Post by Tiger on Oct 20, 2017 18:24:50 GMT -5
I’m taking a hiatus from the forum, starting tonight/tomorrow (Saturday) and going...I don’t know how long. Through the rest of October at least, and maybe through November as well.
I was originally going to just go, but after some thought and discussion, I decided I ought to say something, in the interest of communication and not just disappearing in case anyone got worried, and I didn’t want to leave what’s making me go unaddressed - otherwise I come back and it starts all over again and that’s no good.
The specific incident that led me to this was me dropping out of Wrighton back on the 14th, and in the near-week since then - literally only one person out of the entire playerbase said anything. I wasn’t expecting anyone to try and talk me into staying or even to ask for collabs or anything drastic like that - but a few “sorry you’re dropping out” or “I’ll miss you/your characters but do what you gotta do” messages seem kind of standard for such a thing. ...Not going to lie, I am really, really hurt and angry about this. I’m trying to keep calm and detached here so I don’t come across like a crazy rage-machine and undermine my own points, but please don’t misread that as me being remotely okay with it.
Now, I’m sure everybody has specific reasons for not commenting that I hope don’t really have anything to do with me or my characters (to be clear, no, you don't have to post with said explanation unless you want to; I'm not trying to center this around that one incident). Normally I’d just try to accept that and move on, but, this also comes after literally years’ worth of incidents where I’ve felt like I or my characters/stories were, at best, ignored or tolerated, and at worst, disliked, but nobody wanted to cause a ruckus and say so. Soooo three guesses how the silence here gets interpreted.
The real issue, though, is that I felt like I couldn’t bring this up and expect a good outcome. I didn’t feel I could tell my friends that they’d done something hurtful to me and get a response that really considered that. Just about every argument I’ve had here recently, about something someone’s done that was hurtful/upsetting/offensive has basically devolved into the other person going “Well - this is why I did it” or, in so many words, “But I want to do this thing.” There doesn’t seem to be much effort to see the other person’s point of view, or to try and reach a compromise that works for both parties. Apologies have become rare. And even when people do apologize, it feels like there aren’t behavior changes to go along with it (and much less with no apologies are given).
I’m not sure how to fix this, and I’m not trying to start an argument or anything as I head out the door. I know I probably haven’t been perfect at this, either. But I do think it’s important to at least bring up that this is a problem, and I think it makes just about every interaction a lot more stressful than it ought to be. We’re all a tight-knit group and we interact with each other a lot - we’re going to do things that hurt each others’ feelings sometimes, and when that happens, the other person needs to be able to come forward and say something, be acknowledged, and hopefully, not be hurt the same way by the same person again.
In the meantime, though, I need a break; I’ve been holding a lot of stuff in this vein in for a long while now, to the point where I just sort of need an anger detox. I hate opening up the forum and bracing for someone to do something upsetting, and really, you guys don’t deserve me being poised that way, either.
So. Yeah. Before I take my leave, a few miscellaneous bulletins:
Hopefully I’ll be seeing you all around fairly soon, and hopefully feeling better.
I was originally going to just go, but after some thought and discussion, I decided I ought to say something, in the interest of communication and not just disappearing in case anyone got worried, and I didn’t want to leave what’s making me go unaddressed - otherwise I come back and it starts all over again and that’s no good.
The specific incident that led me to this was me dropping out of Wrighton back on the 14th, and in the near-week since then - literally only one person out of the entire playerbase said anything. I wasn’t expecting anyone to try and talk me into staying or even to ask for collabs or anything drastic like that - but a few “sorry you’re dropping out” or “I’ll miss you/your characters but do what you gotta do” messages seem kind of standard for such a thing. ...Not going to lie, I am really, really hurt and angry about this. I’m trying to keep calm and detached here so I don’t come across like a crazy rage-machine and undermine my own points, but please don’t misread that as me being remotely okay with it.
Now, I’m sure everybody has specific reasons for not commenting that I hope don’t really have anything to do with me or my characters (to be clear, no, you don't have to post with said explanation unless you want to; I'm not trying to center this around that one incident). Normally I’d just try to accept that and move on, but, this also comes after literally years’ worth of incidents where I’ve felt like I or my characters/stories were, at best, ignored or tolerated, and at worst, disliked, but nobody wanted to cause a ruckus and say so. Soooo three guesses how the silence here gets interpreted.
The real issue, though, is that I felt like I couldn’t bring this up and expect a good outcome. I didn’t feel I could tell my friends that they’d done something hurtful to me and get a response that really considered that. Just about every argument I’ve had here recently, about something someone’s done that was hurtful/upsetting/offensive has basically devolved into the other person going “Well - this is why I did it” or, in so many words, “But I want to do this thing.” There doesn’t seem to be much effort to see the other person’s point of view, or to try and reach a compromise that works for both parties. Apologies have become rare. And even when people do apologize, it feels like there aren’t behavior changes to go along with it (and much less with no apologies are given).
I’m not sure how to fix this, and I’m not trying to start an argument or anything as I head out the door. I know I probably haven’t been perfect at this, either. But I do think it’s important to at least bring up that this is a problem, and I think it makes just about every interaction a lot more stressful than it ought to be. We’re all a tight-knit group and we interact with each other a lot - we’re going to do things that hurt each others’ feelings sometimes, and when that happens, the other person needs to be able to come forward and say something, be acknowledged, and hopefully, not be hurt the same way by the same person again.
In the meantime, though, I need a break; I’ve been holding a lot of stuff in this vein in for a long while now, to the point where I just sort of need an anger detox. I hate opening up the forum and bracing for someone to do something upsetting, and really, you guys don’t deserve me being poised that way, either.
So. Yeah. Before I take my leave, a few miscellaneous bulletins:
- I’ll still be on Discord regularly, though I’ll be muting a bunch of the chats. If I’m needed, especially for an “I need a mod” situation, you can @-mention or sidechat me, or ask a forumer who is on Discord to do so. (Please understand that I might not be willing to chat, however)
- I don’t plan to log into the forum, but if you need to send me something via PM, just let me know on/through someone else who uses Discord and I’ll go check it.
- I’ll continue to take character, fic, etc. additions to Treeline and fix any major bugs or crashes.
Hopefully I’ll be seeing you all around fairly soon, and hopefully feeling better.
Quintessential
