Elephant syndrome

A good memory is a blessing in many ways. My mind is a treasure trove of archived moments of joy; words that lightened my heart; people, places and things I wish to keep close to me. However, the flip side is that I don't forget bad stuff, either. Or bad people. When someone @#$%s with me, or with my friends, I don't let it go. Not a trait I'm proud of.

Several years ago, an utterly dreadful man and his equally dreadful wife joined Shadow Lane. They (mostly him; she was more stupid than arrogant) infiltrated the message board and chat room, holding court, offering unsolicited opinions on pretty much everything. He was a gun-toting, Uber-conservative, bull-necked little toad of a man, and what he lacked in brains, he made up for in nerve. He'd try to tell Tony and Eve how to run their company, their parties, their site. He'd come into the chat rooms and if any of the actresses were there, he'd tell them they shouldn't be doing spanking videos. He'd glom onto every new female that wandered onto the site. He insulted several of my friends, and once, when His Highness didn't care for the SL party at the Riviera, he wrote such a nasty critique (on the Shadow Lane board, no less!) that a flame war of epic proportions ensued. 

I really don't know why E & T put up with him, but I guess that's why I'm not a business owner. I allow personalities to affect me too much.

One time, there was a thread about personality types, and I posted something tongue-in-cheek along the lines of "I tend to evoke one extreme or the other in people -- they either love me or they hate my ass." Shortly after that, someone anonymously posted, "Please count me among those who hate your ass!"

Oh, yes, so brave, taking anonymous potshots. But what this person didn't know was that, although his name didn't show up on the post, his email address came up on Tony's end of things. Guess who? Yeah, Mr. Bull-neck. Tony emailed me to let me know what he'd done: He'd copied and pasted that nasty comment into an email, sent it to Bull-neck and added, "Peekaboo, I see you." I nearly fell off my chair, laughing. Wanted to reach right through the computer screen and give him a smooch.

But here's the best part: Bull-neck, busted and pissed off, quit SL! He and a few of his malcontent cronies then tried to start their own parties, but they quickly discovered that it wasn't as easy as they thought, infighting occurred and their group dissolved after one or two gatherings. Then he and the Mrs. took off in their trailer and disappeared into the cyber ether.

So why am I mentioning this now? Because I saw this person on FetLife last night. Saw his stupid redneck handle, his big stupid face, and all the anger and icky feelings came flooding back. Saw that a couple of friends of mine had commented to him, and my mind screamed, "NO NO NO! Don't be friends with this creep!" Like it's any of my damn business??

FetLife is a huge place with a bazillion members. He has very few friends, so it's highly unlikely that our paths will cross due to friends in common. But just knowing he's there creeps me out. And that's my problem.

My mother spent most of her life ranting and railing about people who had done her wrong, steeping in her own bitterness. I do not want to be her. Not in any way. Resentness is like acid -- it only corrodes the vessel in which it is kept.

Anyone else struggle with grudges? I know it's human nature, but this is a part of my humanity I could do without!