The Apology Thread

Ganymede

You had me come and help be mortal staff on Denver. We used to talk on... I wanna say ICQ or something old like that, you were running Denver, had me come on as staff. I was... Cherry, I think, and then you went poof like 2 weeks later. (In regards to you being removed from Denver's staff).

Ah, Denver. One of my great triumphs and failures.

Yes, I was removed there because players wanted resolution to an ongoing plot for which there was no planned resolution. That was deliberate, and provided the cause for a great deal of RP. Some people wanted their shiny crowns, and weren't above going to the game owner to complain about it.

My explanation did not seem to hold water, and that's fine. Frankly, that is how and why I distanced myself from the Ham Squad / Pillowfort. It was clear that they did not care for my direction, and thought the best solution was to get rid of me.

Peverel came afterwards, and burned out fast under the constant pressure of, again, resolving a plot that had no resolution, and was never calculated to.

And why? Because politics -- true politics -- has no resolution.

Arkandel

@Faceless said in The Apology Thread:

Why do people hold grudges?

For myself, I don't think I am. I mean for starters I don't remember slights after a few weeks - if @surreality called me a poop-head and told me my TS sucked I'll be miffed for a bit then I'll eventually forget it happened, or that it was her who said it in the first place. My head-version of the story would be that at that place someone did something that pissed me off.

But for another if you do something memorably bad it's not like I'll be emotionally predisposed against you for long either, I'll just want to avoid getting screwed over twice; there's a difference. If you staffed a sphere I played in and were horrible, or you became too much to handle during an IC relationship/conflict or... anything above and beyond normal everyday online annoyances I will try to avoid you in the future. That's not because I hate your guts or even that you're necessarily a terrible person (for all I know you might be great with others) but well... life's too short sometimes to give people extra chances.

Now to be honest I usually don't cut people off at the second or even third chance unless they fuck up really badly, but you know what I mean. There's a threshold after which drinks are no longer served at Arkandel-bar.

ThatGuyThere

@Monogram
I think a good part of the reason we hear about the good things less is that we talk about them less.
Non-MUSH example, if the average person goes to a restaurant and gets good service they tend to talk about it much less then if they get bad service.
Also the god news stuff is far less interesting as a conversation topic. Lets say Joe and Bob have a beef. If they beef continues it continues to generate 'news' it remains present and people talk about it. Joe and Bob resolve things it gets mentioned once then forgotten like most things.
Now I do think more things are held onto then let go, not just in this hobby but in general, but not quite to the extant chatter both here and elsewhere would lead one to believe.

Kanye Qwest

I agree with some people!

While any subset is going to be full of those who don't apologize well (or ever), I think in this hobby the reluctance to forgive is way more toxic. Outliers aside, "someone screwed my character over IC 10 years ago" is not a reason to hold a grudge. "A staffer was rude when they handled my job", likewise. "Someone was shitty to me", probably yeah maybe move on and let it go? Everyone has moments they are a shitty person. Everyone.

Auspice

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Apology Thread:

I agree with some people!

While any subset is going to be full of those who don't apologize well (or ever), I think in this hobby the reluctance to forgive is way more toxic. Outliers aside, "someone screwed my character over IC 10 years ago" is not a reason to hold a grudge. "A staffer was rude when they handled my job", likewise. "Someone was shitty to me", probably yeah maybe move on and let it go? Everyone has moments they are a shitty person. Everyone.

It's not just an issue in this hobby, that reluctance to forgive. I see it throughout the real world, too. So many people see refusal to forgive as a way to continue punishing the other person (my ex-husband was guilty of this), rather than an important step in healing and moving on.

It's easy to hold a grudge, but it's also toxic. For you. For social circles. And yes, for them. It's never going to make you feel better to poison other people towards someone. It's just a cycle of negativity.

Sometimes, you have to learn to forgive someone even if they never apologized. Or even if they didn't give an apology that you thought was good enough. Or (and perhaps especially) if they weren't aware that they upset you. Some people have a hard time reading body language or tone. Sometimes we misunderstand someone's intent or meaning in text. If someone said something that upset you and then they 'go on acting like nothing ever happened,' it's very possible (esp. in text-based environments) that they didn't mean anything hurtful by it... not that they're a callous, unfeeling bitch.

