A Word....
Mar. 15th, 2005 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sildilI said to myself I wouldn't do this. I decided it would be ill advised and unprofitable. I don't normally sound off in my LJ. It's primarily a place for posting my pics, until I get a site sorted out, occasional stories and the odd comment about life in general.
Apart from ranting to a few who know me well, the vast majority of whom I have met in real life, I tend not to use this facility to sound off. However, there comes a time when keeping quiet and simply ignoring the abuse is not the answer. Partly, as I have found other people have also suffered the same level of criticism, manipulation, sniping, and abusive emails, and while we all keep quiet and don't rock the boat, the perpetrators get away with it time and time again.
Facts:
1. My playing in a very small, private RP group was not a secret. I bored to death anyone on IM who was around to listen. It was not my group, I had no say in the running of it at the time, though I do now. Why I should be taken to task about it is beyond me, surely it's entirely my business with who I spend and what I do with my spare time.
2. I was not asked to put my apparently 'incestuous picture' behind a LJ cut. I was simply told by one person that my latest pictures were 'too dark' for some tastes. I replied and explained that I put things behind cuts if and only if I consider them to be above a PG13 rating. The picture in question was of two affectionate brothers and any other interpretation, I am afraid is in the mind of the person viewing it. Apart from then receiving verbal abuse via email (and I quote: "My dear, look these up in your dictionary: "Fag Hag" and "Pathetic Middle Age Crone". Then try the phrase "Mutton dressed as lamb." They are from me alone to you......As far as I am concerned, you may go fuck yourself because no one else will") nothing was actually mentioned to me about any one particular picture and the first I heard about it being the drawing I did of the twins, was via a third party, who had received another even more sickeningly abusive rant in their email box. *Creaky sound of goal posts being shifted*
3. LJ friendship to me is really rather superficial. You friend me, I friend you. We comment in each other's journals sometimes, sometimes we don't. I am always happy to see a comment, but not heartbroken if I don't. I use filters on occasion, so as not to bore people with stuff I know they might not be interested in, and I filter my friends page as I honestly haven't the time to read everyone's posts each day, but I usually find time to catch up on reading the others at some point each week. Being 'defriended' really is not a big issue to me. You don't like what I post? Then don't look at it or read it. I assume that people who really consider me a friend, would be talking to me on IM or mailing me and not solely relying on my LJ for the relationship to work.
4. Yes I did join in with the argument over 'gay marriage'. I feel very strongly about this indeed, and belong to two Christian gay and lesbian action groups who are fighting among other things for the right to marry in church. I am afraid though that I did fight unfairly and have apologised to the person concerned. We have agreed to disagree on certain points, and are friends once more, for which I am very thankful. But I will say that to post a nasty comment in MY LJ to that person's innocent remark, just because one wishes to continue to harass and make trouble merely results in it being deleted. Similarly any other derogatory comment that is made to any of my friends.
I do not like bullies. I do not like people who seek to control or manipulate others weaker and more vulnerable than themselves. I do not like people who use their friendship like a carrot; 'do this and I will be your friend'; 'let me down' in some trivial way, (like not being online at some ridiculous hour of the night) and I will make sure you suffer for it; go along with my little game and do what I want to do, but if you actually have the nerve to say you won't, I will find some excuse to humiliate and belittle you. This is playground behaviour of the worst sort. I have always told my kids not to stand for it, and I would urge others not to either. Bullies only get their way if they are allowed to do so, stand up to them and they resort to cowardly, ineffectual name calling.
EDIT: Uli's experiences here...
Apart from ranting to a few who know me well, the vast majority of whom I have met in real life, I tend not to use this facility to sound off. However, there comes a time when keeping quiet and simply ignoring the abuse is not the answer. Partly, as I have found other people have also suffered the same level of criticism, manipulation, sniping, and abusive emails, and while we all keep quiet and don't rock the boat, the perpetrators get away with it time and time again.
Facts:
1. My playing in a very small, private RP group was not a secret. I bored to death anyone on IM who was around to listen. It was not my group, I had no say in the running of it at the time, though I do now. Why I should be taken to task about it is beyond me, surely it's entirely my business with who I spend and what I do with my spare time.
2. I was not asked to put my apparently 'incestuous picture' behind a LJ cut. I was simply told by one person that my latest pictures were 'too dark' for some tastes. I replied and explained that I put things behind cuts if and only if I consider them to be above a PG13 rating. The picture in question was of two affectionate brothers and any other interpretation, I am afraid is in the mind of the person viewing it. Apart from then receiving verbal abuse via email (and I quote: "My dear, look these up in your dictionary: "Fag Hag" and "Pathetic Middle Age Crone". Then try the phrase "Mutton dressed as lamb." They are from me alone to you......As far as I am concerned, you may go fuck yourself because no one else will") nothing was actually mentioned to me about any one particular picture and the first I heard about it being the drawing I did of the twins, was via a third party, who had received another even more sickeningly abusive rant in their email box. *Creaky sound of goal posts being shifted*
3. LJ friendship to me is really rather superficial. You friend me, I friend you. We comment in each other's journals sometimes, sometimes we don't. I am always happy to see a comment, but not heartbroken if I don't. I use filters on occasion, so as not to bore people with stuff I know they might not be interested in, and I filter my friends page as I honestly haven't the time to read everyone's posts each day, but I usually find time to catch up on reading the others at some point each week. Being 'defriended' really is not a big issue to me. You don't like what I post? Then don't look at it or read it. I assume that people who really consider me a friend, would be talking to me on IM or mailing me and not solely relying on my LJ for the relationship to work.
4. Yes I did join in with the argument over 'gay marriage'. I feel very strongly about this indeed, and belong to two Christian gay and lesbian action groups who are fighting among other things for the right to marry in church. I am afraid though that I did fight unfairly and have apologised to the person concerned. We have agreed to disagree on certain points, and are friends once more, for which I am very thankful. But I will say that to post a nasty comment in MY LJ to that person's innocent remark, just because one wishes to continue to harass and make trouble merely results in it being deleted. Similarly any other derogatory comment that is made to any of my friends.
I do not like bullies. I do not like people who seek to control or manipulate others weaker and more vulnerable than themselves. I do not like people who use their friendship like a carrot; 'do this and I will be your friend'; 'let me down' in some trivial way, (like not being online at some ridiculous hour of the night) and I will make sure you suffer for it; go along with my little game and do what I want to do, but if you actually have the nerve to say you won't, I will find some excuse to humiliate and belittle you. This is playground behaviour of the worst sort. I have always told my kids not to stand for it, and I would urge others not to either. Bullies only get their way if they are allowed to do so, stand up to them and they resort to cowardly, ineffectual name calling.
EDIT: Uli's experiences here...
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-16 05:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-16 07:14 am (UTC)