Wow. Ok, so now I’m rather flabbergasted. In the interest of protecting the innocent, if there are such things, I suppose I’ll avoid some of the more strenuous details.
It appears as though no matter what I do, it’s wrong. I take a stand against passive/aggressive behavior and it’s wrong. If I let people walk all over me, it’s also wrong. Apparently I’m a liar now, too. Oh…and it’s also apparently common knowledge that I read everyone’s PMs over at the P&T forums. Which I don’t. Or maybe I do. Yes, that’s right! I have so much fucking free time on my hands – what with my full time job and my kids and my attempt to get published and all, that I routinely go through over 100,000 PMs and categorize them and print them out and plot ways to fuck up people’s lives. Gee, glad I got that little confession out of the way.
Mmmm….nice to see however that apparently people think otherwise. It puts me in a bit of a quandary. Only one person has ever come to me directly and asked. I told them no. I would have hoped that the buck would have stopped there – but again, innocent or not – if I say nothing, than I’m obviously guilty. If I protest too much…I’m also obviously guilty. So how do you walk such a fine line?
And more to the point, why do I even bother to put up with all this bullshit? I pay $360 a year to host that site. I give everyone my time, my effort, my everything. Nice to see how much it pays off. People who don’t respond to requests. People who apparently give two shits about what has to go on behind the scenes to keep a forum running. People who feel it’s better to talk about me behind my back. People who accuse me of things that I have not done. Things that I have told people in apparent confidence have been leaked. But really, should I expect better? I’m just as guilty, for all that.
Yes. I have access to the PMs. Yes I could read them if I wanted. Yes, I have done so, on *one* occasion, several years ago when it was either that or close the site. Am I proud of it? No. Was it necessary? At the time, I thought so. I suppose I might argue that if I’m paying for the site, that means I own it, but really, I’d like to think I’m a better person than that.
Too bad it’s apparently not a shared opinion. So again, where does this leave me? Perhaps it is, in fact, time to move on to bigger and better things. There’s no need to allow myself to be taken for granted, is there? I’m tired of trying to please everyone. I’m tired of dancing around subjects lest I offend people. I’m tired of trying. I’m tired of whining. I’m tired, period.