Ganymede

@Auspice said in The Apology Thread:

It's easy to hold a grudge, but it's also toxic. For you. For social circles. And yes, for them. It's never going to make you feel better to poison other people towards someone. It's just a cycle of negativity.

Define "toxic."

There is no way I would knowingly let VASpider or her husband play or staff on my game(s). Their pattern of behavior is demonstrable.

There is no way I would knowingly let Seiche play or staff on my game(s). I haven't interacted with her in over a decade, but I have heard of the games she has ruined.

There is no fine line between "holding a grudge" and "remember that there are certain people who are fucking terrible for a game." There are very few people who I would ban outright from a game, even after they come in without my knowledge, but I would do so again and again not because I hold a grudge against them but because they are fucking bad for a game.

I may have forgiven any personal harm they did to me, if any, but I am not so stupid as to ignore my experience.

Kanye Qwest

I didn't say anything about "VAspider ruined my game" OK LET IT GO. Obviously if someone beat you and ruined your life I'm not saying forgive and forget.

I'm just saying I think there are a lot of minor interpersonal slights that get blown out of proportion, people take sides, people get blacklisted, people get called cunts on message boards, what have you, and you try to track down what the offender DID and it's like :

"oh, he argued with me about history, I am a history professor!"

or

"Oh he was super mean to a friend of my friend and HER friend told me that he completely lied to her and cheated on her IC and told five other chicks they were his one and only and..."

or

"one time, she used an in game command to diss my character."

(That last one was me! And I got called a cunt like seven times by the person against whom my biggest transgression was using one of the multiple disses at my character's command to illustrate a part of her personality)

Ganymede

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Apology Thread:

(That last one was me! And I got called a cunt like seven times by the person against whom my biggest transgression was using one of the multiple disses at my character's command to illustrate a part of her personality)

Ah. So, what you mean is: don't be fucking petty with your grudges.

In which case, I agree. People are fucking petty sometimes. Very petty.

I hate it so much that I will fucking hate anyone who is fucking petty.

I don't know; I wish I had more to contribute these days.

Kanye Qwest

I think the bolded parts make it look like a meatier contribution than +1, though. You got that going for you! (And yes, that's what I mean. Don't hold on to petty grudges, like what is that doing for you in your life).

mietze

It takes a lot for me to cut someone off or out of my life. A pattern. Most often one that is repeated not just with me but a variety of people. Generally there are not magic words in that instance that repair things, but bravery in making an effort is always a good thing. Usually there's no real reason to gossip or whatever--that person has just shown that they neither value nor wish your company (except for convenience or whatever). So it's easy to detach.

There are very few folks I would refuse to be on a MUSH with or interact with. I'm not sure that the two I can think of offhand are even playing anymore; but were I to run across them there'd be no reason to raise an alarm, or even tell anyone about it unless they slipped into old behaviors I'd report anyway.

I haven't seen any more instance of toxic MUSH interactions or grudge holding than I have with PTAs and school groups, workplace environments, or even families. Honestly, I've seen far more people get over things and move on and interact on mushes, esp years down the road, because of the distance of online text environment vs. visceral reaction of a face to face negative interaction.

I think what makes something toxic is bystanders more than anything else. Are people eager to participate in the whisper campaign? Are they unwilling to tell their friends to pull their heads out of their asses? Are they afraid to call out bad behavior of a friend while also coddling that friends overreacting butt hurt over a minor offense, and willing to obey demands to isolate the disliked person? Is there a basic standard of behavior expected regardless of popularity and contributions to a game?

To me that by far influences how toxic a place or community is than what words people say in regards to "I'm sorry" or "I forgive you."

gasket

So where is the line between 'holding a grudge', and 'you have proven to me that you are a horrible person and I'd like to keep my friends from dealing with the same ugly shit I did'?

