Ok, here's the entry I made after I got back from the bar lat night. Below that, I've written an explanation about the issue of people name-calling. Hope it makes a little more sense after that...
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So, a few things...
1) Bike night. Didn't get to talk to Huey, but heard him play. Texted him later that evening, I guess we're supposed to hang out soon.
2) Got to talk with AJ (great old-school bartender), and we discussed meeting people (significant others), how it happens, etc. She said she wants to arrange a "hang out" with her friends & a particular lady-friend of hers, whom she thinks might hit it off with me. We traded cell #s tonight, and I'm cautiously optomistic.
3) Ran into a ladyfriend of mine, KT, earlier this week. We made plans to hang out at some point this week. I texted her, but she said she was out late last night & begged off. Said we should def. get together soon. Not counting on it, but again, hopeful.
4) Just found out tonight that one of my waitress-crushes just broke up with her b/f and isn't seeing someone else yet. I'm going to do my best to casually ask her out hopefully by this Saturday. If I'm misreading things, it'll be awkward & she'll find a way to act like it never happened. If I'm not, I might actually get a "yes", and be stumped as to what to say. I did, however, tell her last night to friend me on facespace, and would you believe she actually did? Cool.
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So I guess I should clarify my earlier post about people not liking me.
I'm a senior moderator on a local-ish discussion board. This board is owned/operated by an individual who created it with the intent that it be a safe haven for all people. "Play Nice" rules apply, and while spirited debaate is welcome (even encouraged), it is supposed to be free of the flame wars/name calling that so many other online boards are infamous for. My job as a moderator is to enforce those rules, while trying to encourage and welcome people to post their thoughts, no matter how far out they might think they are. It's a very liberal sub-culture board, and there are a bunch of different types of people, many of which don't even fit the sub-culture.
Well, when people step out of line, it's up to us (any mod, actually) to send out warnings, escalating all the way up to banning serious and/or repeated infractions. These discussions about how to handle things are typically done "behind closed doors" in a staff chat area. This means that sometimes the reasons a person gets banned aren't clear to the general members. This can often cause anger at the mods for perceived inequities in the way different individuals are treated. What happened eventually was that a few people got fed up, and started acting out, even stating that they intended to push the moderator staff until they had no choice but to ban them. A few others thought this was cool, and decided to do the same. Being that I'm not exactly local, and only had a few friends on the board, I took on the responsibility of being the "hard-ass" mod. The problem with this was that most of the other mods rarely showed up, and it pretty much all fell to me & the perpetually ill (mentally and physically) board owner. Obviously, he couldn't do much.
At first, I tried to give people some leeway, but they would just escalate. I tried to stick strictly to the board rules & guidelines (posted on the board and specifically agreed to by everyone when they signed up for the board). People thought many of my decisions were arbitrary, that I was playing favorites, etc, and I became the board villain, the poster child for what they called the "mod-n4zis". Eventually, people started believing what the other members were saying, regardless of the truth, and they all basically quit the board & went to facespace. For the last two-three years, there have really only been maybe 5-6 active members and the owner and I are the only regular admin/mod staff that still show up, out of maybe 8-10 total mods/emmissaries. (Hell, the only other senior mod hasn't logged in for so long, he can't anymore.)
Well, I created an anonymous user/username and added some of the people on facespace that I actually liked & wanted to stay in touch with. I rarely ever post anything, but on occasion will "like" some things, etc. This last week, the old crowd held their annual group camp-out (that actually started as a board-sponsored event, created by a couple of the mods). Apparently this stirred some reminiscing, and they started a post on facespace talking about the old board. As someone tagged my name in it, I got to see everything as it happened. They were talking about coming back to the board & posting, so i looged onto the board, saw a bunch of the old crowd posting, and made them a "welcome back" thread to say hi. There were several greetings in return, so i felt pretty good, like maybe they were coming back for good.
Well, I went back to facespace & kept reading the posts, and it turns out they were just doing it as a practical joke, and were going to stop posting at midnight that night, just to fuck with the board owner. I also got to see a lot of posts from previously banned members and their friends about how, as a mod, I was "such an asshole", and things like "yeah, fuck that guy, he can eat a bag of dicks", etc. There were only one or two people who even bothered defending me, and it was less a defense as much as a timid, "well, the guy was always cool with me".
Granted, the people who were condemning me were never really friends, but still, it sucked to sit there & watch them calling me all sorts of names, and not being able to (ok, willing to) defend myself, for fear of being ostracized by the group & losing contact with the few people who still like me. Oh well, it is what it is. Can't change it, just have to accept, ignore & move on, right?
12:59 p.m. - 2014-06-27
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