anita-you don’t have to read if you don’t want to but I needed to respond.

You said the following:

“Most recently, you elaborated on and added to uncomfortable: “I hate posting personal things on an open forum… I feel really disappointed in the fact that you’ve decided that we can never e-mail…  It was so jarring to me…  I think I got a “no” based on what you experienced with other people…  I want to ask you to reconsiderbased on the following things I will write. If you still decide you don’t want to email me ever, I will respect it and I won’t bring it up again – I promise. I think you were concerned that your emails would enable me to get stuck in a difficult situation … however I don’t see myself as that kind of person… Plus, you would have the right to cut it off at any time, for whatever reason if you felt it wasn’t productive…. I don’t think I would write every day… You said emails were more personal –this doesn’t have to be…. I wouldn’t ask for pictures or anything like that.  It would be just like it is now… If you decide the answer is still a forever no, I understand… As I said, I won’t bring it up again“.- Anita wrote

This whole paragraph is no different than what I wrote in my previous post.   I said, at the very end of the dialogue, I asked you to reconsider and  that I could see how that post pressured you….  I said:

“This is when I wrote a whole email(should say post) asking you to reconsider and addressing some of the above points including previous people you emailed and how I would be different (this was where I pressured you, I think) –  At the end of the post, I said, Me: “If you decide your answer is still a forever no, I understand.  You have to do what’s right for you based on your experiences.  As I said, I won’t bring it up again, I just think I owed it to myself to try…Thank you for reading” –In this post, I wrote everything you said above.

After that you consented to us exchanging emails

This was at the end of my thread entitled help.  Before that post where I asked you to reconsider, if you care to read and process what I wrote above, when emailing was bought up, I usually said, I would like it (to email) but I respect your wishes in one way or the other.

Re: CONVERSATION 2-in your deleted thread entitle attention meliss,  you quoted the following things in your previous post.

“Some days after the above, you deleted your thread. I then posted to you yesterday, in my own thread titled a message to meliss: “I will never again exchange email addresses on the forums, and I will never again give in to pressure to do so!“

Next, in your second thread, a message to Anita, you wrote: “Do you still not want to try communicating via email?”

The first topic, a broken promise: “If you still decide you don’t want to email me ever, I will respect it and I won’t bring it up again – I promise…. Do you still not want to try communicating via email?”- anita

Let me break it down for clarity.  We were going back and forth on your thread (entitled a message for meliss that you deleted) trying to figure out how to get my emails to you because I was accidently blocked. My messages still were not getting to you.  I had sent you an email from my alternative account, which you did not receive. I was trying to figure out how to fix the problem.  As I was working on it, you wrote and posted the following:

Being pressured to exchange emails with you, (2) Giving in to your pressure, (3) followed by 6 days of technical (and whatever other) problems with the email exchange, (4) The Lose-Lose aspect of this: you felt nervous and uncomfortable after you got what you wanted — has resulted in me feeling stupid and quite angry for having given in to your pressure. (I don’t have the whole message just this part).

 If I remember correctly, you told me that you won’t read emails from me, you won’t respond to your thread if I reply back, you don’t want to post there anymore , and if I didn’t start my own thread, this was goodbye.

At the time, I thought that you felt angry and stupid because you thought I was nervous and uncomfortable about emailing you after I pressured you(your words).  I focused on that so I sent a copy of the email I wrote earlier in the week(first post in this thread), trying to let you know that my nervouseness had nothing to do with me not wanting to communicate.  To be honest, I didn’t want you to feel “angry or stupid” because I pressured you and got what I wanted and still felt nervous and uncomfortable (according to you).  I felt anger at that time, too (at the abrupt  way it happened) but it wasn’t as important as fixing what I thought was wrong.  I didn’t want you to feel “stupid or angry”(I felt some compassion). So, when I asked in the second conversation …Do you still not want to try communicating via email?…(after I sent the email trying to explain my nervousness), It was to clarify because I thought my nervousness played a big part in your anger and it was maybe a rash decision. I wanted to make sure you understood that I really valued communication despite being nervous-and my nervousness shouldn’t be a reason to abort the process(Obviously, I focused on that part of what your wrote and I should not have).

 Days later, I expressed that I had felt anger too and why.  I said:

 To be honest, I felt angry too because you just shut it down, not even wanting to hear anything I might have had to say on the subject. You said you won’t respond to emails, your thread is closed cause you don’t want to respond to it anymore and basically you were done with the whole email thing(which is fine)—and all because I said I was nervous. (what prompted your post, as I understand it, is that I wrote in my first email to you, I’m nervous even though I bugged you to email me). All my worry and struggle when I hadn’t heard from you that week,  all the work I put it, and was putting it even as you posted (googling how to fix Hotmail issues and then trying to type it so you could understand-i even created a alternate email in my yahoo account) didn’t matter one bit.-I am not angry anymore but we did say that we should tell the other if they did something to hurt(I assume anger is included).  You told me why you were angry and I’m telling you why I was…

 So you say I was being passive aggressive and I’m guilt tripping you.  I don’t see it…Actually, I guess I can see how you felt blamed but it was not passive aggressive and it was not my intention to blame you.

You expressed your anger to me- and it’s okay? I express that I was angry(read frustrated)as well and I’m being passive aggressive and dishonest and manipulative? I was not guilt tripping you, at least, it wasn’t my intention.  But how is what I wrote different from what you wrote? You blamed me for pressuring you, said that I felt nervous and uncomfortable after getting what I wanted and it resulted in you feeling angry and stupid. Had you said something like, “meliss, I’m not comfortable with this anymore, I change mind, I no longer want to exchange emails,” I don’t think I would have felt anger.  It was how you just shut it down.  I expressed my feelings in the last post, not for the purpose of changing your mind(I would never want to email again), not to blame you…but so you could maybe understand how I was effected too.

I said I wasn’t angry anymore because I didn’t want you to think I was angry at you still – but in the moment –when it happened- I felt upset because I was blamed and because I was shut down-I’m not responding to anything you say on this thread(or something like that). Had you said something like, “I see that you were really trying hard to fix the problem, but I am not interested in doing this anymore,”  I think that would’ve helped.  It was like I wasn’t there struggling through it with you- I became the problem and you were shutting me down.  That bothered me(at the time).

Maybe I should have said I worked hard at trying to fix the Hotmail problem, now you’re shutting it down and it results in me feeling angry and frustrated? I think it’s the same thing, less detail.  Maybe this way is easier on the emotions?

Anger needs to be expressed in an honest yet contained way: I am angry because of this…, and then open it for an honest discussion. Not an argument, but a discussion aimed at resolving the real or imagined conflict that brought about the anger.– you said this about anger.  So, when you wrote your post stating that  I  feel stupid and angry…I’m not responding to this thread, I am not responding if you post here…Can’t you see that’s what frustrated me?  I don’t think there was any room for open and honest discussion, not to change your mind but to process how we both felt. It felt like you blamed me and shut it down.

“You were done with the whole email thing (which is fine)” – clearly it is not fine with you. This is a lie. – Except it’s not a lie(You speak with such authority and telling me what I’m thinking and feeling-it would be better to ask).  I was just processing and trying to understand in that post.  At the time when it first happened I was upset(at how it went down), not anymore, and not when I wrote the post.

“I am not angry anymore“- you removed the anger from the mix of the suffering I allegedly caused you after it served its intended purpose: to show me that you are rightfully angry (rightfully angry because I allegedly wronged you).- I never said anything about being rightfully angry.  Anger is just a feeling. I never said you wronged me.  How come when you expressed your anger, it was okay?  I did work hard trying to handle the Hotmail problem, I did feel shut down after you aborted the process in the middle of doing it, and I did feel angry.  Why is my expression of anger worse than yours?  What’s the difference? Is it because your anger was justified, you think?

