Friendships

Lifehack.org was hosting a contest this week asking people to write blog posts on relationships Though entering the contest doesn’t float my boat (the prizes either don’t do anything for me or I already have ’em!), I was still thinking about relationships, specifically friendships.? Lately I’ve had the unpleasant experience of finding that some people aren’t the friends that I thought they were.

Last week I got a private message at the Glass Haven from a member:

I have considered you a friend since meeting you on TAM…you know that right? I was very upset about all of the bannings and was outspoken about it. I thought then and now that it was bullshit.

When ***** starts attacking me…as he has here, on his blog, at the ISGB and the GLDG…I’m not taking anymore. I know you want to believe in the kinder, gentler ***** that started last summer but he has not changed in my eyes or many others that he has been attacking.

Are you a member of the ISGB? Did you see the attacks on me…see why he was banned? He did not choose to not re-new his membership…he couldn’t.

I thought we were friends…you talk about your forum as being somewhere where everyone is treated with respect… his tag line right after I thought about leaving was OK? His flipping me off was OK? Obviously I need to control my own temper…but I am not going to let him continue attacking. I’m sick of it…I don’t deserve it. He is mad at me because I filed a complaint at the ISGB and the resulting ban. Since then…well as you and others know, he is like a dog with a bone…he won’t drop it and likes to try to spin it his way.

I miss you and others here, a lot. That’s why I kept coming…without posting to avoid his comments. I dread looking at PM’s here…I don’t know if you can see them but he likes to use that feature.

I don’t know what to say other than I missed you and *shrug* I don’t know what else to say.

Yes, I had thought we were friends as well. But my only contact with this person for the past four months is when she visits the forum to carry on her feud with the person she mentions. As I said to her:

Friends don’t go visiting just to trash other people’s homes. I considered both you and ***** friends and I don’t appreciate either of you automatically expecting me to take one side or the other, because I see right and wrong from both of you.

I’ve been online for a long, long time and seen a lot, and certainly know that people are not always who they seem. I’ve always tried to be authentic, myself, and usually done it as well online as I do in real life. The past year or two and the drama in the lampworking forum world have nonetheless been a real eye-opening education, though.

I don’t go to TAM — I am no longer welcome there — but I do have sources that keep me informed. It’s not fun to be a focus of hostility from people who don’t know me at all; it’s hurtful to see people that I thought were friends believing the distorted half-truths and outright lies told about me by those who regard me as Scum of the Earth (either overtly by agreeing with them, or complicitly by their silence); it’s disheartening and downright disgusting to see individuals who loudly proclaim their position as “Spokesperson For All That is Right and True” try to destroy my reputation because I maintain my own integrity and stand up for my own beliefs in the face of their attacks. Actively combating their attacks is futile because proving I DIDN’T do something is damned difficult. My only recourse is to maintain my own integrity…and vent to my TRUE friends.