So today I was talking to my friend about some of the friends we've lost in the last year. I've probably blogged about most of this before (in fact I pretty much know I have) but now that I'm not emotional about it I thought I'd write a little about it.
I've put it under a break because it might be long.... But it is basically a blog of how sad actually losing friends, even internet friends, can be.
So along time ago (and a galaxy far away, known as Bebo) I met a bunch of people. Those people came from all over the world and had one thing in common, we all love F1.
Most of those friends I'm still friends with, and some of them joined me when I made my forum, and when I started my forum I made more friends.
Sitting here now one of those friends and a few from the forum are not just no longer my friends, but our bridges have been totally destroyed.
Am I sad about this? Especially as I was the one that burnt those bridges?
Well yes a little bit.
Even more so when I think about just how great our friendships were at the beginning.
I'll start with my friend Emma. When I met her on Bebo she was a lovely girl, she loved F1 and was fun to talk to. Just like all my other friends on there. She liked Fernando Alonso, Nico Rosberg and before we all left Bebo she also was a fan of Nico Hulkenberg.
She stayed a wonderful friend until she went to uni. Now it wasn't anything to do with actually being in uni, but she suddenly went a bit... Strange.
She seemed to fall in love with every male in her class, spent most of her time getting herself into strange situations and then didn't want to go back the next year as she didn't have many friends. When she announced she wasn't going back the reaction of people in her class and dorm didn't make it seem like she had no friends, but I was supportive as I know how difficult it is doing something that you don't want to be doing.
But leaving uni didn't do any good for her. She was then "depressed" and couldn't work. Now technically I was depressed and just got on with life, I felt for her but my patience was thin when she'd go on about her problems and they were nothing compared to problems me and others were facing. I was facing being the only earner in a house full of three adults and a baby, her problem was that she fancied her best friends best friend. She couldn't say there were "other" problems as we knew her mum, step dad, sister and brother and none of them knew anything about these TERRIBLE happenings in her family life. In fact once even her mother told her she was making it all up.
But me and our other friends kept with it, thick and thin, yadda yadda. There were still moments, still conversations and times when she wasn't searching for sympathy were the old Emma shone through but they became slowly further apart.
Then about a year before our argument she turned "emo". I gritted my teeth, she'd been going through fads and I was hoping it would leave. Now I'm all for people liking whatever they wanted but something really annoyed me.
I have always liked strange genres of music, from Take That to Rammstein, Weezer to Blake Shelton. I don't care who else likes it, but Emma used to moan about it. She loved Westlife (nothing wrong with them), The Wanted and so on. She used to dislike the music I liked and was vocal about it.
Now changing her mind I don't mind. What I do mind is when suddenly someone she hadn't heard of 3 years ago but I've known since I was a kid suddenly became her life time hero.
But I put up with it.
What I couldn't get was a sudden hypocrisy she was showing.
So Amy Winehouse dies and its one less druggy on the earth to Emma. She hated her music therefore she got what she deserved.
Billie Joe goes into rehab because he's a drug addict and its lets make 101 excuses for him. He's ill, people like him should be cared for.
When she started going on about him being her hero I snapped. I handled the situation badly but it couldn't be helped.
The thing is the message I had I was hoping would make her realize that acting the way she was online wasn't helping her. I gave her advice on a million things and she never took it, she always did the opposite and it made her situation worse. I might have been more forceful then I wanted to be but I was angry.
I've been looking back from time to time through a friends facebook at what she has been up to. She spent most of the next month and a half moaning about me and our other friends (most who had agreed with me in nicer ways and been blocked by her and attacked by her family) and now she's back to moaning about how the whole world is against her and she's so poor and broke but look at her new shiny phone.
Looking back she was such a brilliant friend and I do miss her from time to time because we had some brilliant times. I shared a lot with her and tried to help her. I wish she had listened properly to my last comments and got the message but I don't think she did.
As for the forum I put so much work into it but most importantly I made some great friends.
For some reason when one member joined those good friends changed to act as childish as the new member. It was baffling, but as my friends were really only on the forum for fun and the other group were there as fans I had to side a little bit with them. That left me in the forum with only these people. In the end a 45+ year old women was acting worse then a 15 year old and I had to call the plug. They had made me despise something I loved. How could I carry on when I hated every second of something I was doing in my spare time?
They started off being quite reasonable, if they didn't know something they'd learn and ask questions. It got to a point every conversation ended because "I don't know what your talking about so I'm just going to ignore it" how is that any way to engage in a forum?
The other is being a childish bitch (for want of a better word) "I dislike driver X because he's ugly therefore driver Y should get his seat and anyway drivers F,T and R are all pay drivers which never happened in F1 before my driver was refused a seat so they should all go too, what do you mean I'm wrong? I don't understand so I'm leaving"...
Yes that is really what it felt like ALL... THE... TIME....
The thing is I'm quite a hands on admin so I was part of the forum not just some nameless, faceless behind the scenes entity that moderated. I was always there, I had the joint highest post count, I welcomed every new member, sent out surveys, tried to keep conversations going when they were fizzing out. It worked for 2 years.
These people were my friends not my subjects in my kingdom.
So when it got to the point they wouldn't include me in their circle because I didn't want to be a bitch about everyone it hurt. My friends didn't really care about my work as long as I left them alone to be vile and cruel to people they didn't know, which was against a forum rule THEY HAD ASKED FOR!
So within 12 months or so I lost about 4 really good friends. One who I've had for about 7 years?
I burnt my bridges by being honest with people who didn't like being told things that would upset them. But should I have stayed quiet and just held on to friendships that had become tiresome and difficult to care for?
Maybe, I do miss them from time to time. Do they miss me? Its hard to tell, Emma defintetly went on about me and the other people she blocked for long enough and still leaves cryptic comments all over the place about us. The others probably are happier with me not around them telling them to stop stalking people just because they might be dating their favorite F1 driver.
Its sad it had to end that way, but for the forum it was for my own good. I couldn't stay, I had to be honest why I was leaving two years of work and to be honest after the way they had all acted I didn't want to see them again. Now I do miss them as you would after talking to people every day for two years then suddenly never talking to them again. Especially as I'm still friends with their friends so from time to time their messages show up on twitter and other places.
Emma... Its even more difficult. She wasn't at all a random forumer for two years she was a close friend. I did on the same night apologize for being as harsh as I was, but it had to be said. If anything at least online the girl has problems, not anything major, just attention problems. She wants to be center of attention but never really in a positive way.
I'd love one day just to get a message out of the blue from her telling me I'm a bitch and I get to message back and we just argue until we've got it out of our system and laugh it off a few weeks later. That is what me and my best friends would do and as Emma was my best friend as well before this I'd like to think one day it would happen. It won't though. I know it won't as when she unblocked one of us to let us "explain" she just spent the time agreeing with her and moaning and then ignored her and went on complaining about how cruel we all were.
Its sad when it happens but you can only push people so far...
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