You said the following:

On one hand you are warm and kind: “I do appreciate your responses and you taking the time to read… validating my experiences“,

On the other hand, you are angry and cold: “in some instances, validating my experiences, I really wouldn’t describe you as someone who cared about me” – letting me know that in some, or in many instances, I failed to validate your experiences, closing with the angry punchline: you do not care about me! –Anita

 This is the second time you brought this up, I’m going to write the whole dialog for clarity.  Your original question to me was,

“Isn’t it sad that I, a person you first communicated with only five days ago, a person you never met in-person, cares more about you than your father whom you’ve been with in-person for 46 years?.”

Below is the answer 1^st answer I gave-the whole thing:

“This had me thinking for a minute.  While I do appreciate your responses and you taking the time to read, write and in some instances, validating my experiences, I really wouldn’t describe you as someone who cared about me, after all, I am a stranger.  I honestly don’t think it’s a fair comparison.  However, you have shown more compassion to my emotional well-being than he does, and as I said, I am grateful for your time in that respect.

To me, the whole quote paints a different picture.

This is the second answer I gave when you bought it up again:

As for the above, I think we had been writing for 2 or 3 days-maybe a week.  I don’t think a stranger could care about me in that amount of time.  I did appreciate your time and compassion.  I still do. I thought that F was mean, but if I went to the hospital, he would try to see me, you wouldn’t/couldn’t.  I just felt like, it wasn’t fair to compare you and him-like apples and oranges.  But yes, it is possible I come across cold at times, and there are times I feel it’s best to pull back emotions or not to have emotions so as not to scare others or be rejected.  My reaction to the above was not to minimize your response to me at all- I believe I understood and appreciated your sentiment.  It was a very kind sentiment.  I see I didn’t communicate about that clearly –

What else can I say?  I mention that I was angry about the way you aborted what we were doing in your in your thread (fixing the email problem), now you’re seeing anger everywhere?

Again, I was not angry but I don’t believe someone I knew 5 days, cared about me(maybe that’s a problem but it’s my truth) .  You take things I say out of context and I had already explained it previously. Also, I never said anything about you failing to validate my experiences but honestly, 1.) There are things I never told you about, so how could you possibly validate them? and 2) there are times where I didn’t feel validated.  It’s okay though, no one is perfectly validating all the time.  This wasn’t a dig at you; this was just me trying to be precise with words.

“You stated that you feel the following about not communicating with me on email (your words): uncomfortable, hate, really disappointed, jarring. So, as a person with some empathy, I wanted to make you feel better (comfortable, no longer in a state of hate, no longer being disappointed, no longer being jarred). I wanted to please you, plus, although somewhat uncomfortable with the pressure and conflicted, I liked you at the time, so I exchanged emails with you.”

I did use all of those words.  All I can say is that I do hate typing in the forums.  It is personal preference of mine, not to share personal things here. I came here because I felt at the end of my line. The words “disappointed” and “jarring” were shared in the post where I asked you to reconsider(and I acknowledged the pressure in that post over and over).  Before that, I did talk about being uncomfortable and hating forums.  It’s the truth about how I feel.  However, it did not mean that it was ever your responsibility to do something about it.  Other than, if you want to be compassionate, “I understand that it’s hard for you.”  It was never your responsibility to please me, although I understand feeling compassion and wanting to help…but it was never something I felt you owed me. I expressed hating forums and have acknowledged that I would prefer email but I usually said I would respect your wishes(except in that last post in my thread where I asked you to reconsider-which I regret so much).

I don’t have patience, nor do I want to have patience for interpersonal dishonesty, passive-aggressiveness and unfair emotional manipulation, such as guilt tripping. I think that if I continue to communicate with you, you will graciously accept a bit of what I wrote, deny most, suggest that I am wrong, etc., continuing to present the mix bag of honesty and dishonesty, passive-aggressiveness and a bit of being direct, warm and cold, etc. – You certainly have a lot to say about who I am or what I’m about.  Not that maybe our communication lines got crossed, or maybe there was a bit of misunderstanding.  Not maybe the intent was good, but it was expressed in the wrong way. No, according to you, I am passive aggressive, I use unfair emotional manipulation, I am cold, in an earlier thread, I am paranoid, I am interpersonally dishonest.  There is no other problem, right?  It’s okay, anita, I don’t want to communicate anymore either but it would be unfair to just let your one-sided interpretation stand.

m