Vengeance

 I'll admit that what I'm about to write about is most certainly petty and it's full of vengeance. But here we are anyways.

At some point in the last 2 weeks or so, I had left a discord server due to various reasons which I'm not going to get into at this moment. And that server was somewhere I had a lot of fun, connected with quite a few people and made friends with them, so my sudden and unannounced departure could have come as a shock to them. Was it right for me to leave, maybe? But there were definitely better ways to go about it that weren't so rash or dramatic. I simply could've just logged out, close discord for awhile, etc. Or I could've just said somewhere that I need to take a break and would be temporarily leaving the community to rejoin when I was ready. That would've been optimal if I had decided I wanted to leave.

Whatever the case may be, this is the path we're on now where I left unannounced and didn't say anything to anyone for a few days at best (I broke silence with the server owner after a few days since I was friends with them and wanted them to know that my leaving was on me and not because of them).

At some point I vaguely recall purging my discord friends list. That's nothing I did intentionally to hurt anyone, I just clean up friends lists every now and then, I've done it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Otherwise my Facebook would be at probably 300+ compared to the 140-ish friends I have. Does it harm anyone or cost me anything to not purge the lists? Nope. So why do I purge them? I don't know? I guess I like having lower numbers to accurately represent the people I actually count as friends. It's hard to explain and I'm not sure what to say much more beyond whatever just scratches an itch in my head to have a lower and so-called more "true" count of friends.

Anyways, upon cleaning up my discord list, it was good. It allowed me to realize I still technically was friends with a probably old account that had belonged to my ex. Not that there are any hard feelings against her, but I just think it's best for me to have absolutely 0 connections or methods or potential contact. Sure that sometimes I ask how she's doing to one friend, but I don't always ask because I figured while sometimes I may be curious, it's not really my business and at least since I've asked once and that it sounds like she's doing well, that's all I need to know.

The other aspect of why I bring up the discord purge was because I had apparently purged some of the connections and people I've friended from the discord server I had left. However I don't recall knowing why I purged those friends. Not to say that to justify anything but I just think it was something that was caught on the wrong end of things or maybe I did have a reason during the purge.

Fast forward to Friday, March 18th. I reached out to the server owner and expressed that I understood that I haven't been stellar and that I had my faults when I had decided to leave the server. That sometimes I had missed being a part of it all. The owner mentioned it was fine for me to comeback whenever I was ready, but suggested I should apologize to a couple of people who have been directly affected by my less than stellar moments. I took that and reached out to some people.

Only one of them returned some messages, and expressed that there was hurt in my departure and my apparently unfriending. I tried to explain it but also understood that no amount of explanation could've truly changed or healed any damage that was done. I didn't try to justify my actions, but the least I could do was try to explain how I did things. Nonetheless the damage was done and it didn't turn out as well.

So it seems that there was a lot of hurt and it is totally understandable.

When I read these messages, I saw the hurt and without going into too much detail, there were points that this former friend of mine had expressed internal darkness that led to darker thoughts and potential thoughts on suicide. I had done whatever I could to talk him out of it, but I'm no therapist, I'm not licensed in psychology nor psychiatry so all I could do was try to explain and help from my own life experiences in hopes that maybe it helps. I had previously suggested seeking out therapy, but for whatever personal reasons he had decided, he did not want and says he could not go to therapy. I suppose as the saying goes, "you can lead a horse to water but you cannot force it to drink."

Upon reading those final messages saying that friendship was no longer an option, I was unsure what to think. I knew I didn't really have grounds to contest it or to try to bargain for a new chance. All I knew was that I had to simply accept it and respect the decision to end the friendship. Not everyone you make friends with will be a companion for life. While it may be sad sometimes to see someone go, it's just the nature of life and there will be some who stay for long, some who don't, and the beauty is that you get to just learn and make experiences with people that you can carry for your lifetime if you want to.

Originally, I was just going to leave it at that. However, seeing the title of this post, there's more to the story that actually becomes the vengeful plot.

I had decided that eventually I would rejoin the discord server and just be more laid back and if someone bothers me I'll just log off instead of taking to arms about it like I had in the past. I need to stop letting people get under my skin so quickly anyways. Although this time was an instance where I didn't stop myself.

