Lost/toxic friendships

...

I went looking in my "Sent" box for some emails I had, obviously, sent, and got completely sidetracked. I re-read a bunch of really ancient correspondance from back in the heyday of a.t.f. (alt.tv.farscape). I've been hanging out there a long time. Of course I re-subscribed when the mini-series was announced... or possibly even before. I am such an addict.

Anyway, re-reading those emails was interesting, because for the most part it was friendly, or involved coming to good terms, but there were 2 women there with whom I started out very friendly. Now, to put it bluntly, I am toxic to them. There are a lot of reasons for that. I can be a bitch but re-reading all that stuff, I don't think I'd do anything differently today. It still pisses me off if people snip what I wrote to shreds, and then reply to the misquotes and quotes out of context that remain. That's just lousy. But it's also USENET.

I feel some inadequacy in myself for not being able to sustain those relationships. Then I realize that's ridiculous. You can't make everybody like you, no matter what you do. And especially if you hold some strong opinions (like being opposed to situational ethics and moral relativism).

I do miss that sense of camraderie, though. For a long time, I considered them my friends, and I miss that. I had a lot of online friends at one time, because I had no life in the real world. The kids were very small and I was depressed and lived in the computer... now we are out and about all the time, and I know people, and I get more interaction. Sill not enough, but a whole lot more than I used to, back in those days.

I don't have the time to put into it anymore. I can't spend hours on a ng or in a chat room. Even if I had the time, I don't have the patience for it. I feel like I've outgrown all that, and maybe I have. Or maybe I'm just well now, and wasn't then, even though at the time I didn't realize it.

Over the course of my life, I can think of exactly 6 people who have gone from liking and respecting to me to thinking I am evil incarnate. All of this happened in the 1997-2001 time frame. I don't feel I was any different then than I was before, or since. I'm just me, still feel like me although there are some differences: parenthood, for one.

Well... I'm less apt to put up with being condescended to, there is that. But I've always had a big mouth for telling people what they ought to be hearing, no matter whether they want to or not. In every one of those situations, I can recall one pivotal conversation, from which point everything went downhill. And every time, I have to think, I must've been right in what I was saying, otherwise these folks wouldn't have taken it so hard.

I'm not talking about hurling insults or anything of the sort. I'm talking about things like telling a co-worker that I didn't think he'd do well in the job I was leaving when I moved away, which was my honest assessment. It had nothing to do with skills or intelligence, just his temperment and the type of work he enjoyed doing. He went for, and got, the job anyway, and was miserable as predicted... but after that, he really couldn't stand me.

No point in cataloguing them all, I'm not likely to forget and if I do, it doesn't matter. Does not having these relationships impoverish me in some way? I don't think so. I have to balance the negatives with the positives, because these generally were people who created stress for me.

Were they ever really friends to begin with? Or were they, as Amy Alkon would say, acquaintances with frequency?

Up way too late & getting loopy now. Stupid. I have to stay out of Memory Lane, all this introspection just leads to late nights and no great revelations.

Obviously, the doctor's appointment today upset me more than I realized.