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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

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!

13 comments:

  1. I have this neighbor (I live on a military post and we live in townhome style buidlings.) I live in D she lives in B.

    Well, she made friends with this girl that I thought was nice, too. This girl ended up not being very nice, and insulted me on my facebook (quite rudely, I might add). I was just trying to be nice when this happened, and that made it all the more worse.

    I talked to my friend about it and asked her to not have this girl around (afterall, her and I were BEST friends and her and this girl were just acquaintances.)

    But no. It wasn't happening. The girl was about to go through a deployment and my friend felt the need to be there for her, (even though her lack of friends is probably her own damn fault!). It put a strain on our friendship, and now I feel so.. uncomfortable.

    This girl comes over all the time now, and it drives me insane because I feel like I'm allowing her so much control over me.

    I take it day by day and keep reminding myself that I just need to focus on me, and my family. Hiding in my house and allowing her to make me feel uncomfortable is doing nothing but letting her 'win'. So now? I go outside when she's there, I laugh, I socialize, I do my own thing.
    Guess what happened once I started doing that? Bitch hasn't been back for over two weeks! =D

    You're not alone! There are plenty of us that have a problem with grudges.

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  2. She -- blech! At least this jackass isn't my neighbor. We give others way too much power, don't we? Welcome, by the way. :-)

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  3. Erica,
    There are plenty of creeps in this world. You are very right in trying to warn your friends. That is not carrying a grudge, it is a friend helping a friend. In the group I belong to misbehavior is not tolerated and we do protect each other especially the ladies from the creeps.
    joey

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  4. joey -- I do try to protect my friends; I recently warned a gal pal when I saw a well-known creepazoid on FetLife glomming onto her. However... there is a fine line between protecting, and telling other people what to do and whom to befriend. I tread it carefully.

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  5. Hello my dear Erica, When it come's to grudge's i know how you feel cause i feel the same way, I had a few creep's do TERRIBLE thing's to me in my life and i know i could NEVER forgive these idiot's cause they hurt me VERY badly :-( I hate when someone tell's me that they will alway's be here for me then they toss me aside like a piece of trash i don't like people that lie it's because of them that i don't trust anyone :-( then i end up feeling worthless cause of what someone did and i blame myself for it but all along it was their fault not mine they were the loser's not me :-)I Love you my dear friend big hug's xoxo From your naughty girl Jade

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  6. I also remember EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, it seems to be human nature that your mind latches on to the one bad comment about something amongst 50 complimentary comments. Those things I try to put to the back of my mind but they are still there.

    There are people I'd rather avoid, lots of weirdos on FL of course, but I try to keep it to myself unless a friend directly asked me what I thought of the person. I have also been warned about some people over the years by friends I trusted, and I took their comments to heart. I think my friends tend to be good judges of character, and I bet you are too. Better safe than sorry. I'd rather miss a chance on getting to know someone than risk being outted by some douchebag.

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  7. Boy can I relate! I have a major problem letting go of things and I tend to try to "fix" stuff in my mind to make it "right". I especially have a problem if I believe I was right and I was not listened to. An example is when I was falsly accused of twisting another girl's arm at school and the teacher didn't even listen to my side of the story and made me get up in front of class and appologize for something I didn't do. That still bothers me.

    I just don't seem to be able to let go. I am talking about it with my therapist, too, and I am not sure I will ever get to where I can just let go of the past instead of trying to fix it, which I can't, and so it goes. I just wonder sometimes what it is about it that makes it so hard to let go of a lot of things that really don't matter anymore. I think about them and I get angry all over again and wish I could tell them off. It really is an enigma.

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  8. As we've talked before, we're all bitter, spiteful and angry at times. It's what we do with it that separates us from the assholes. Generally, we'r provoked into eliciting those kinds of emotions, while the assholes generate those feelings all on their own.

    Just my two cents.

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  9. Jade -- you'll never hear me say to anyone "I'll always be here for you." I don't think it's humanly possible to always be there, and I don't think it's right to promise it.

    Lea -- I like to think I can judge people fairly well. Sometimes, my ego takes over, when I see someone who is obviously such an asshat, and I think "HOW can anyone like this person? Why don't they know what I know?" But that's not my business, really.

    Bobbie Jo -- if there were such a thing as a "letting go" pill, I'd certainly seek a prescription.

    Craig -- makes sense. Writing about this crap is one of the things that prevents me from doing/saying things I might regret.

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  10. I'm a grudge holder, I have to admit. It drives me bonkers if a friend of mine comments on something someone who irks me wrote. I'm always thinking "don't talk to them, he/she is an idiot, don't you see it??!!"

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  11. iggy -- right?? What's wrong with these people, dammit?

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  12. Erica, in my book holding a grudge is a good thing. It reflects that you have values--that some things in life are not easily overlooked or forgotten--and that is as Nature intended, I believe. Of course, like anything else, you can overdo it; allow it to rule your life. But most people are not prone to that. I think we're sometimes a little too quick to forgive and forget. It lets the wrongdoer off the hook a little too easily. So I for one think you're entitled to hold the view that you have of this creep. If more people censured these jerks, they might lose a little of their arrogance and impulse to needlessly criticize others. Karma is a bitch--and to my great surprise and ultimate delight, I've discovered that it's actually real when it matters!

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  13. MisterBlister -- I like the way you think! :-) Thank you.

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