mrbigsteve: (Default)
mrbigsteve ([personal profile] mrbigsteve) wrote2004-10-20 01:10 pm

(no subject)

It is days like today that make me wonder about my role as a mediator among the different circles I meander in. It is also days like today that make me ever so immensely glad to not be in Albany any more.

Last week was a bit odd for me... I had a number of people unfriend me, one a day. Now normally, this kind of thing would make me go "eh". The first was doing a purge, and we never really had that strong of a relationship anyway. The second may have just been doing some cleaning, the third was... I don't know quite what the third was. Whatever. It was just the timing of things that made me stop for a moment.

Fast forward to this week and I am watching a veritable shitstorm of drama flying around people in the capital district. A war because, quite frankly, one person didn't think. The point at which their thought processes stopped is subject to opinion. Perhaps it was when they found someone's LJ account open and decided to read through entries that they were otherwise barred from. Perhaps it was when they wrote about breaking the trust among a number of people just because they wanted to get their spiteful little jollies. Maybe it was when they decided to *brag* about doing such a thing and spit forth numerous inflammatory comments about what they'd read. (If you're still waffling on whether they possess cerebral capacities at all, this person promptly threw up their hands, denied all blame in the matter, and cut and run. While not polite, this may turn out to be their first intelligent decision in the process)

Of course, faulty thought processes are not solely the realm of this person. When someone gets involved with one sibling, then the other, and nobody actually talks to anyone else about it and hurt feelings are the result, "Really fucking dumb" can be freely applied to any of them. Rest assured, dear readers, it has been. Numerous times. Unfortunately, I've not done so directly since I've been removed by 150 miles or more.

It is easy for me to sit back now, look at these people, and say "What a dumbass." Had I been local when all of this was starting up, I might have gathered the energy to sit the aforementioned siblings down and say "What the FUCK do you think you're doing?" (the first non-thinker referenced above was written off years ago back when they wrote what I feel to be one of the most self-important (and simultaneously condescending and self-denying) letters I've ever seen a 19 year old put to text)

The peacemaker in me pokes his head out and asks "Could I have done something to stop this?"

And the part of me that has spent so much time developing comes forth to say "It's not your fucking problem."

And then I kick back with another beer to wait and see who'll be the next person to fall through the ice on hypothermia theater.

[identity profile] xdaemon.livejournal.com 2004-10-20 10:41 am (UTC)(link)
SEP fields provide an aura of nothing BUT comfort. What is this discomfort of which you speak?

[identity profile] collwen.livejournal.com 2004-10-20 11:24 am (UTC)(link)
it the weirdness- wanting to know what's going on but not wanting to be dragged into the middle of the mess or be associated with it in anyway.

I don't want to pick sides.

[identity profile] mrbigsteve.livejournal.com 2004-10-21 06:07 am (UTC)(link)
In my opinion, it's not a matter of there *being* sides to pick. It doesn't matter *whose* journal the person read. It was the fact that they broke the trust of other people for their own entertainment. Think of this: person 1 has proven untrustworthy. Person 2 is trustworthy, but person 2 trusts person 1. Can you now trust person 2? That is the level of damage that has been caused here... the fact that all of their first generation relationships are now called into question.

[identity profile] collwen.livejournal.com 2004-10-21 06:21 am (UTC)(link)
You have a point. Maybe this might make more sense- instead of not picking sides, I don't want to be involved at all. A Switzerland.

[identity profile] mrbigsteve.livejournal.com 2004-10-21 06:28 am (UTC)(link)
Perhaps. But not being involved doesn't mean you can't throw things and heckle.

[identity profile] collwen.livejournal.com 2004-10-21 06:42 am (UTC)(link)
granted, but some people in this situation would take throwing and heckling as getting involved and taking sides... and if I don't want to get dragged into the bloody highschool level mess then I can't (wait, I just did... *giggle*)