the jess school of thought
in honor of everyone's favorite hawaiian, i'm posting this here. i probably should not have posted anything about it in the first place, but they were just thoughts, and i got a response in kind, so here we go.
natalie - i probably should have remembered that you read this.
it's either demoralizing or it isn't. either way, you were trying to respond in kind, and from a number of phrases you wrote right here it sounds like you were hurt and you were trying to hurt back. it doesn't sound like you were just fucking with me, or blowing random smoke up my ass. it sounds like you snapped back and said exactly what you meant to say, and then felt bad later.
i'm really glad you don't bitch and whine, or any other crap, because if you did i would be right about the soul sucking. i never thought you were that kind of person; i wouldn't even talk to you if that were the case.
it is an old line and i am at fault for expecting you to recognize it as such. i'm sorry. i play by a fairly specific set of rules and you have no way of knowing them.
i already said i don't care. and unlike you, i don't contradict myself with every other sentence. although me mentioning austin and remorse does seem contrary to me not caring, doesn't it? what i should have said is that it was nice austin was concerned about my feelings being hurt, even though he didn't have to be. remorse wasn't the most apt word either. damn.
austin did not apologize for you, or anything along those lines. he was making sure i could in fact take what you were dishing out, and i think he was worried when he asked me that i couldn't.
what _would_ you do without him? he's a good person and a great friend and everyone would be worse off without him. well, maybe there are some people in the world who hate him, but they're in the minority. i think.
2 Comments:
Eric--
Let me start by saying that I hope that whatever conversation follows is taken off of blogs and into emails or phone calls. There were lots of people who didn't like Jess' approach to dumping shit online, and I believe you were often among them. I'm responding here only so that my response so far is catalogued here with the rest of what got started. Like I said, I hope that if it isn't finished, it will finish more privately.
I wish that neither of you had taken the shots you did at each other. I now recognize the line you've used about succubi, but Natalie didn't and I think that her response _was_ in kind. I didn't originally know what got her started talking about that stuff-- I must have been talking past you guys to Sai and Dave when you made your comment. I am glad that she didn't hurt your feelings, I wouldn't want that. I am pissed that you have now hurt hers. I don't want that either.
As to whether she meant it to be hurtful at the time, I don't think her comments here are necessarily linked to her intentions then. I believe that she thought she was just f'ing with you at the time. The fact that you _did_ make it sound like it got under your skin when you posted here made it important that she explain why she said it in the first place. It seems to me like she's saying "either we were both supposed to take it seriously or neither of us was". By posting that my reaction made up for what she had done, you made it sound like there _was_ something to be made up for. You acknowledged that in your last post, and I think it was a good point.
If you needed my remorse to make up for what she said, which is what you originally posted, I believe she was licensed to have the same reaction to your remarks. It makes sense that if you were attributing malicious intent to her remarks, she should do the same with yours (especially not having been exposed to that particular schtick before). It is fully possible that she responded at dinner in the same spirit that you were teasing her, but that once you opened the door to taking the exchange more seriously, she started to do so as well.
I want to be clear on this: I _was_ surpised by what she said. Natalie and I don't have an antagonistic relationship, and from what I've seen she doesn't work that way with her other friends either. But just because I hadn't seen her engage in this kind of verbal sparring before doesn't mean she was out of place in doing so then. She has said that her response was out of character for her, and that is what surprised me so much. Thinking about the comments you made from her perspective, I can understand why she felt she could take a shot back at you. Nevertheless, the fact that she did so surprised me at the time.
She's also not the one who brought this out onto the internet. Even if you didn't remember that she reads this, you knew for sure that she would read her email. If your beef was with her, you could have taken it to her instead of criticizing her publicly. I can't tell you how to run your site, but I can tell you how I think people should be treated, and I don't think you were fair to her here. I think she deserves to be treated well, both on her own merits and for my sake. She has invited you into our home, has encouraged me to keep up with you, and has always been interested in what's going on with you. You guys seemed to get along well-- it's a shame if that doesn't count for something. Even if it doesn't, though, I'd hope that because you know she means so much to me you'd at least respect her enough not to put this stuff out there for everyone to see.
Thank you for the kind words at the end of your last post. Both of you guys mean a lot to me. I hate to see bad blood developing between you, especially since you have always been the friend of mine Natalie has gotten along with best and enjoyed talking with most.
I can understand if you don't want to leave me the last word on your own site-- that you might want to respond in public somehow. That said, I really hope you'll consider taking whatever you can of your response and making it to Natalie or me directly.
I'm sure that there are any number of contradictions in this response. I'm sure that it won't please you or Natalie that I've made it. As easy as it will surely be to poke holes in my points or to point out inconsistencies and conflicts, please remember one thing: I _am_ conflicted. The woman I love and one of best friends are fighting over some remarks I wish neither of them had made. So yeah, I'm confused and conflicted and probably not too pointed in the way I've conveyed my thoughts.
I'm glad to have both of you in my life, and am better for it.
Sorry this got started in the first place,
/au
eric, you dumbass. that shit NEVER worked. that's why it's a FAILED panopticon!
still like seein' my name, though. always the narcissist.
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