Reporting the mods

This is almost a good apology. The reason I am only giving it an almost is that, while your wording is well-done, you are claiming "getting a bit snarky/grudgy" is a valid description of your actions. You did not "get a bit snarky", you repeatedly insulted Spock, loudly insisted that you just didn't get pronouns despite many, many patient attempts to explain to you why they're important, and blamed people (Spock included) for your misgendering of them.

 

First, I think the apology you made is a big step up from no apology! Good work. (I am being sincere.)

I think I failed to mention this, but try to avoid excusing yourself in apologies. Apologizing for taking a long time is good, saying something like “I was afraid I’d be attacked if I didn’t word it correctly and wasn’t sure how to avoid that other than not apologizing” is valid, but when you word it as a statement such as “I would have been attacked if I didn’t word it correctly” - while demonstrably true unfortunately, it is not actually a good thing to include in a sincere apology. And the important thing is to apologize to the person you have hurt, and not let bystanders’ heckling prevent you from doing the right thing. That is hard, I understand, and that is why I am trying to help.

I will also add that I think it is a bad idea to include qualifiers in your apology. A simple “I was angry” is likely to come across with more sincerity than “I was a little angry” or “I was extremely angry.” Again I understand it is hard not to minimize this sort of thing, I have been there! But I think that you are able to train yourself to avoid doing it, even though it is hard work.

 

Thank you for the in-depth response.

The thing with the ping was on friday:

I was not being sarcastic on the previous occasion.

The parts I am specifically referring too were calling her "uppity", "bitchy", "crazy", and incorrect presentation of order of events and her emotional state. Apologizing for doing that would be excellent, I appreciate the effort you have made with this post.

This is good apology. Thank you. The part before it undercuts this good line because it undersells the reality of what you did as I outlined above.

That is good to know. I am happy to deconstruct how some of the posts beldaran quoted were in tune with the behaviour of narcissistic abusers. The following passages are from earlier points in the thread:

This is untrue. You have been mean without provocation, or without anything anyone else can see as provocation, before. It implies that anyone who has been on the receiving end of cruelty and harmful words from you did something to deserve it.

This does the same thing. Until people are very frustrated, they try to be polite and ask qualifying questions. You have received a lot of measured responses with clarifying questions and still reacted poorly too them over your time here.

These things put together create an attitude of "I'm sorry you made me hurt you", which is not okay.

I will now return to addressing the rest of this reply to me:

I was talking about Beldaran in this instance.

This is more of the "I'm sorry you made me hurt you" type language. The vast, vast majority of people posting here are not trying to provoke you. We are trying to understand and help. Sometimes helping comes in the form of telling you that you have done something abusive. This is not a value judgement on your inherent worth as a person.

You're welcome :)

You're welcome for this too. Once again, if any of my later posts caused you distress, I apologize and it was not my intention to hurt you.

I am unsure what this means. If someone has caused you harm, you can express that you have been hurt. However, if you have posted something harmful and responses telling you that the thing you have posted is harmful hurt you, you can still express that it makes you feel bad to hear without dismissing what is being said. A good way to do that would be something like:

"I am sorry I've caused harm with my words. It is making me feel bad to read these responses, could I ask that things slow down for a while so that I can have some time to process and ask clarifying questions?"

We are trying to listen. Thank you for the reciprocity.

You're welcome.

Thank you for the link!

And no, sorry. I wasn't complaining that you hadn't approached me for help, I was distressed that it appeared as though you hadn't listened too or processed the help I had offered, due to repeating things I had explained were harmful previously and expressing confusion about them being harmful.

 

headsup the link to your thread leads to a deadend for me which probably means it's either in the wiggler or not approved yet

 

There is one clarification on right and wrong that I would like, and I'm not sure if I tried to discuss this here at all much less in a meaningful way...

I got blamed for a lot of the things that happen to me.

Is there some sort of line, does it move around randomly?

I'm sorry that the misgendering came out as an insult. Other than being a little dismissive I didn't really mean harm.

 

Here's the thing. Nobody deserves to be insulted. I am personally unsure where the line is for you between finding a thing helpful and finding a thing a personal attack.

Telling you that an example of your behavior is abusive = not a personal attack
Telling you that you are behaving in a harmful way and asking you to stop = not a personal attack

People, myself included, have got a bit frustrated with you and sometimes said not particularly kind things. The latter isn't great but if I notice it at the time I try to offer de-escalation.
If you can pinpoint exact words that make you feel hurt and attacked, that would be very helpful.

 

Misgendering can be an insult, when it is done deliberately, as a small note.

 

Note: misgendering is an insult. It always is, there is no way to make it not-harmful. Even if the person being misgendered isn't hurt, other people around will be.
The only way to not hurt people via misgendering is to not misgender people.

