maarmie's musings

Monday, July 24, 2006

Why do I do it?!

As many of you are probably aware, I have a tendency to call people out on my blog. In this post, I will examine this practice and try to both explain my actions and figure out exactly what it is I'm trying to accomplish through them.

This tattling of sorts started out as half paragraphs in my formerly-ongoing-but-now-defunct page titled "How to Piss Me Off" where I spewed some venom at a couple of friends, a former co-worker, a former boss, a friend's previous boyfriend, one of my previous boyfriends, a guy I dated for a while and a guy I had wanted to date for many, many years. I also threw some hate the president's way, but, because he's not human, he doesn't count.

Maybe I got tired of updating this post, or maybe I wanted space to write longer missives. Whatever the case, I began dedicating whole posts to a specific incident or person. In any event, my meanness and hostility are hard, if not impossible, to ignore.

One look at my introduction, though, lets my readers know my state of mind as I penned my first post here. The backstory is that this blog was created a little more than five months after I was bullied, mobbed, sexually harassed, then fired from a job that I thought finally had me on some kind of "right track" as far as a career is concerned and a little more than three months after the lawsuit that ended in mediation was over. I was still crying four, five, six times a day even after all these months. My emotions were dulled. I was painfully (and I mean PAINFULLY) depressed. I felt hopeless. Again, like so many times before, I felt like a victim. Only now, I was a victim who was also diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. Life had never been - and I imagined never could have been - worse.

Without knowing or caring if anyone was reading, I started this blog under that circumstance. I had intended on using this blog as a kind of anonymous on-line diary to both keep my writing muscles flexed and to vent my pent-up aggressions. Along the way, I have become less and less anonymous and have surprised even myself, sometimes, with the depth of my anger toward men in general, someone I thought liked me but didn't, my stepmother, a former friend and ex-boyfriend, my brother in particular and my whole rotten fucking family in general, and certain people I met or visited on a recent vacation.

Some of the people in question have read my posts about them. Certain others don't know about my blog. The ones who HAVE read negative posts pertaining to them pretty much don't talk to me anymore. That is just as well as I tend not to write about people that way until I'm pretty damn sure I want nothing more to do with them, until they have shown me such disrespect or such little regard that I really don't care if they are offended or not by my words.

What I find shocking and more than a little sad is that 99 percent of the people I have written about didn't mind treating me like shit but then wanted to turn around and get mad at me for writing about it. In other words, these jerks are saying it's OK to do what they did, it's just not OK for me to talk about it. Hm. Sounds about right. Isn't that any abuser's or general dickhead's modus operandi? They do what they do thinking they'll never be ratted out? That they'll never have to face what they've done? That no one else will know? That they'll never be asked to own up to their actions?

Fuck that, and fuck anyone who thinks that way.

I'm sure there are many better ways to handle life's disappointments and harsh realities. Knowing that, I have, in the past, deleted some things I have written in pure anger and haste. And, believe me, I don't write about every little grievance here. More than half the people I know piss me right the hell off at one time or another as I have zero tolerance for extreme foolishness and the fools who practice such foolishness. I know that a mistake is a mistake, though, and can usually be rectified. Hell, even I'M not perfect. But I try to be, and a well-honed sense of guilt and shame and a dollop of sensitivity usually keep me in line or at least apologizing profusely when I've hurt someone I care about. Can you see me way up here on my soapbox?

Some things AREN'T mistakes, though. And some things CAN'T be rectified. Enter maarmie and her keyboard of public shame. I guess that's what this all amounts to: public shaming. Maybe the Chinese have it right! You might think public shaming is wrong or bad. Maybe. Maybe not. Worse than public shaming, though, I think, are assholes, assholes who know that they're assholes but don't care that they're assholes, assholes who don't know who they are or care who they are, assholes who neither want to know themselves nor learn how NOT to be assholes, assholes who won't listen when you tell them what they've done, assholes who don't give a crap about anyone but themselves and assholes who don't care who they slash and burn as long as they get theirs.

To those people I say, "Bring it on." But be prepared to read about it here later. And quit your whining. It's about time you know what it feels like.

I am vigilante. Hear me roar! Meow!

P.S. (5:20 p.m. EST): Do you want to slam me? Tell me how unfair I am? How much of a bad person I am? Go ahead! Leave a comment! Send an e-mail! Unlike some people (ymereJ), I don't reject relevant comments, and I encourage any and all criticisms. If I'm wrong, I'm always the first person who wants to know about it.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen.

maarmie said...

: )

Diana said...

You're a bad-ass. I like it.

Anonymous said...

you go girl!!!!!

maarmie said...

professor girl: Thanks. I'm just very very tired of jerks.

Ann: Thanks...

Anonymous said...

I can smell bras burning. That always brings a smile to my grimace. Thanks for these postings - I really appreciate the dramatic irony.

maarmie said...

I like my bra right where it is, d.g. t.b. - wrapped around my boobs. Thanks, anyway.