IS there a line? Is it just a matter of which 'side' of the clash you're on? Is there maybe nothing wrong with holding a grudge, as long as you're not fucking petty with it? (see KQ and Ganymede, above)

This is something I chew on often, and recently it's more pertinent, as I'm sharing space on a game with someone who I'd drop in the same FOREVER NEVER pit as people like Spider. In my more optimistic moments, I tell myself maybe they're better people now. The rest of the time, there's no proof they're any better than they were, and I am caught between keeping silent vs. telling my friends to just NOPE out of any interactions with them. So far, I haven't pinned any scarlet letters on anyone, which is theoretically the more adult course of action, but it leave me feeling a bit like I'm choosing to let my friends grope around in a box which I know contains at least one knife.

Auspice

@Ganymede said in The Apology Thread:

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Apology Thread:

(That last one was me! And I got called a cunt like seven times by the person against whom my biggest transgression was using one of the multiple disses at my character's command to illustrate a part of her personality)

Ah. So, what you mean is: don't be fucking petty with your grudges.

In which case, I agree. People are fucking petty sometimes. Very petty.

I hate it so much that I will fucking hate anyone who is fucking petty.

I don't know; I wish I had more to contribute these days.

Pretty much this, yes.

Forgiveness doesn't mean opening yourself up to be harmed again. Forgiveness doesn't mean going 'I'll pretend it never happened and wipe the slate clean.' It means learning from the experience, but not reliving it over and over again.

I have forgiven my ex-husband, but I have made no attempts to speak with him or let him have any influence over my life again. All it means is that instead of obsessing over what he did to me or could do in the future, I have closed out that chapter, put it on the shelf, and moved forward.

It's like others have said: forgive, move on, and don't be petty. Don't pull the 'omg I once had SoanSo screw me over on another game about a year ago, don't RP with them' or try to actively fuck up their time. There are people, yes, that have consistently proven to be problematic. VASpider, for example, has been given plenty of chances. But there's plenty of people who have made mistakes and it's not who they are, but perhaps a matter of circumstance (while we would all like to say we've got the presence of mind to not be online on a bad day, I'm sure most, if not all of us, have done so on more than one occasion; it's easy to do, you tell yourself it'll be a nice distraction and then whoop, things go sideways and it gets ridiculously worse).

mietze

@gasket I would just trust your friends' intellegence to get out if things get dicey...and I commend your willingness to allow them to have their own experience. I get on with quite a few "hated" people on games, and have appreciated the people who put aside their dislike of that person and not shit all over me for my interactions with them.

Kanye Qwest

@mietze said in The Apology Thread:

@gasket I would just trust your friends' intellegence to get out if things get dicey...and I commend your willingness to allow them to have their own experience. I get on with quite a few "hated" people on games, and have appreciated the people who put aside their dislike of that person and not shit all over me for my interactions with them.

Right! This is so nice. Live and let live, for fox sake.

surreality

@gasket said in The Apology Thread:

So where is the line between 'holding a grudge', and 'you have proven to me that you are a horrible person and I'd like to keep my friends from dealing with the same ugly shit I did'?

Looking back over my list of people? I would, actually, warn people about #2. Someone who will put six months into wedging themselves into your RL with a fake persona for their entertainment, has done so repeatedly, and has stated clearly that they have no conscience whatsoever regarding the way it has drastically screwed up a lot of lives (he's broken up marriages, cost people real money, etc. in addition to the emotional abuse and craziness) in the process is someone I have no problem raising an alarm about. I would do the same if I had met this person initially RL; they've made clear that it's a pattern of behavior, and it's a pattern of behavior they see absolutely nothing wrong with, even when fully aware of the damage it has historically caused and inevitably will cause again.

#1 seems to dig his own graves fast enough on his own.

I think there's a difference, too, between thinking someone's awful and horrible, and just realizing: I really can't deal with this person, they're unhealthy for me to be around, and I should not be around them. It doesn't necessarily make them horrible, or mean I'm horrible, it just means there's a fundamental incompatibility there that makes us oil and water. It's OK -- and I would argue not just OK, but a good thing -- to be able to recognize that and step away in a 'no harm, no foul' context, and remain at a distance.

Misadventure

Is there a way to interact further with reduction of friction?

No?

Okay. We won't interact anymore.

Whether their actions are universally horrid, or just rough on you and people like you, nothing is worth it. Walk away. And if they need reminding, say stay away.

Change in situation is the only thing worth sticking around for, perhaps even working for, and when you think its not likely, move on. There are plenty of people who will abuse that small window of social opportunity we try to extend one another without putting up with flat out problems.

