some friends, eh?
So I miss them. I guess I miss who I thought they were. Or maybe they really were friends and they were all having crappy days, too, I don't know. I do know that no one has bothered to try to see my side of things or offer any explanation for why they thought her attack was OK but my response was so bad. I've had disagreements before, and I've always been able to resolve them and get through it. I am not above seeing when I've been wrong. I've admitted mistakes, I've apologized. But I don't apologize if I don't mean it, and I don't "play nice" when someone's being hostile to me just because it might make others uncomfortable. And she hit me in the most personal spot she could. I couldn't let it go. And since that time, the fact that Rusty has gotten counseling and medication for his depression reinforces my position that what he needed was help, not abandonment.
I don't know why I'm going on about this today... avoiding going to the gym, I guess. But I guess I wanted the few friends I knew there that still check in here to know that I do miss them.
Anyway, I said I miss my friends. I miss them because I had to leave the board. Well, I felt I had to leave. I had unloaded about some problems I had been having with Rusty in a post during a time when I was feeling frustrated and helpless. He was going through a bad spell of depression and I was frustrated both by his behavior and by the fact that there were so many obstacles in our way to getting him help. I got a couple of helpful responses, and after a couple of days, the crisis had passed. I posted about the resolution in the same thread. A few days later, from out of nowhere, comes a post from Person A: "Run. Don't Walk. Run." There were so many things about this post that pissed me off--where to start?? First, the fact that this person waited a week before baiting me in this way. She had been on the board and posted to other threads during that time, so it wasn't because she had only just seen my post. She obviously only posted to poke at me for her own personal entertainment. I expect that sort of behavior on public boards where you don't know everyone who is reading, but on My Board? I've known every one of those ladies for at least 4 years, some for almost 8!! So where does she get off playing with me like that? And such helpful advice, too: a horror movie trailer to describe my relationship with the man I love. And then to top it off, this person has a strikingly similar history of depression herself, and almost lost her marriage because of it. So to advise me to do something that she was almost the victim of? You would think she, of all people, would be the most understanding of his side of the issue, and encourage my support rather than abandoning him. But because she had been so flip, I responded in an equally flip manner, pointing out that had her husband taken that advice, she would be in a much different situation. Could I have handled it better? Sure. Was I wrong? No. Of course it erupted into juvenile vitriol. I could have handled even that with no lasting bruises, but then other members had to start jumping in and defending her. I still try to figure out how it is that she can pick a fight and I'm the bad guy for defending myself. Some friends, eh?
So I miss them. I guess I miss who I thought they were. Or maybe they really were friends and they were all having crappy days, too, I don't know. I do know that no one has bothered to try to see my side of things or offer any explanation for why they thought her attack was OK but my response was so bad. I've had disagreements before, and I've always been able to resolve them and get through it. I am not above seeing when I've been wrong. I've admitted mistakes, I've apologized. But I don't apologize if I don't mean it, and I don't "play nice" when someone's being hostile to me just because it might make others uncomfortable. And she hit me in the most personal spot she could. I couldn't let it go. And since that time, the fact that Rusty has gotten counseling and medication for his depression reinforces my position that what he needed was help, not abandonment.
I don't know why I'm going on about this today... avoiding going to the gym, I guess. But I guess I wanted the few friends I knew there that still check in here to know that I do miss them.
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