Forgiveness in Mushing

Lemon Fox

@thenomain said in Forgiveness in Mushing:

Accepting the situation is something that I think too few people strive for. I constantly try to improve, and it frustrates me when I think I have no progress in this field.

Don't give up on it!

Thenomain

@lemon-fox said in Forgiveness in Mushing:

@thenomain said in Forgiveness in Mushing:

Accepting the situation is something that I think too few people strive for. I constantly try to improve, and it frustrates me when I think I have no progress in this field.

Don't give up on it!

Well, no, because I try to have a mantra of "accept and understand". Forgiving isn't in there because that's something that will either come out of understanding, or the emotions will fade from moving on.

I have a short list of people I've not forgiven for things they've done, almost exclusively to other people, but I can still interact with them for projects and things that need to get done. Repeating "it just doesn't matter!" over and over in my head also helps.

surreality

@testament said in Forgiveness in Mushing:

What I'm asking, after that long-winded opening is: have you forgiven someone in this hobby?

Yup! Lots of times. Often, it's for one of the following reasons:

It was stupid to be angry about in the first place.
It has been so long I don't even remember why I was mad to begin with.
The person has demonstrably changed.
The person has expressed genuine remorse for the bad behavior and taken steps to do better.

Or are you just not the type? There's nothing wrong in that, inherently. Once you're screwed, fuck that person, no matter how much they may change. They did you dirty once, so screw them and the horse they rode in on.

Some people are in this category. It takes work to get there. Not just being generically crappy, but engaging in a sustained effort to cause harm and be terrible. Hey, if somebody puts the work in...

Or have someone did a friend of yours wrong, and mob mentality takes effect?

Has definitely happened. I am very protective of the people I care about. I generally hope for good things for all of us screwballs in this hobby and will always hope everyone is doing well and having fun with what they're doing (provided their fun isn't being shitty to others, and some people do define their fun that way), but the people I really give a genuine damn about are very few and far between.

I can, and absolutely have, turned into rabid crusader bitch on this front. This is a tendency I'm taking a very hard look at now, because while I don't think it's necessarily all bad, it's a tendency that has been manipulated and weaponized before. There is really nothing so damnably dangerous as someone who believes they're doing the right thing, because when you think you're all grar for great justice? It becomes a moral/ethical/integrity thing. Most of us try to be decent people. If something appeals to the inner 'decent person', it's really easy for the fight to be harder, longer, and it's especially easy to lose sight of when it's simply become a fight between people rather than about the ideals that drove it in the first place.

Or were you the person that did the screwing up and how hard has it been for you recover from that?

Results pending? It's the best I've got here. It is hard in some ways, but not because of the other posters here. Blame the Roman Catholic upbringing or whatever, but there's a lot of guilt, it's fresh, it's raw, and knowing I engaged in and enabled some terrible shit is not something I will forget any time soon, and it'll be a while before I'm able to forgive myself for it, if I can.

Did you have to hide who you were?

I'm against this, personally. I understand people who do, or why they do. I generally try to keep a low profile on games -- sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don't -- but more recently I've come to believe that it's better to be open about who and where I am, and if people love or hate me, they have whatever information they need to engage or avoid as they choose.

Play a different game with a different user name or email?

I did this in the wake of Spider moving out of my house. Half the hobby hated me for helping her, the other half for finally asking her to leave. It was no win for anyone, and I went to hide out on Shang for about 8 years.

Broadly: when it comes to forgiveness, some of it is pretty simple. If someone hasn't shown a shred of remorse for their bad behavior, is only interested in dodging the consequences of bad behavior, or whining about whatever consequences they are encountering because of their bad behavior? For minor things, I already give people far too many chances and will probably doormat in this manner until my dying day like a dumbass; for the major ones? I want them out of my face, and out of my life.

Sunny

I do lots of forgiving.

I can't really think of a time where I forgave something major within the hobby that I didn't hate myself for it later, that I didn't call myself stupid, that I didn't end up regretting every bit of kindness and bigger person that I extended. Little stuff, enh, water off a duck's back.

ETA: It has bit me in the rear end every. single. time.

Caryatid

It isn’t that I don’t forgive. I just don’t forget, and if I see the behaviour that made me red flag them in the first place continue then you can bet I’ll avoid the hell out of them. I can politely interact with people who’ve pissed me off. But if they keep on? I’m sure as hell not going to indulge or enable them, even through something as simple as proximity.

And what does it matter if I hang onto that? They didn’t care enough about what I thought before to behave like an adult, they’re not going to care now that I think they’re dumb or an asshole or callous or selfish or whatever. It hurts no one if I roll my eyes at their shenanigans and carry on with my life believing they’re not worth my time.