Thenomain

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Apology Thread:

Live and let live, for fox sake.

<.<

...

(KIDDING!)

Kanye Qwest

@Thenomain said in The Apology Thread:

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Apology Thread:

Live and let live, for fox sake.

<.<

...

(KIDDING!)

You get really upset when we argue, man, so why are you even doing this? Seriously.

Thenomain

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Apology Thread:

@Thenomain said in The Apology Thread:

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Apology Thread:

Live and let live, for fox sake.

<.<

...

(KIDDING!)

You get really upset when we argue, man, so why are you even doing this? Seriously.

Because I thought you'd think it was funny, and wouldn't think that you'd take a light ribbing into a serious argument. Live and let live.

Coin

@Faceless said in The Apology Thread:

@Monogram here is my outlook on it. Do it. If you're sorry, apologetic, or otherwise feel as though you somehow slighted someone and truly feel remorse for it? Show the other party that you recognize your mistake and are attempting to correct it, whether that means moving on from it and trying to return to a sense of normalcy or leaving them alone.

Why do people hold grudges? The answer is likely as varied as the person holding it over the span of months or even years in our hobby and I'm well aware that I can hold grudges for decades. Why do people hold grudges repeatedly? Well, as we've saw with a member or seven of our community and as you indicated in your post "Oh, I can't believe that X and Y are friends again"; sometimes people act like asses. Repeatedly. We see X and Y being friends again after Y told X they hated them, then six months later they're enemies again when it gets out that X said they didn't believe Y over their self-diagnosed Asperger's. People attempt to forgive, forget, move on, and never stop to think maybe their personalities just don't coincide. Which spawns years of back-and-forth loathing-make up-loathing-make up relationships that we see sometimes.

Sometimes? It's miscommunication and the ability of some people to refuse to be adults in the situation, even only some of the time. Other times one or both parties just want to avoid the drama until it blows over, but it never does. Sometimes it's not even clear what the other party was pissed about, people are finicky creatures at the best of times.

Two or three years ago I was acting like a complete and utter dick to @Coin. He may very well have not noticed it, I only say this because he never mentioned it to me directly and I never brought it to his doorstep. I allowed it just quietly fester. At that time he was running his own game, with multiple people inviting me to come check it out. I refused because he was a (head, I think)staffer and I figured that he'd use his position to be an ass toward me. Fast forward a couple of months and I finally gave in to the repeated attempts to get me onto the game.

You know what Coin did? That jerkoff (I say this with love)? He was nothing but friendly, professional, and overall Chillzilla with me. Maybe he didn't know about our quiet beef? Maybe he didn't care? Regardless, if he did have some inkling of it he gave zero indication and took the high road. This, in turn, made me realize that I was being a childish dickhole. It was on me, not him. This made me reassess how I was treating others and as a result made me want to change how I behaved toward others; selfish, right? Well, change has to begin with yourself. Now? I pop onto Skype randomly to share pictures with Coin, check in on him randomly, make small talk briefly while I'm on there(which isn't often), and generally attempt to restore/maintain the sense of camaraderie that he and I shared a long time ago. Know what else? I've never actually apologized in written word, I've only tried to show that I was sorry for my actions by returning to a sense of normalcy.

But, if I'm wrong about showing rather than saying. Then you have my apology @Coin for acting like a fucking idiot by taking something that could have been resolved early with a simple conversation and blowing it out of proportion. I hope that my actions have shown this to be true.

Now that goes against my earlier comments in this thread about making an apology personal, rather than shouting it in the street. Which makes me a hypocrite now, I guess. It seemed appropriate, oh well.

I remember you being a dick, but I don't recall why and, I think, I did what I almost always do: just basically went 'all right then' and moved on.

In general, unless the dickery is repeated and has a malicious core, I don't really hold a grudge. This is not the same as not liking someone.

Holding a Grudge != Not Liking Someone.

For me to hold a grudge I need to interpret some sort of ill deed in my direction. You don't need to do anything to me for me to not like you. I will dislike whoever the fuck I want and for whatever reason I want.

Anyway, your kid's cute, so it's cool.