 

Somehow I hit the bottom while missing a big chunk... Processing errors. Poke me in the morning.

 

Holy moly, you sleep on a thread for a few hours and all this happens.

Athol, here's a failure-mode to be aware of:

The reason your apologies tend to ring false with people is because you're trying to assure people of your good intent at the same time.

By and large, this does not work - and usually has opposite effect.

Instead of reassuring people that you don't hate them and didn't wish to hurt them, it instead kind of sounds like you're blaming them for getting hurt by you.

I totally understand the motivation behind it, and I've got stuck on it myself before now, but it's a path that will only ever lead you deeper into trouble.

As well as not wanting to be blamed for malice you do not bear people, I'm guessing you want to avoid people being even more hurt by considering themselves the target of malice.

Those are both entirely reasonable things to want, and I get that it seems like an unreserved apology in the first instance will lead you smack bang into the direct opposite of both of them.

And as such, it can feel like qualifying an apology with such assurances will steer clear of that outcome.

But it just doesn't work; it just ends up sounding smug, snarky, self-serving and insincere no matter how carefully you do it. It always makes it much, much worse.

Trust me, I know this far too well :(

You have to keep the two things entirely separate, with the completely free, no-strings apology done and out of the way first.

After that's done, you may be able to patch the other part, or you may just have to eat it, even along with the extra hurt you cause by taking on the role of bad guy.

That's not fair, but again you have to blame the situation, not the people. People getting hurt causes splash damage, and you can't always mitigate that. It sucks, welcome to earth.

 

You know, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt with the times you've sniped me after telling me to leave you alone for a few months, but you do realize it has to go both ways, right?

And I've been asking for to leave me alone since a few months back.

Fucking quit it and stop talking about me, and I'd be more than happy to reciprocate.

ETA: also for bonus marks, find anywhere I've talked about you other than griping that you've talked about me first in the past month. Go on, I'm waiting.

 

-shows up six pages late with starbucks, except I drank it all-

-oops-

yes but it was still distracting and confusing and didn't actually help decipher anything

I actually remember the post that got wiggled and it did not read like you were in any way accepting that you might have done anything wrong

iirc, you [edit: I forgot to finish this sentence. wtg, self] doubled down on the hateful part of the original post, and just took that hate into a new direction (whorephobia rather than serophobia)

ok the "I am only mean when people provoke me" thing is uncomfortably reminiscent of "she was asking for it, wearing such a short skirt"

as for the rest, please find a therapist who can help you, bc this is not ok

people should not have to walk on eggshells around you in hopes of you not treating them the way you treat Spock and Etansel

that's just not sustainable, and that attempting to sustain that sort of environment will very quickly find you with no one willing to talk to you at all

no, you really haven't, and I'm not sure how to get through to you that you've actually been really horrible to her

at this point, I feel like all I can say that will help you (if and only if you let it help you) is that you would really benefit from finding a therapist

but more than that, you would also definitely benefit from doing an inpatient program to help with your drinking

 

That would make sense, if I hadn't reported the post and been told there was nothing wrong with it.

Okay, that one is my fault. I asked her not to run her apology through me, which she's done a few times before due to communication and phrasing issues, because I wanted to see what she could manage unaided. And frankly, I was pleasantly surprised, but it seems like nothing is ever enough to some of you. Sorry.

 

I almost wanted to apologize for calling Spock crazy even though I was talking about you just to avoid Beetlejuicing. I had noticed in the TCHGB that you said saying "the fight with Etan is okay" and I finally remembered to do it.

Dealing with you was extremely frustrating and we barely got anywhere. Partly because the mods would keep wiggling stuff that they shouldn't have.

 

Wrong post. It got wiggled for asking a clarifying question about antisemitism. Now I'm going to have to make my own moon-logic leap and say "People like Steven Spielberg aren't Jewish, someone's just saying that as part of an anti semite conspiracy."

As far as having people walk on eggshells, that's not it. Spock was being pretty nasty to me and the accusations got really wild after I told her to stop talking to me. (Is boundary-setting something you have to earn, and that's why I'm not allowed to try and establish them?)

I have trouble saying "hey that bothers me" because I'm expecting someone to do it more in response if they don't just ignore me. If there were some sort of key-phrase (safeword?) that I would be assured gets the right sort of attention, I'd use it.

I think the rest of it might be Turkey-Peacocks.

 

Okay, but this wasn't a vague reference to the fight. This was you saying I was crazy and went off the deep end, and you got your fill of it from our interactions.

Big difference between 'I already dealt with a lot of frustration during the fight with Etansel' and: