The return of a member and what happens next

February 22, 2002 12:04 PM

at the emailed advice of a fellow mefier, i need to say something to all of you. no, this isn't a stunt for attention, or yet another thread to stir it with a stick...he tells me that my entry back into mefi has been rude, and he questioned why i did it the way I did. when I told him, he said i should tell the rest of you . more inside...
posted by bunnyfire to Etiquette/Policy at 12:04 PM (14 comments total)

!
?
posted by tamim at 12:09 PM on February 22, 2002

OK. Well, *this* part was rude. Wait...I forgot, it's Friday: that's cliff-hanger day, right?
posted by umberto at 12:18 PM on February 22, 2002

when everything settled down, including me, and i had regained perspective, mental and otherwise, i realised that i really did want to come back, in a small way at first. i saw the ways in which i had screwed up, I realized the ways i could do better-but as the thread i inadvertently left behind got longer and longer and more and more ridiculous i was more and more terrified.

At first i thought i could slip a tiny comment into what i figured would be an obscure front page post and no one would notice.wrong. You people are way too observant....

Then the art post turned up with the Cardoso authorship...my powers of resistance were totally overcome....i posted it almost before i knew what i was doing, but i consoled myself with the thought i would make no comments. I was so scared to comment. I knew by now that you all thought i was a drama queen, and that there was nothing i could ever say or do that would ever fix that.

You know, when I first came here, it was halfway thru my posting history before i ever had a clue that there was a problem with my posting style. I truly was not here to get attention. In the immortal words of Cyndi Lauper, I was just here to have fun. By the time I figured out I was messing up, it was too late. And by that time, every effort I made to correct the situation was akin to trying to escape from quicksand; the harder I tried, the more firmly I was stuck. ....meanwhile my health problems chimed in, thus the train wreck of a couple of weeks ago. nuff said about that, except to say cotton wool is not necessary....

Can you see that I would be so terrified to come back that I would have the equivalent of medieval armor on when i did?
I am trying so hard to be a model mefi citizen since i have been back. If you think i am full of crap that is your privilege. But please just give me a chance.
posted by bunnyfire at 12:20 PM on February 22, 2002

It's a good idea to write the "more inside" part before you post the original post. I usually do it in Notepad and then paste it into the comment buffer immediately after I've written the original post.
posted by anapestic at 12:20 PM on February 22, 2002

How about knowing when to stop? I don't know about everyone else, but I don't hinge on your every word and don't really care for you having to give all the reasons why you want to quit, come back, then explain ad nauseum. If it isn't already abundantly clear, everyone's patience with you is rapidly waning.

No explanation is necessary. This thread isn't necessary. Just lay low for a while, don't post too much, until we can forget you went on an attention-getting bender in early 2002. If you look around, not too many others talk about themselves, their ailments, their feelings, or their current predicaments. If everyone (or even just a handful) of users talked about themselves as much as you have in the past month or so, this site would be completely unusable. If you're doing all of this for attention or sympathy you will get neither from metafilter, as it seems pretty clear that most people have stopped caring about your latest personal problem post du jour.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:28 PM on February 22, 2002

Before people start asking who the "fellow mefier" was, it was me. (I appreciate the discretion, bunnyfire, but I didn't write anything to you that I'd mind seeing posted in public.) I didn't expect a whole thread about it, but so it goes.

'cause if it hadn't been me, I'd have immediately assumed it was miguel ;)
posted by ook at 12:31 PM on February 22, 2002

about...time...thank...you...matt.
posted by bittennails at 12:32 PM on February 22, 2002

And apparently it was bad advice. My bad.
posted by ook at 12:33 PM on February 22, 2002

Look, matt, i am sick of it too, but even if i lay low i have to see the crap written about me. I am going to get it coming and going whether i say anything or not. You didn't delete that thread after i left: if I were you I would have. So if everybody and his or her house cat is going to jaw on and on ad infinitum about this then I think I have a right to say something in my own defense.

Has anyone stopped to think perhaps I am sicker of this than anyone???

Matt, do the right thing! delete every Bunnyfire post from metatalk right now! I am begging you! Because if you don't i will know that the real sick truth is that the rest of you really enjoy this sick soap opera at my expense.
posted by bunnyfire at 12:37 PM on February 22, 2002

could someone just email me when the cocktail tossing starts?
posted by patricking at 12:42 PM on February 22, 2002

as on moltov?
posted by goneill at 12:43 PM on February 22, 2002

just start TopamaxBlog.com and get gone
posted by Dean King at 12:44 PM on February 22, 2002

Matt, do the right thing! delete every Bunnyfire post from metatalk right now! I am begging you! Because if you don't i will know that the real sick truth is that the rest of you really enjoy this sick soap opera at my expense.

I left your big boo-hoo I'm leaving post up because it transcended a discussion about you, and became a pretty good thread about how to handle people online, whether mental illness is a disability, etc.

Here's my advice: don't post anything on MetaFilter for a month or two. People wouldn't have noticed if a month passed between your big "i quit" message and your posting again. When you do start posting again, don't mention anything remotely related to your personal problems; personal experiences are fine, personal problems are a no-no. Don't visit nor post to MetaTalk for three months, as this is a more "conversational" space as of late which might be more likely to pull you back in, and I'd like to kill the conversation aspects of this section.

Remember: it's just a stupid website, it isn't the end of the world. If you need a support community, find one, because this site isn't it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:44 PM on February 22, 2002 [1 favorite]

I am going to get it coming and going whether i say anything or not.

This is not true. If you stop talking about yourself, other people will, too. There are posters more prolific than you who don't draw nearly as much attention, because they don't make a big deal out everything.
posted by mattpfeff at 12:50 PM on February 22, 2002