Words

You know life online can be funny. You can have a group of friends that you talk to for years yet in one single moment everything changes. One comment can turn things into something you can't believe happens.
A simple opinion can bring out animosity that has been harbored for a long time. One quick comment can change the entire dynamic of a message board.
There lies the problem of the written word. You can't see facial expressions or body language. Instead you just see what is written. So very easily misinterpreted. So very easy to take offense.
It is a strange and wonderful thing to talk to virtual strangers for years. You become friends. Regardless of the fact that you have never met them they become important to you. When something goes wrong it affects you just like a "real" relationship would affect you.
That happened to me yesterday. In an instant I had offended someone. It was an comment on how I felt personally. It was not meant to offend yet it did.
I have to admit I fell back onto my personal Nemesis and bit back. I asked why they always felt the need to... for better words... pick on me.
My mistake was that. To make it personal. To bite before being bitten.
Instead my bite provoked a bunch of bites in a personal message to me. Personal bites. Bites that ripped pretty damn deep. Her opinion of me shocked the hell out of me. Took what I believed I was and pretty much said I wasn't that. That I was judgemental, opinionated, harsh, critical, insensitive and insulting. It was like a slap in the face. I mean really who wants to find out that that is how someone sees you?
Now it has snowballed so damn far out of control I have no idea what to do besides back off. Stay away for a while.
This is a bummer for me. I care for these people but right now I think my feelings are hurt.
I wanted to tell the person exactly what I thought as she had told me but I tried to be better then that. I made the personal attack mistake once. I didn't want to strike back the way I had felt attacked... maybe the way she had felt attacked. I wanted to though. So very badly. There are things that need to be out in the open but I am just not going there.
Instead... Instead I am just going to shut up. I am going to pull it together and take the hurt feelings I have and shove them so far deep that maybe they won't fester.
I wish there was a way out of this stupid mess.