Cupcake

Forgiveness is hard. There are still people whose choices on MU*s which have caused me harm, and I have not forgiven them, decades after the fact. But I also don't live with those issues at the forefront of my brain, so I only carry it when confronted with the possibility of contact with these people.

Forgiveness does not involve forgetting, and for me, a lot of it depends on the effort the other person has placed in asking for it. I've never, in any circumstances, been able to let it go immediately. It always requires time - sometimes months, while I try to sort out how I feel. But if and when I do forgive, I want it to be genuine, rather than something I've said because I'm expected to.

Three-Eyed Crow

@caryatid said in Forgiveness in Mushing:

It isn’t that I don’t forgive. I just don’t forget, and if I see the behaviour that made me red flag them in the first place continue then you can bet I’ll avoid the hell out of them. I can politely interact with people who’ve pissed me off. But if they keep on? I’m sure as hell not going to indulge or enable them, even through something as simple as proximity.

It's the forgetting people seem to want a lot of the time, which I'll admit does bother me. I like to think I give second chances pretty regularly, but I'm not going to induce amnesia about f'd up stuff someone has done and, if they do it again, not going to have time for that. Like others have said, I believe people can change, but change is hard and takes a lot of internal work.

Meg

I have forgiven and forgotten, even. I am willing to forget the past to keep a friend. I value my friends a lot, tbh, more than anything else. So when I come to the point where I can't forgive or forget, then that means something. I don't want to agree that not being able to forgive and forget certain things just makes us bad, because for the most part, I /want/ to. Sometimes, I can't.

Roz

@meg You, along with @Sparks, are someone that's on my list of "If even she thinks this person is kind of horrible..." You are very, very forgiving. Sometimes to people who are very undeserving! (By which I mean: people who keep doing the same bad things.) So it's always notable to me when someone has basically run through your generosity.

Testament

I appreciate waking up this morning to so many well thought out answers to this question. I plan to read them all likely more than a couple times and then digest my thoughts on them. This is something that I've taken a long hard look at and if it's something that happens more often than not because most times we don't see it happening. That it's far easier to publicly shame this person, and lets be clear, on this site, we have put a lot of people on blast.

Some have deserved it.

Some may not of deserved it.

But how many of these situations happen where we have no idea that it even occurred? That some incident that we only barely hear about, or rather, get some clinging bit of scuttlebutt that perk our interests, with the actual issue being handled privately. We don't hear about it, and thus, the open interpretation is that we, as a community at large would much rather tar and feather those that have screwed up or other just generally made some bad choices. We more often see the negative side of this community, while the good is kept private, for better or for worse.

I can't, not in good conscience anyways, sit here and denounce every person who I've heard has been a complete shit. I've tried in the past not believe everything I see in text, but I'm getting off-track. What is good to see here in writing that more than I thought are much more willing to forgive past transgression is the other party has shown the ability to get better. Not all of them do. Some are repeat offenders. Some will never get better, either because they're unwilling to, or they are simply unable to. And we, as fellow players are not free psychiatrists to unload our mental and emotional baggage on. Unless you're actual friends with each other or whatever, but even then.

I encourage discussion on this, as this is a facet of the mushing community that has always fascinated me. So I do appreciate the responses thus far. Thank you.

Tinuviel

All good answers, of course. However, one rather important point to remember:

We aren't the community. We're just a tiny backwards little part of it. So our answers won't necessarily be reflective of MU*ing in general.

Testament

Perhaps not, but there's enough people that frequent this site that I get insight into it. Even if that that number is a microcosm of the whole.

I've personally tempered my expectations.

Paris

@testament I wouldn't. Quite a few MUers are aware of this site, and many many many lurk but never post, but through playing and staffing I've found that a sizeable number (and probably the majority) does not give a fuck about MSB, bad actors, or controversies in general. They sign in, rp, and sign off. Stuff just rolls off.

Scorn

To me, forgiving is something I do more for myself, than for the other person. In forgiving them, I'm shedding a burden. Freeing myself from the emotional and psychological weight of whatever happened. Allowing myself to move forward unencumbered.

So yes, I've done lots of forgiving. That's worlds away, however, from forgetting. It takes quite a bit - time and work - to regain my trust once it's taken a significant hit.

farfalla

The idea that people are owed forgiveness/that forgiveness is a moral imperative, is rooted in a lot of misogyny.

No one is owed forgiveness.

That doesn't mean everyone can just be a jackass to everyone who has ever wronged them, of course, but you don't have to forgive someone just because you "should". Be civil or stop engaging, but honor your feelings.

