On Mon, 8 Jan 1996, Brett Handy wrote:

I'm not trying to be nosey into Firehawk's business, but I've seen posts
like this before and they puzzle the hell out of me.  Just what could have
happened to him (and others) that would cause them to drop their accounts!

Hey Gohper... I would recommed not asking... I've found that people tend 
to get a little... hmm... defensive, aggressive and rather rude if you 
ask them what their problem is...

I made the mistake of asking, "Why what's wrong?", one night on IRC (I 
don't know if it realates to this latest thing..) - and I got about 2 hrs 
of listening to how bad everyone else is and how right the person who's 
telling the story is... believe me your better off staying out of it...

<ahem ahem>
Here I go, time to write "the post that launced 1,000 flames"...

I resisted replying to this earlier, when I first saw it...since I 
figured it would be pointless anyway, but here I go...remember, folks, 
this is an opinion based upon my own experiences, and by no means to be 
taken as anyone else's best solution...OPINION...okay...now...
It seems to me that this is a futile way to escape a problem of betrayal 
by a friend. To mourn this loss and heal this pain is one thing, but to 
cut oneself off from the world doesn't solve the problem. My best friend 
of a decade used me a great deal of the time to further her own interests 
and to make her feel better in mixed company by constantly insulting me. 
To this day my fiancee hates her, but I forgive her because it was her 
extreme low self-esteem that drove her to put down the one person she 
felt had so much more than her: me. Never mind that it was a fallacy, 
anyway. I could go on for hours how many more opportunities she had than 
I, but that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is to 
say that it's OK to leave for a while to get your bearings back and heal 
the wounds left by betrayal. God knows I've had my fair share of 
problems, from my father dying when I was 12 to an attempted rape by my 
ex-boyfriend. But wounds heal, no matter how bad. Firehawk shouldn't deny 
himself the joy of being in the internet community forever, and I wish I 
could tell him that.
Hmmmm...I've taken enough time here. I apologize very humbly for the 
spam. I just really wanted to say something. Thanks.
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