Some of you may remember the fracas over this post about two months back. I decided not to return to the bar in question for at least two months before the comments field debacle occurred. Once that hit, I decided to cut myself off from that crowd for a while for a variety of reasons. I was incredibly angry and instead of making a bad situation worse by antagonizing people who already seemed to think they had been antagonized, I thought well better stay away from them while they are angry and vice versa.

Now out of that group only person reached out to my via email. I didn't return her emails, which was wrong of me, but she is a part of the group that I was avoiding.

Why am I avoiding an entire group when only three people are really involved in the conflict?

Because before I even wrote a response about what happened on the blog, I was accosted by someone who knew nothing of the situation, hadn't read the post, had only been told what had happened, about why I would do something like that. He was already puffed with self righteousness, but not any actually first hand information although it certainly would have been easy enough to actually come here and read the post. And I didn't really feel like having to go through that conversation again and again, which was sure to happen. I also didn't want to have to deal with the "don't blog this, don't blog that" stipulations that were sure to come up.

I make no promises to anyone about what appears here. I have tried to protect people as best I can, but at the end of the day the blog wins. All three people involved in the conversation knew about the blog. They knew the type of information that I posted. Only one of them had objected to information posted here before, and by the time I found out about it, it was too late to do damage control. Not one of them bothered to actually send an email, text, or voicemail asking me to take down the post. They simply attacked me in my own comments field. When I removed the comments for a variety of reasons including the unwarranted attack on my readers and made it clear that I would discuss what happened in other more appropriate forums, I received no response. So I simply removed myself from the equation. I didn't write any further about the topic, except for one post reiterating my position on what I write here and my attitude towards the demand of others.

Since then I have written nothing more about the matter. When I've seen people from that circle at other places, I've been cordial smiling and waving. I haven't mentioned what happened. In fact, part of the reason I withdrew from the social scene was so that people wouldn't have to face a "Whose side are you on?" type of dilemma. For all of their moral grandstanding about not judging unless you are directly involved in the situation in question (which, incidentally, is a specious argument-I mean if we accepted it the legal system would go down the tubes- what else do juries do except make decisions about incidents to which they have not personally witnessed?) two people who were no way directly involved in the incident, who haven't been written about here, or ever come to read this blog have decided that because of my behavior I should be treated as dead. Two people who used to great me with hugs and kisses have now walked past me as if I wasn't there.

One of the people who ignored me today I always thought of as a very decent guy. He used to think I was the salt of earth now apparently I am just a pile of it.

Sure, it hurts. But on the other hand, I thought more of him than that.

So how broken up do I feel about losing an entire social system?

Well it's like I tell my students, former students, learning is often a painful process. We are forced to abandon things, beliefs, people, attitudes, desires, sometimes very enjoyable, but in the long term a necessary loss in order to be ready for better things.