[542] Accountability

Every second writing this will be a waste of time and effort. This exists because we can't escape our pasts. If you choose to read it, it will be because you sought it out, as it's not getting shared with anyone who didn't ask for it. I have so many words it leaves me struggling to breathe normally, thus, a measured pedantic screed will suffice as a kind of metaphor.

I don't believe you're the worst thing you've ever said or done. I'm very much of the mindset of the Norwegian countries where, even their worst offenders, the warden will tell them, "One day, you'll be my neighbor, I want to make sure I can create the conditions where we'll be able to exist together." As such, I've never put too much stock in dramatic situations. People get angry. People fight. People are bored. I've borrowed quotes from philosophers discussing man's propensity to be a general asshole for myriad reasons.

This provokes me to play a little fast and loose with what I often refer to as "pissing matches" online. Every once in a while you'll get some big gaming identity or subculture icon to post their 10 minutes discussing some complicated feud and claim to be the realest and most truthful in their accounting of who's getting fucked by who. Then, presumably, it disappears into the ashes of the internet and identities get to move on. If you're a public figure, you get to crafting, if you're some random handle, your comments and fights buried.

Well, that's what dogg724 is for me. The random handle in which I can say my first name, but keep from bringing other people's identities into things. (Note, there may be unlinked names next to comments from the old days of discussions on Myspace, but nothing that was private back then nor is less than what facebook allegedly requires of you today.) Now, when saying stupid things and getting into fights about who has better spelling, you just get to be idiot dogg724.

Things changed. A friend and I were googling ourselves to gauge our online presence. By chance, I come across a person I got into it with on reddit. They post a (not selectively edited, they swear!) description of their perspective regarding our interaction. Fair enough, I've got the copy/pasted conversation posted on reddit as well, you'll never guess, but they contrast. Well, more specifically, mine's copy and pasted from our reddit inboxes, his is skimming through 12 years of my public journaling to string together why I'm a nutcase.

Again, all well and good, except he decides that to protest actions he believes I took against him, he'd tie my name and location to it. Now I'm not dogg724, for better or worse, I'm a stupid pissing match and a handful of paragraphs where I use explicit or racist language. Wonderful.

I don't know how to escape. He's already prompted me to erase most of what I've posted to reddit because the messages and drama was getting too stupid. Now, he brags about keeping tabs on me, apparently worried I'm going to share his information? It's worth noting, I don't know who he is! A user who liked my shit, I suppose thinking they were coming to my defense, took his publicly shared picture and posted it. The ensuing shit-storm was comments on legality and suing and character defaming.

And it's not even "simply dumb."

It's dumb because two grown adults would spend so much time behaving that way. That part is simple. I have all the time in the world to dig my embarrassing regrettable holes. But then it's dumb for the reasons you hate to hear children fight. Who hit who first? Tommy did it! No it was Ashton! Either they have terrible memories, or self-interested liars behave predictably. For my part, given my propensity to share the potentially horrible and ridiculous things I've said from time to time, at the very least, I don't find uppity weirdos online something I'm moved to suppress.

The brunt of his contention seems to be that I was harassing him. In him trying to police my advice to someone about torrenting, and him not liking my rejection of his plea, he immediately went after my writing, maturity, etc. and at one point told me to delete my hard drives because he played golf with someone he was going to persuade to sue me...? He described a dinner party with his friends where they printed and acted out my blogs because they were so ridiculous! It's a terrible read, though regrettably I didn't save that part, but we go back and forth for some time about who should hang up the phone first. All the while, the word irony guts itself and desperately looks around for someone to understand it one last time.

When I try, I adopt something of a stoic philosophy. I assume he's as bad as my worst caricature of him. I assume one day I'll be in front of a judge reading back some terrible thing I've said and making the case that I'm more embarrassed and ashamed of the waste of time than words will ever express. Then I'll meet my bogyman and I'll finally know who to get the fuck away from if I ever have the displeasure of bumping into them in our small town.

This is such an old issue. It's that I just popped up on this page about me a few minutes ago and I might liken it to a form of exceedingly mild PTSD. A flash of the stupid contradictions and assumptions he used to justify trying to intimidate me. The messages from other redditors warning me about what he's done to them before I wandered in. The idea that he boasts about "checking in" meaning I have to assume this will provoke him to create another fake reddit name and pull from his go-to cache of cliches to try and berate me.

I won't let him take writing away from me. I won't pretend context doesn't exist. I won't stutter from reciting whatever bullshit is presented to a court while we parse who's personal information is where and whether an admitted idiot with too much time on his hands should so eerily resemble a "legal professional" who "just keeps tabs" on those he diagnoses as dangerous. Me, I put our stupidity on police radar. I called the game over, and yet, my name, like some ugly torn flag is firmly planted into his fantasy about who we are to each other, and all I can do is what?

I want to call and let them know that the post exists. If you want to record information, there's no reason to make me easy to find and hide behind the guise it's "just for the record." I've been searching for something to write about for some time now, and I did not expect this to be it.(paused) Again, I've contacted the police and asked for guidance, as I don't know how to stay quasi-anonymous with my name and general location blasted against his selective reading and memory.

People, please, learn from my mistakes. Make sure you have the thick skin to ignore the self-righteous trolls. Some peoples' bladders are never empty, and you'll find yourself facing real-world absurdity.