Here is synchronicity. Just as I have described the victim and the perpetrator, I am blessed with an example in vivo. Reynoldo Gort (do you think that's a pseudonym? It's not as funny as Dakota Feinstein) writes "-Wow! This is truly fascinating stuff! I'm trying to figure out why anyone in the universe would bother to read such personal-pronoun-drenched nonsense. This blather belongs in a dusty, unread diary somewhere, not wasting perfectly good electrons on the Internet."
The victim speaks:
The part of me that has velcro for this sort of thing thinks that he's absolutely right. Why did I post an insipid entry like that . Then I catastrophize. This whole endeavor is a piece of shit. I knew this would happen . I am humilitating myself in public. I feel shame. I wonder why I wrote that piece in the first place. (I think I wanted to give a more rounded view of my mother, not a complete villian. A description of her adaptive context.) I am narcissistically injured, because I have such a fragile ego. That part of me vows to never write another thing. I knew I had nothing to say. Self pity, so unattractive.
The perpetrator speaks:
Then there is the part of me that is furious. The part of me that would like to hack his site. Retaliate. Annihilate him, the way he annihilated me. Sadistic revenge. I want him to experience what I am experiencing . That is the difference between anger and sadism. Anger is an expression of feeling. Sadism is an attempt to make the enemy experience what you have experienced, or worse. Good examples of that are the goings on in the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, the death penalty, the war on terrorism. Nelson Mandala is a fine example of the transformation of sadism. He spent huge chunks of his life imprisoned, maintaining his spiritual core throughout, gaining the respect of his captors, never succumbing to the disease of hatred. And when he was released, trying to help his people recover from terrible trauma and injustice without becoming perpetrators themselves, holding tribunals to make the proponents of apartheid look consciously at their viscious, destructive acts, hopin that they would really understand the destruction and pain they had caused, take responsibility and ask for forgiveness. I'm not sure it worked, but Nelson has the right idea.
Finally, my observing ego says:
I am curious about what Reynoldo was doing on the internet, squashing little old ladies? His civic duty? Did he get his rocks off? Is he feeling satisfaction of a job well done? Does he do this to porno sites, or does he feel they have redeeming value? Does he just target the fragile newcomers where he can really have a profound impact? Literary value patrol. Is he projecting his own insecurities? Is he worried about electrons he has wasted, pronouns he has slathered? Or is it a more general dissatisfaction with his life? A fight with his wife? No wife? Pancreatitis? Alas, we'll never know, because he'll never come back.
I have learned my lesson. If it doesn't have a denoument, don't post it.
Addendum: Perhaps Reynoldo's complaint is that I write like a girl. I gender genied My Mother's Friends and my score was 266 female, 229 Male. I gender genied this entry and my female score was 405, my male score was 681 Macho! Reynoldo scored female 27, male 32. (Sorry dear)