GangOfDolls

I think forgiveness is important. There are certain people and things in this hobby that I've forgiven, both because there have been apologies and definitely there's been no apologies. The first is nice- sometimes really nice, if for no other reason that you feel seen and heard about how something was hurtful when it didn't need to be. The second is more of a function of needing to just move on in life. Here again, I'm not waiting around for someone to pony up on apology but you run the risk of getting stuck in a sentiment or a feeling that doesn't do anything productive and just makes you feel like shit.

I also think sometimes you do things that are upsetting to someone else and apologizing isn't enough or for whatever reason, trying to offer one is the wrong idea. I think in those cases, if it's not enough or you just think attempting to apologize is going to be more harmful than helpful - you just have to agree to learn something from it and not repeat that behavior.

I've been in this hobby a long ass time. I started mushing in my late teens as a way to escape an abusive situation at home. I had a lot of coping and survival mechanisms from my real life that I imported into mushing because I'd gotten by in life on those so why not in virtual space. One of those things was trying to overly manage other people's feelings. Children in abusive households often become hyper sensitive to everyone else's emotional barometer and when things are too hot or too cold, they work hard to please the situation. I am/was certainly no exception to that experience, I'm a grown ass adult but I still catch myself doing it.

One of those things that's an extension of all this is passive aggressiveness. For me, it stemmed in being ultra terrified of any sort of confrontation. In my young life, confrontation wasn't about disagreement - it was volcanic displays of fury that sometimes got the cops called. So, the next and only thing to do was to swallow your feelings, avoid confrontation, and pretend everything was just fine. Regardless of being aware of where it comes from, it didn't serve me well for a long time in the MU* wider world. I certainly ruined some otherwise positive and happy online 'working' relationships and friendships because I was ultimately too terrified to just say something that might be upsetting.

I've been through a shitload of therapy as an adult because I got tired of feeling like garbage about this. I have much more clarity and self-awareness around this behavior but because I'm a flawed human being, I still feel myself slipping back into familiar territory. I'm generally much better about it and behavior in general. As much as anything is a work in progress until we no longer draw breath.

But there are cases where I can't find the person in question that I didn't behave well towards because time and the closure of games. In some cases, I've no idea if these people even remember those choice moments - they probably don't and chances are, that momentary blip of conflict was just that for them. But believe me, I remember those blips.

There are cases where I think I know how to find people from the past but I'm not sure they want to hear from me. I don't want to invade boundaries just to offer an apology as that seems like anti-thesis of the point. In both those cases, all I can really do is not repeat my mistakes and missteps, even if that player never knows about it. I guess that's how you prove that you're trying and hopefully succeeding at being sorry for what happened - by trying to avoid repeating the same pattern.

Three-Eyed Crow

Also, if you've fucked up, a thing that will NOPE me out with someone real fast is 'Yes this happened but really I was in the right and behaving virtuously for reasons XYZ but I guess I'm sorry you were offended.'

Just do not do that ever.

Rinel

I generally am too worried about my mistakes to worry about other people's. There's been precisely one person I can really think of having ever had a problem with, and we just sort have avoided each other since the problem was resolved. And even then, on my part the avoidance is more a "wow I don't think they like me; I ought to stay clear unless/until it looks like they have an interest in RPing with me." And that may never come, and I'm cool with that.

Also, I think there are a few differences between me and the average MUSHer:

I'm new to mushing (less than a year) but as far as I can tell I started mushing later in my life than a lot of people (late twenties. I am baby). So I haven't seen a lot of the really crazy shit that's happened in the past.
I work in criminal defense and am probably broken at some level in determining what constitutes a bad thing.
I make mistakes all the time and hope that forgiving other people means they'll reciprocate when I inevitably put my foot in my mouth.
I am a bear of very little brain and forget a lot of stuff.

Ghost

I think you'll find that mushers who aren't so concerned about the social currency side-game of mushing aren't easily "hurt" by disagreements/miscommunication, and usually approach the concept of forgiveness/conflict resolution like normal human beings.

Staff doesn't care about their players at all (translation: I am upset about staff not agreeing with me on an issue and am plying the social currency side-game on MSB to achieve vindication).

There is only so much actual fucked up stalking/abuse/maybe even legal damage that happens on these games. The rest is all subjective, and for some, amplified to questionably rational degrees.

Ganymede

@ghost said in Forgiveness in Mushing:

I think you'll find that mushers who aren't so concerned about the social currency side-game of mushing aren't easily "hurt" by disagreements/miscommunication, and usually approach the concept of forgiveness/conflict resolution like normal human beings.

To be fair, the converse is also true.

If you believe that the "social currency side-game" is about your reputation, then you should be more concerned about letting the mundane go.

Of all the things I worry about in our hobby, it's my reputation. Yes, I've done stupid shit; yes, I'm not a friend to all. But whatever reputation I have is what I've kept and carved from 23+ years of playing, and I'm damn well wise enough now to know how to maintain it.