I rejoined the server earlier than expected because I caught wind of messages in a support channel that seemed to be directed at me without saying my name. When I had sent my apology message on Friday, March 18th, the timestamp was 1:48 p.m., and I come to find that in the support channel the same day at 1:51 p.m. there was a message expressing something about feeling about to cry and lose their mind at the same time. I suppose that one could be coincidental and not much more beyond it, but the timing seems oddly close. Then later on that same day, after the messages of saying that he wanted to end the friendship, that chain of messages were sent beginning at 4:41 p.m., to which the following was said at 5:52 p.m.

The messages that bother me was because he was asking why does ending friendships hurt, and what I don't understand is it's because he chose to end it. Now maybe it's different and maybe some attachments affect other people more than others, but in most instances when I end a friendship, I never felt hurt. I'd end it and just think to myself that I couldn't care what happens to that person. Maybe that's just me and my natural vengeful side speaking but I just don't care if I think someone has wronged me enough to say I'd not want to be friends with them anymore. Maybe that's me being overly aggressive, who knows.

Whatever the case may be, I saw it as a self-victimization that "oh woe is me a friendship I had cared about ended, it hurts" but he never tells anyone else that he chose to end the friendship. He doesn't say that he chose to not want communication anymore. He doesn't show that he was saying that my abandonment was apparently the cause to try attempting suicide twice in the last two weeks. No one sees that.

After all this long-winded story-telling and background building, here's the vengeance. I wrote within the support channel a seemingly philosophical piece that was basically saying to not believe everything you see for there is never the entire story present. And I know I'm guilty of that too, but I felt vengeful (obviously). I felt there was a need to speak since there was no context and the self-victimization was pushing me towards anger. If there was even just a "I had to end something I didn't feel comfortable with" or even just personal differences instead of just claiming that a friendship ended and what seems to me that he had no part in ending it, then maybe I would've let it be.

So I wrote this piece, speaking of the duality of man. How things aren't always as they seem, how there's two sides to everything. And of course like I said, I've been guilty of hiding some details for the sake of whatever purpose I saw it as.

Then earlier this morning at around 7 a.m., this same person who spoke of not talking to me anymore, decides to write in the general channel of the server, and I simply was not going to let him play both sides of in the direct messages saying he doesn't want to talk to me anymore, but then try to greet me and play this façade of being friends within the server.

I saw the welcome message and yes I could've chosen to be better and just ignore it, but then we wouldn't be here in this super long blog post, would we? As you can see, I "reacted" to the message with an emote displaying toxicity, because I think the truth of the matter is that it is toxic to say you don't want to be friends and to cut communication, but then pretend as if none of the communication or messaging happened.

When I checked the server again a couple hours later after I reacted with the "toxic" emote, I found the message was deleted. One explanation could be the moderators/server owner deleted the message, but the other (and more likely) explanation is that this former friend deleted his own message (since the ability to delete your messages is active). Then for fun, I checked the support channel, and found that this same person also reacted to my semi-philosophical piece.

He puts the "thinking" emote on it. So at least he knows it's about him. The whole vengeance plot is because I'm striking back in the same capacity he struck at me. Claims to be hurt by the ending of a friendship, without telling he ended it and without sharing his own darkness. I called him out with the lengthy bit on how some things are seen and some things aren't seen.

Now is it mature to have been seeking vengeance? Absolutely not. It never is mature. Vengeance is typically a luxury most people cannot afford not because it is expensive, but because it can be costly in other ways and it consumes one's life and disallows the enjoyment of many other things if all you want in life is vengeance against someone or something.

So there you have it. A whole research paper's worth of information and talks on how vengeful I have been. Is it my proudest moment? No. But did it make me feel balanced/justified? Maybe. All I want is that if you want to end friendship with me, that's fine. But just don't play the victim and say you're hurt because you're not telling everyone else everything. You're not telling them you tried to use me as your entire support system and when I left you're blaming me for your suicide attempts. Now maybe it's not all on me the blame, but it sure sounded like that my absence led to the push towards attempting suicide. So no, I will not be entertaining anyone who thinks they can just omit the majority of the conversations and truth and claim the end of something hurt. Maybe it does hurt, but then explain it. Don't make it seem like I was the only evil here. Am I evil, yes absolutely in some degree I am, but it's not all on me.