fallout from the blog spat...

I received this private message today:

your blog

I just wanted you to know that I have chosen not to read what many (many) have called a vicious attack on me in your blog.

I'm going to take their words for it that you have far overstepped the bounds of civility.That you would devote such time and energy to me is telling (you wouldn't like what it tells).

Please do not post in my blog again, and do not write to me. (I'd prefer it if you left me alone, even in your own blog, but you must do what is important to you.)

dogfaceboy


What vicious personal attack? Saying I don't understand how a person can't relate to the pain the aborted thing, however you want to clarify it, feels? How is my confusion a personal attack? Why is my expressing my opinion that there is some internal inconsistency going on there a personal attack?

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Not that this is a court of law or anything even close, but still... it's nice to give people the benefit of the doubt. I respect her right to have her opinions. I just don't understand them, and I have the right -- the moral obligation, even -- to question them, if only for the purpose of going through the exercise, since I wasn't questioning her directly. Never mind about all that, though, because many (many!) people have told her that I attacked her viciously, that's good enough for her, and good enough for her to issue the restraining order.

I'm not going to pretend this is not upsetting to me. I don't think I'm unusual in that I generally want people to like me. I know that it's not possible for everyone to like me... it's not even likely. However, I managed to get through 41 years of my life without anyone ever having asked me to stop writing to them. No, that's not right -- there is one other person, who, come to think of it, is a lot like dogfaceboy: well-educated, articulate, interesting, and dogmatically liberal. That individual is the primary reason I quit hanging out at alt.tv.farscape. (Well, that person, and getting a real life. Recovery from depression is a wonderful thing.)

OK, that was a therapeutic paragraph. I feel a little bit better. I know this will nag at me for a while, but I have to let it go. There's certainly no point in appealing to dogfaceboy for a more fair hearing: if she wanted to give me a fair hearing, she would've at least read my blog before sending off that message.

This will save me plenty of time carefully composing bootless responses, no doubt...that's certainly an upside.