So here's the deal. I've been building the AITA community with some people I had known from Reddit days. I invited them to a new Discord server for the community so we could get things set up. One of them I had known for a long time and kept in touch with various projects (let's call him Goose). I trusted him because he knew how to set up and run things well.
Another member was one whom I honestly didn't recall well. He was in another Discord server, and when I sent an invite for everyone to join as initial members of AITA, he responded with interest, so I took him in. His username used to be Firebolt, but at some point he changed it to Silverback. I did not remember him at all.
So, on March 7th (while I was working the night shifts I mentioned in some of my prior posts), I receive this message from Goose:
Goose also supplied some proof, which I won't include because it's personal.
OK, obviously my response to this situation was not good at all. That's a very nonchalant way to reply to someone telling me they're being harassed by someone within the same group, and frankly I should not have included anything about building the community. It was irrelevant. I realized this, and wanted to clarify what happened and fix the situation. So I kicked the Firebolt/Silverback person out of the group, and wrote back to Goose.
At that point, from my perspective, I figured that I had done the right thing by acknowledging my error and fixing it. Yes, I did think that his leaving was a bit impulsive because he's known me and how I operate for years. And yes, I explained my reasoning for my silly actions.
For reference, he didn't block me. I'll fast forward just a bit (the part I skip is basically me reiterating the same thing in different words)...
From his perspective, I did not acknowledge my mistake, and instead made a bunch of excuses.
A few lines later...
This is a little bit later into the conversation, where I finally apologized.
There's a lot of conversation in between the last image and the next image, but I'll summarize some key points: 1) I spoke to Firebolt/Silverback with the request that he stop harassing Goose. 2) Apparently, I witnessed Firebolt doing some harassing things in another Discord server 2 years ago. I could not remember this at all. He had a different username and I have far more important things that I've had to remember over the past 2 years, compared to the username of some random person on Discord. After our conversations, I still don't remember what transpired with him.
Ultimately it all led to the above conversation, and essentially the end of our online relationship. After he said this to me, I don't wish to communicate with him anymore, because I genuinely tried to reconcile and make things right, only to be met with downright insults.
It's unpleasant, sure, but I'm not going to fume over this. I have far more important things to worry about now than useless internet drama.
That said, I do sometimes have a tendency to try to explain my mistakes (usually while acknowledging them). That can certainly be viewed as making excuses, and it does often take me a bit too long to say sorry. I know I was wrong in my initial reaction, but were my actions thereafter wrong in any way? Was I making excuses and not acknowledging my errors the way I should have? Should I re-evaluate my approach to acknowledging errors? Was I the asshole even after I acknowledged and tried to correct my error?
Let me know what you guys think.
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