Dear Anita,

The young woman you mentioned sounds like an extreme version of me. I still need to muster the courage to go out everyday and face people. I am quite good at faking this normal personality but when I get home I’m exhausted. I am one of those people for whom the pandemic provided relief. It is a terrible thing to say because so many people lost their lives and some people were out of work. I am one of the lucky ones that my company managed to shift to virtual arrangement in the interim, so I should count my blessings.

I am jolly and the happiest when I’m by myself. No overthinking of how I’m going to be perceived, whether I’m gonna offend or say the wrong things, just me and wikipedia, reading about random interesting stuff. I could just relax, no anxiety. I don’t know if it’s healthy. As I said, I’m an immigrant with no friends or family so I’m not really building any support system by being a recluse, and that worries me sometimes.

I should also say I have schizoid personality disorder. I used to have this elaborate fantasy world as a coping mechanism. I seldom visit it anymore but at one time, my reality was so unbearable that I used to escape to that fantasy world every so often.

Thank you, Anita, for taking the time to reply to me. I really appreciate it.

You mean if i feel guilty about learning lessons? Yes, I do feel guilty for failing to know any better. I am not young and felt I should know what to do. Also, I am quite a recluse (hence I am not on social media) and really hate dealing with people because interactions are rife with misunderstandings like this. I am still reeling from everything, I wish I never entered into this misguided good deed and just let things be.

Thank you Helcat and Anita!

I take full responsibility for everything as I should not have given the impression that I was going to keep the dog. I am not angry at him. I understand where he is coming from. I just regret how things turned out. If he had never come across the adoption post, everything would have been just fine. I am sure he would not lose customers as there is no way the dog could be traced back to him (unless someone is really really out to get him and hellbent on ‘exposing’ him).

My conscience is also clear because I truly never divulged his info to anyone. I even have the text message to back it up where Tina mistakenly thought the shop was going to put the dog down and I corrected her, even went so far as to say the shop owner was actually nice. I showed this to him but he still said he felt very hurt.

I do not blame him for getting angry. In fact I do think he cares about his dogs so much that to see the dog getting passed around like this upsets him. I just hope he could see that this was an honest mistake and that all I was trying to do was to ‘lighten his load’ as I see he keeps bringing new dogs in even though he still has some unsold dogs that are aging out.

Anita, regarding the defamation suit, I am also not worried as I never identified him, even Tina did not know who he was. In a fit of rage, he called Tina (her number was in the adoption post) and actually exposed himself to her.

Tina is someone I just got to know and she might have an agenda herself (I also don’t blame her for this mess, she is passionate about animals and was just trying to help. In fact, her post helped connecting the dog to the family who just lost the husband/father so suddenly a few months ago due to heart attack.

My experience with Tina has always been nice so far but the shop owner told me she was very unfriendly when he called her, and that she told him I was the one who told her that the dog was about to be put down. I don’t know who to believe and perhaps it was just another misunderstanding where everyone is so emotional and gets caught up in the situation and missed out on details. All I know is I have the text to show that I actually corrected her about this prior to her putting up the adoption post.

I just want to put this all behind me. I keep wishing I never decided to take the matter into my own hand (aka buying the dog with the intention of giving it away for free) and just walked away from the shop. I still have knots in my stomach and I haven’t been able to sleep well. This sucks.